Encounters of the Unknown—Alternate Perceptions Magazine, November 2015
The Young Woman Whose Consciousness
Left Her Body and Foresaw Her Death
by: By Dr. Arthur R. Cushman
The evening she was admitted, I went to her room. She then told me, "I'm going to die during surgery tomorrow." She told me she would lose consciousness, be intubated, have her hair cut and would have surgery. She told me where I would be standing, what I would say and accurately described the OR. She said when her skull was opened her brain would explode and she would die.
I have had many patients tell me false premonitions based on fear. This was different though. She was peaceful and smiling, and she added, "I am ready to die."
The next day, I was doing a complicated surgery where a 2mm. scalp vessel is dissected out and sutured end to side to a blood vessel on the brain for an occluded blood vessel in the brain with the operating microscope. I was in the middle of the craniotomy when I got a call from her nurse saying that she had quit breathing, had a dilated fixed pupil on the left and was showing decerebrate rigidity. After a brief consultation with the family it was decided to proceed with an emergency craniotomy in the next room, leaving the surgery unfinished that was underway. None of my partners were available.
I opened the skull and just as she had foreseen her brain, which had the consistency of custard, exploded. There was nothing that could be done. I closed her scalp and sent her to the ICU. I finished the first surgery which was successful.
I then went to the ICU, consulted with the family and removed the breathing tube.
We held her hands and prayed as her consciousness returned to its maker
Dr. Cushman is the medical director at the Quantum Neuroscience Center in Goodlettsville, TN.
