MAN COMES BACK FROM DEATH

Taranaki Daily News, 23 March 1935, Page 16 (Supplement)

MAN COMES BACK FROM DEATH

All Fear Lost In Vision Of Other World

HOSPITAL RECOVERY AFTER HEART STOPPAGE EVIDENCE that the act of passing from life to death is often a peaceful and happy experience has received remarkable confirmation from the astonishing statement of Mr John Puckering, the 58-year-old Worcestershire gardener who “died” foi' five minutes. His heart stopped in the course of a serious • operation. Surgeons, by applying massage and injecting a stimulating drug right into the heart, made it beat again, and the man made a complete recovery. When a “Daily Mail” reporter saw Mr Puckering at his home at Arley, near Bewdley, he spoke calmly of his vision of the life beyond death. “Before my operation,” he said, “I had what is, I suppose, the usual feeling about death. It was not exactly fear, but a little trepidation about the unknown. To-day all that has passed from me. “This is what I saw. It was as though I were looking into a great place something like a hall, though I cannot recall having seen either ceiling or .walls. “There was a good light, and I saw crowds of people. So many were there that they seemed like the multitude at a football match. . “The people stood in a circle, and I noticed that there were no children among them. They looked natural, with healthy faces, and they appeared to be dressed as on earth. “I was deeply impressed by the happiness which shone in their faces, and which was so intense that I felt as though I should not have minded joining them. “Among them were two or three friends from this village who had passed over. One I noticed particularly had died seven years ago.. While everyone seemed to be welcoming me this old friend nodded and smiled. Their happiness thrilled me and I have lost all fear of death.” Miss Puckering, his daughter, stated that when her father regained consciousness he inquired about the health of his wife, who had died 15 years before, and also about those friends whom afterwards he said he had seen in the “other world.” “He spoke of them as though they were still living,” she added. Similar sensations were experienced by an American chaplain, who was once given up for dead when suffering from yellow fever. In a statement quoted in the “Daily Mail,” he said: “I claim that the act of dying is one of the most delightful and exciting episodes of my life, filled with pleasurable emotions.”