Shot To The Heart

Four days before Christmas, on December 21, 1944, in an Army hospital unit at Camp Barkeley outside of Abilene Texas, a ridiculous scene played out. A ward boy, a lowly private, suggested the nutty idea that his superior officer, a medical doctor, should inject a dose of adrenaline directly into the heart of a dead man.

Private George G. Ritchie had died from double lobar pneumonia, drowned by his own bodily fluids in an era before antibiotics. He had been discovered without a pulse more than ten minutes before. There was no known medical value in giving a man who couldn’t breathe a few more heartbeats, but for some reason, possibly just to shut up his passionate ward boy, the doctor wasted the unprecedented shot to the heart.

A Wild Tale

Private Ritchie, no relation, became one of the first documented cases of resuscitation from clinical death. Slowly his heart restarted and began to find a rhythm. Then respiration returned. Consciousness took three days. It was two weeks before he could get out of bed and walk.

He awoke with a crazy story to tell, a disjointed tale of traveling across the country and meeting Jesus. While they were pleased and shocked at his recovery, his story was universally dismissed. The ward boy and M.D. that had given him the adrenaline shot were transferred elsewhere by the time he could walk. There was a war on and more important things to do than listen to a private’s wild tales.

It was discouraging. Besides sharing it with a few family members, Ritchie kept the story to himself.

Red-roofed Diner

Ten months later, on a cross-country car trip from Virginia back to Camp Barkeley with some other soldiers, George was surprised again. As they were about to cross the mile-wide Mississippi River at Vicksburg, Mississippi, he saw a familiar street in a place he’d never been before in his life.

During the time he was clinically dead, Ritchie had desperately tried to get to medical school in Virginia and found himself flying over the countryside at a fantastic speed. Along the way he realized he had no idea how to get there and stopped, after midnight, at an all-night café by an extremely broad river to ask directions.

The man he asked, entering a white diner with a red roof and a Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer sign propped in the right hand window, didn’t hear him. When George tried to tap the man on the shoulder his hand went right through him. Trying to figure this out, George stood out in front for a long time by a telephone pole with a guy wire. At one point he leaned back and passed right through the wire.

It Gets Real

Now, ten months later, in a place he’d never been, George was staring at the same red-roofed diner with a neon sign, now off, the same Pabst sign in the window, the same telephone pole and guy wire next to the same massive river. The soldiers with him asked what was wrong. Overwhelmed, he had no words to explain it.

He just brushed off their concerns and kept it all to himself until years later, after he became a medical doctor and later a board certified psychiatrist. After decades of reflection to try and make sense of the experience, author Elizabeth Sherrill finally George G. Ritchie, M.D. to write the book Return From Tomorrow, published in 1978. It has never been out of print since. Here’s the Kindle version.

It remains one of the earliest credible accounts of life beyond death by a medical professional. It is unique in that Dr. Ritchie later visited sites that he travelled to while medically dead. He also claims to have visited the future and seen things that didn’t happen until years later in real life.

Enter The CCU

As fascinating as the story is, however, none of the details were verifiable by outside witnesses. But that would soon change.

On May 20, 1962, Dr. Hugh Day opened the first coronary care unit was at Bethany Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas. Dr. Day combined two new developments, closed chest cardiac compression and the external monitor/defibrillator into a treatment plan for cardiac arrest and invented the Crash Cart. He also invented the term Code Blue and Coronary Care Unit or CCU.

Soon it was a common occurrence for people to be resuscitated from clinical death. It was not long after that that the stories began to circulate of long tunnels ending in brilliant lights. They were, as a rule, ignored. They were considered hallucinations of a toxic brain in the process of dying. People were simply out of their heads.

The Blue Tennis Shoe

In Harborview Hospital in Seattle, Washington, critical care social worker Kimberly Clark was making her rounds when a migrant worker named Maria begged her for a favor. Maria had suffered a severe heart attack while visiting friends. While the doctors were working on her, Maria claimed to have floated to the ceiling and watched the procedure. Then she found herself floating outside the hospital when she noticed something unusual.

On a third story ledge outside a window, Maria had seen a single tennis shoe which she described in great detail, how the laces were tucked under the heel, how the toe was worn and the color – blue. Maria begged Clark to go and search for it to see if her experience had been real. Clark followed her directions and found a single blue tennis shoe in the exact place and condition described. The details could not be seen from inside the window and would have required a perspective of someone three stories up directly outside the building.

 Externally Verifiable Evidence

While this story is one of the more famous accounts, it is far from the only account. Over time such stories began to provoke more questions and a lot more research.

The implications seem to challenge the very basis of science and a few brave scientists took up the challenge.

To be continued . . .

 

Photo Credit: The World According To Marty via Compfight cc