How Can We Be Sure A Person is Really Dead?

QUESTION 

“I just finished reading your book, Near-Death Experiencers: The Rest of the Story, and now I am ‘haunted’ by this question: with several instances you cite of individuals reviving with no brain impairment after several days believed to be dead. How can we be sure that a person has actually, really died? How long must we wait to be sure? This is a question of great personal importance to me as I recently lost a loved one who had a cardiac arrest, and after three days we were informed by the doctors that there was no chance of recovery - his brain function was limited to low stem. The decision was made to allow him to go, and he breathed his last a couple of hours later. More generally, what would be reliable guidelines for determining that someone has gone and is not coming back, prior to proceeding with the final arrangements (embalming/cremation) that ensure no return? 

Thank you for considering this question.”.....Susan

ANSWER 

Our medical community is grappling with just this question. Following protocol is all we can do at this point in time, even if sometimes those protocols do not apply - like with near-death experiencers. But medicine is changing. One of the pioneers in a new type of medicine is Dr. Sam Parnia. You might google that name and see what you come up with. He’s written several books and is hard at work with actual research on new procedures in what is now called Resuscitation Medicine.

Yes, there are a number of people pronounced dead, who later revived in the morgue (much to the shock of morgue personnel). They were absolutely, positively dead - gone. Yet they came back. There are all manner of stories about this. Look in the Bible about Lazarus. We now know scientifically that when a baby is conceived, a bright light flashes. And, when a person dies, the same thing occurs. And that life flash/death flash happens with any animal or plant. So, what is life? Maybe we need to redefine life as well as redefine death. I’ve discussed this in several of my free monthly newsletters (available off my website in the Newsletter Archive), and I have broached it in my books. In truth, the near-death experience reveals more about life than it does death, and what it reveals is startling. We are capable of far more than we think we are.

How I handle this personally is to contact the soul, be with the soul, in prayer. What does the soul want? That to me is the more important question. What is going on spiritually, on greater and higher levels, that’s the place where I go for answers. Always. Sometimes the soul is ready to leave. Doesn’t matter what we want. What matters is what that soul wants. And sometimes that soul wants to stay here and will push us, prompt us, guide us in ways to help out, to heal. My life is filled with prayer, and with the joy of knowing I will be led rightly, for the highest good of all concerned. You bet I support Sam Parnia in his work, but I also give a wink to God. 

Blessings, PMH