OPERATING THEATRE MARVEL

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 20 April 1935, Page 11

OPERATING THEATRE MARVEL

“Having Tasted Death, I’m Afraid No Longer”

QTHE British Medical Journal announces that a man whose heart and breathing had stopped for five miinutes under an anaesthetic been discharged from hospital and is now back at work. ‘ It is stated that this is believed to be the first case in this country where a patient has lived longer than a few days after heart massage to restore life.

been already lowered ancl artificial respiration started, strychnine, adrenalin, and corainin had been given. “These measures had no apparent effect. I continued heart massage while an assistant injected adrenalin directly into the ventricle (heart compartment). “It was a minute later that I felt for the first time a faint flicker in the flabby organ I was compressing. I mentioned it. The look of incredulity had hardly faded from the faces of my assistants when the heart suddenly started beating vigorously at 120 to the minute.

The man is John Puckering, a 58-year-old market gardener of the Worcestershire village of Arley. He is how restored to health.

He told a “Daily Express” representative: “I have no fear of death now. No one would ever fear death if they only knew.”

“Artifiicial respiration continued, while I hurriedly completed the operation. My own impression is that the period in which the heart stopped beating was eight or nine minutes. Other observers gave the time as three or four minutes. I am personally convinced that it was not less than five.”

Mr 6. Percival Mills, the surgeon who performed the operation at Birmingham General Hospital, tells in the “British Medical Journal” how he observed the patient’s breathing stop. His heart ceased To beat.

John Puckering told the story of how he died and returned to earth. The experience had made a great impression on him. His deep-set eyes glowed with a serene light under his stocky eyebrow's as he said to me: “I have no fear of death now. No one would ever fear death if they only knew!”

Mr Mills began to massage the heart “only” as, he writes, “from a sense of duty and without real hope of success.”

He gives a time-table that tells the story of the operation:—Zero time: Spinal anaesthetic injected. 15 min: Operation begun. 30 min: Respiration ceased. Artifiicial respiration begun. 31 min: -No pulse whatever; stopped heart felt through diaphragm. Heart massage begun. 34 min: Adrenalin injected in . heart. 35 min: Heart started beating. 45 min: Operation ended. 60 min: A faint breathing movement. 22 hours: First voluntary movements. 4th and 6th days: Very noisy and getting out of hod. 3rd week: Discharged cured. “All of those present in the operating theatre believed that the patient was dead,” Mr Mills records. “I slipped my hand under the diaphragm and found that the heart had stopped. I could feel what appeared to he an empty, fldbby heart without a flicker of pulsation. The head had, of course

As he sat there in his fOcking-ehair, gently combing his heal'd through his fingers, he reminded me of a prophet of old. “I do not wish to appear Ungrateful to Mr Mills,” he said. “But I wish he had not brought me back. I was very happy where I was. I think that when people are dead they should leave them be. I did not ttynk so once, because I was afraid, hut having tasted death, I am afraid no longer.”

John Puckering is not, lie confessed, a deeply religious man. “But this experience has made a lasting impression on me,” ho said, and as he shook m.y hand he smiled wistfully, “You can tell everyone from me that there is nothing to fear in death. I know’.”