When I was a 23 year old Lieutenant in the Army, I free fell 70 feet from a cliff during field maneuvers. That day I had an extraordinary experience. I nearly died. In the years that have since passed, my impressions of what occurred that day have swung from one extreme to another. At times I have felt as if I encountered God that day in a particular and intimate way. After undergoing training as a physician, I have wondered whether socialization, psychological conditioning, or simple low blood pressure influenced or skewed my memory of the event. The following describes what I remember of my own near-death experience. Attempting to understand it has been part of the mystery and gift of my existence.
One late winter day, in a state park somewhere in northern Kentucky, our company of about 120 men was training on rappelling and mountaineering skills. While supervising from the tree covered top of a rocky cliff, I failed to tie in the appropriate personal safety line. In my young arrogance and eagerness to train others, I had ignored my own training. The job assigned me was to hold a rope which a soldier below had tied about his waist. From this "belay" position I could catch men if they slipped ascending the rocks. For stability, I did find an excellent seated position where I could prop my feet against the trunks of two substantial pines and safely arrested the falls of several soldiers from that post. The arrangement worked well, until one of the soldiers reached a point still low upon the cliff face from which he could climb no higher.
In what was certainly poor judgment, I left the belay position and walked to the edge of the precipice to inquire as to the situation. Suddenly the 150 foot climbing rope began to snake out rapidly through my hand, I assessed that the man on the running end was falling. Although in no position to arrest his decent, I gripped the rope thinking, "Here we go." In an instant I was snatched off the summit and had a brief moment in which to think, "I am going to die." Crashing through some tree branches I entertained for a millisecond a fantastic idea, "Maybe I will get caught in these branches like Rambo." It was a ludicrous “last thought,” straight out of Hollywood. The branches did not catch me, and I thudded to the ground flat on my back in some soft mud amidst a field of rocks at the foot of the cliff. The other climber was not hurt. I later learned that the speedy feeding out of rope I had felt atop the cliff was the result of his having jumped safely some 10 feet to the ground.
My buddy (then) 2LT John Landgraf was immediately upon the scene. Years later he told me, "I saw you twitching there on the ground." He had thought, "That’s just his nerves firing, like a bug after you squish it." Thanks John. Happily, I was not squished. My helmet kept my brain intact; our great Army medics did the rest. A group gathered around me. I remember trying to move my legs and asking "Did I move my feet?" The soldiers did not understand the question. I was in great pain and terrified of being paralyzed. I asked again and they answered in the affirmative. I resolved not to move at all until in hospital where they could assess my spine.
Is there life after death? As I lay dying, and that is what happened to me for at least a moment, I thought, "I should be praying." However, there was so much pain and shouting for ambulances and medics that all I could do was say, "God, help me." Not a particularly sophisticated prayer. I do remember looking up into the faces of a circle of frightened medics and suddenly feeling as if I were looking down from above them all. I wondered what they were so excited about and whether I would go up to heaven through a tunnel while seeing the faces of departed loved ones. I did not.
What follows I sometimes remember with great clarity, and sometimes with incredulity. I found myself in a place I had never been before. The only way I can describe it is to say that it was white. It was whiter than white and there was someone there that I could not see. I had the impression that this person was very nice and I liked being there with him. The person communicated to me, not in words, but in a way that I can not explain, that it was not my time and I was to "go back." I did not want to “go back,” I wanted to stay in this new white place, but that was not permitted me. So back I came.
When I woke up the Battalion Commander, “Big Ed” Fitzsimmons, was yelling in my face, "Ranger, you are not going to die on me." I heard someone shout, “We’re losing him.” Another said, “I can’t get an IV.” Cliché as it sounds, I felt as if I was in a movie. Again, I wondered what all the excitement was about, but then the pain of three fractured vertebrae, a broken rib a lacerated elbow supervened. The medevac flight, strapped to a backboard and in a cervical collar aboard a UH- 60 Blackhawk, was one of the most painful and terrifying hours in my life. All I could think of was being a quadriplegic. As it was, I suffered no permanent neurological damage.
I never liked to talk about that day, but years later told the story to a woman who had written a book about near-death experiences. I was surprised to hear myself describe the “white on white whiteness.” On first telling I was certain it had happened. In later telling I have been less sure. Years afterwards, during a screening test, I was shown a blank piece of paper and asked to say what I saw in it. My guard was down and I immediately responded, “That is the white on white of a near death experience.” Again, I was certain. Weeks later the doubts as to my memory returned. The physician-scientist within me likes to conjecture that my near-death thoughts were influenced by psychological, sociological, physiological and religious factors. The man of faith within me prefers to believe that the memories are real. As I am a physician of faith, perhaps both assessments are true.
I cannot say for a fact whether my experience was imagined or not. Whatever the case, since that day, I have always accounted my life as "extra" or "a second chance." I do not always remember to live it that way, but some days I do. Those days are the best. Do I believe in life after death? I am living it now, but I certainly would like to get back to that white place. It was nice there. I want to talk to whomever it was that sent me back.
William Blazek, SJ, MD is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
