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The Wisdom of Near Death Experiences - Dr Penny Sartori

Sherry, a 52 year old lady from Lancashire had an NDE while trapped in a car following a road traffic accident.  When Sherry first contacted me it was clear that she did not understand her experience and the fact that it was dismissed by healthcare workers exacerbated her problem.

I read the article in this morning's paper and want to share my experience that I have never fully understood. The reason I haven’t understood it is that whenever I have tried to talk about it, it is dismissed because I was in fact not dying at the time, although I thought I was . . . In fact I heard one of the emergency services team tell the ER doctors that he thought I was dying. I don't know how much information you want so all I can do is tell you my experience and hope it isn't too long.

Three [now eight] years ago I was involved in a car crash, I had a lift with two friends after we got lost. A car pulled up to ask the way to the place we were heading and gave us a lift. The car was tiny, the three of us got in the back. One friend entered the car first, followed by me, but as I put my head in the car I had a strong sensation of danger, I had no idea what that was but stepped back out and asked my other friend did she want to get in next (not a nice thing to do and I did confess later and apologized although she did seem very pleased!), somehow feeling that where she was sitting was dangerous for me. This also has been dismissed that lots of people don't like to sit in the middle. I couldn't make sense of how I was feeling but put my belt on . . . a move that saved my life. My other two friends did not put their belts on.

We had only been in the car five minutes at the most and there was confusion as she was lost, my friend in the middle kept trying to get the driver to turn right and go back the way we came. I realized whilst everyone was busy looking right, to my horror, she was pulling out into a stream of on-coming traffic onto a busy carriageway!

What followed was in slow motion. I watched as a car came towards me and I just braced myself, hoping against hope it would either hit the front passenger or pass us by, but he hit me side on directly and because I was squashed up against the door as it was a tiny car I took the full impact. The car was spun round and sent back into the traffic.

I knew straight away I was badly injured and before the car came to a standstill thought I was in the process of death. I struggled to breathe for what felt like an eternity. Everyone miraculously escaped serious injury and climbed out the driver's door. They were begging me to try and get out in case the car got hit again but I was trapped and too injured, and panicking not to be left. My experience has left me with post-trauma for which I am still receiving treatment but I am doing fantastic.

I was fighting for breath and shock from broken bones in my chest, pain, fear of dying and not seeing my daughter and husband, who didn't know I was even in a car because I had caught the train with my friend initially. My dear friend put her hand in the car and held my hand and I told her I was dying and to tell my husband and daughter I was sorry and I loved them. The emergency services were brilliant and one climbed in the car, one got through the back window and did the usual stuff - cut my clothes off, examined, keeping me talking.

First I was saying, please don't let me die . . . my heart had taken a knock and was beating erratically. The fire brigade started cutting the roof off but they couldn't release me so started cutting the back of the car out, then the back of my seat . . . which was extremely painful as I had broken my pelvis. Being trapped, oxygen mask on, head brace on, hands around my face, people surrounding me, a guard put over my head whilst they smashed windows, etc. . . . just all became too much and I wanted to be gone. I looked at the ambulance man and he looked up above him and said to a fireman we need to get her out now!!! . . . I remember physically turning my head away to my left and closed my eyes. The ambulance man was talking to me and touching my face but it seemed so far away I didn't care. In my head I asked if there was someone there to help me and that I was ready to die. I had no fear or care any more about my daughter or husband; it became very personal and was just about me, nothing else seemed to matter, just a deep sense of 'going home'. I felt a deep sense of relief as I felt someone was coming for me.

What happened next still overwhelms me and I have never been able to really articulate it into words. I just felt as though I was being wrapped up in the most wonderful warmth that felt like a blanket of love, a sort of hug that was so tender and sort of full . . . I still can't put that into words, except it was so beautiful that I still cry thinking of it.

Suddenly I was drawn back and being pulled out of the back of the car onto a body board and everything else was just chaos . . . cold, noise, pain, voices and a man's voice that said he was from the emergency room and would be with me when I arrived at hospital. I was in agony but it didn't seem to matter: all I could think about was that I was deeply loved by something that wasn't from this life.

I am still recovering physically and mentally from the accident but my experience never left me even in the dark days of recovery.

When able, as soon as I could, I asked for a priest and was put on medication because I could not stop crying. I did suffer post-traumatic stress disorder and still have some symptoms now but my talk with the priest helped me. Once able to walk I asked for religious instruction that ended with my christening ... baptism into the Catholic faith, a year later. I am not sure what my experience was, my priest jokingly said maybe it was the effects of the morphine!!

. . . I am not in the'God squad' . . . I just have a deep sense that something warm and wonderful awaits when we pass and for me, despite not actually being in the throes of death, as I thought . . . I think something somewhere came and put its arms around me at my deepest hour of need. I have a very open mind on this: was it a guardian angel, was it a relative or do we have a very clever body that at times of trauma can comfort itself?

Weirdly I have too much static in my body, and keep getting shocks off the car door and in shops on the clothes rails, etc. I mention that because of what was written in your article, and it has just made me link it, as I never had this before, to this extent. I know my experience isn't in comparison with some of the people's in your article but it was something that had a profound  effect on me and how I perceive myself now, in terms that dying is nothing to be feared. Although how you go still frightens me!! . . . hope it's in my sleep and not being squashed by a car again! Good luck with your work.