THE SCIENCE OF DEATH

New research into the dying brain suggests the line between life and death may be far less distinct than previously thought

- ALEX BLASDEL

PATIENT One was 24 years old and pregnant with her third child when she was taken off life support. It was 2014. A couple of years earlier she'd been diagnosed with a disorder that caused an irregular heartbeat, and during her two previous pregnancies she had suffered seizures and fainting.

Four weeks into her third pregnancy, she collapsed on the floor of her home.

Her mother, who was with her, called 911. By the time an ambulance arrived, Patient One had been unconscious for more than 10 minutes. Paramedics found that her heart had stopped.

She was taken to the emergency department at the University of Michigan. There, medical staff had to shock her chest three times with a defibrillator before they could restart her heart. She was placed on an external ventilator and pacemaker and transferred to the neurointensive care unit, where doctors monitored her brain activity.

She was unresponsive to external stimuli and had a massive swelling in her brain. After she lay in a deep coma for three days, her family decided it was best to take her off life support.

It was at that point - after her oxygen was turned off and nurses pulled the breathing tube from her throat - that Patient One became one of the most intriguing scientific subjects in recent history.

For several years, Jimo Borjigin, a professor of neurology at the University of Michigan, had been troubled by the question of what happens to us when we die. She'd read about the near-death experiences of certain cardiac arrest survivors who had undergone extraordinary psychic journeys before being resuscitated.

Sometimes, these people reported travelling outside of their bodies towards overwhelming sources of light where they were greeted by dead relatives.

Others spoke of coming to a new understanding of their lives or encountering beings of profound goodness.