Carey Gregory wrote:
> Yes, definitely, it has happened a number of times. For example:
>
http://www.defrance.org/artman/publish/article_437.shtml
>
http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2003/08/23/story756451485.asp
>
> However, it's extremely unlikely these people were actually dead. They were almost certainly
> declared dead erroneously.
>
> It really boils down to how you define death. Medicine defines "clinical death" as the absence of
> systole (ie, cardiac arrest, no pulse). There's a small window of time where someone with no pulse
> can be revived (paramedics and ER doctors accomplish that almost daily these days).
>
> But once someone has gone for more than about 6-8 minutes with no pulse, their organs begin dying,
> starting with the brain. Once the brain ceases functioning, the person is "brain dead." Even if
> their heart can be restarted at that point and all the other organs survive, they will never be
> conscious again. The "person" is gone, and for all intents and purposes they are dead even though
> the rest of their body continues to function.
>
> But if the heart is not restarted within a few minutes, all the organs and tissues of the body
> will die. This is "cellular death" and from that there is absolutely no return. There are *no*
> cases of resurrection from cellular death (outside of legends and religious doctrine).
>
> In short, no one who was truly dead has ever come back to life.
Thank you for your reply. Well basically my father who is a rather feverish Christian gave me a
videotape containing a story of the alleged resurrection of a person in Nigeria (a highly suspicious
location) that was supposedly pronounced dead after a car accident and then awoke after three days.
The claim was that the initial diagnosis indicated no breathing, no pulse, dilated pupils, and then
he was left in the morgue. I'm thinking of either a very blatant lie or at best an extremely
incompetent doctor and diagosis. Either way, I am reminded of the commercial nature of the video
($35 a pop I believe), from a Christian evangelical publication.
The sad thing to me personally is that before his retirement, my father was a surgeon, but appears
to have lost all skepticism, no matter how basic, over time regarding his faith.