Have you ever had a NDE (near death experience)?

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25. Well I'm sure people have come up with explanations that dismiss it.

But this man was quite literally purple. He had COPD. His wife ran out of his room calling for help, and I went running in. I realized right away that the phone was on the other side of the bed so I would have to scramble around to call a code blue. So instead I yelled "doctor"! and a whole group of staff came running in. The patient remembered me calling out "doctor".

After the code got started I took his wife down the hall and sat with her. I assumed he was dead. So it was quite a shock when I saw him again. He had been "coded" before and had experienced the NDE before. He said he was no longer afraid to die.

This was in the days before everyone entering the hospital had to sign advanced directives. I don't know if a patient with end stage COPD would get coded now because they wouldn't be expected to live for long. But it was a different era.