Life after death: staring death in the eyes

21-year-old Robert Walmsley could hear the buzzing of the fluorescent lights in the ceiling. The subtle drip-drip of the transfusion while the heart monitor continued to beep. 

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Breathing in he could smell the fresh scent of soaps and cleaners. 

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The sighing of the ventilator got louder as his heart began to pound faster. Thump thump, ba-boom, bo-bump, lub dub. He closed his eyes and he was back. 

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Robert lay there stunned at what he saw. A crowd of doctors standing around him, he was in shock not knowing what had happened to him. 

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The room was bright green as lights blinded his view. The silhouette of doctors huddled around him like a newborn baby. He was unable to recognize their faces but could feel their presence beside him. 

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Heavy breathing, his mind was blank but filled at the same time. A million thoughts plunged through his head like a wave crashing over and over. 

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The pain was unbearable. He started screaming. Screaming bloody murder like his life depended on it and in this case, it did. 

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Tied together wearing a white gown with pink and blue flowers on it, he was stiff. Laying in a hospital bed, his knotted brown hair was messy and his beard was outgrown. 

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As he scanned around the room he could see a man. A tall bearded man in blue scrubs with a red sweatshirt was walking around the ICU. He picked up papers and sat down at a desk. Typing away he kept glancing over at Robert. Looking at him and back to the monitor that he was attached to. 

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There were green tables and big green cabinets in front of him. Black spinning chairs, some with green cushions and some with yellow. He could see a white coffee mug with red writing on the desk in front of him. He looked some more, admiring the room. Computers and monitors surrounded the room. Blue and red wires hanging from the equipment. 

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The doctor came over with a sense of relief in his eyes as he looked down at Robert. 

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He had flatlined for 7 minutes.

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Just 20 days before, Robert's life was normal and his heart was beating. How could someone's life change so quickly? 

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He spent his summer in the Czech Republic where he had an internship working for an advertising agency. 

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Having attended High Point University for the past 2 years, studying media production entrepreneurship, this opportunity appeared to open many doors for him. 

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“I was an art director so I would come up with concepts for what to put in commercials and design tidal sequences for TV shows,” Robert stated. “I was there for 11 weeks.” 

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Growing up in Richmond Virginia, Robert had always dreamed of traveling and exploring what the world has to offer. 

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This internship felt like an awakening for him and a chance to find himself in another country. His grandparents lived in the Czech Republic which gave Robert a sense of relief moving so far away for a few weeks. 

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After being there for three weeks and having the time of his life, things started to go south. 

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“I woke up one day and my breathing sounded like bubbles so I went to the doctor… he had no idea what it was.” Confused, Robert decided to stay with his grandparents who lived just outside the town where he was staying. 

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He stayed with his grandparents for the weekend anxiously waiting for the blood work that the doctor had taken to come back. Robert knew something was wrong. His stomach was twisting and the fear was setting in as everything got worse. 

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The blood work came back and it wasn't looking good for Robert. Next thing he knew he was in the hospital with a long stay ahead of him. The doctors discovered he had a cyst that ruptured and was filling his lungs with liquid. He was drowning in his own body. 

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He was taken to a room where doctors used a 1.5-liter syringe to drain the liquid. Bright green liquid filled the syringes as Robert's body was deteriorating. 

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After being in the hospital for eight days everything started going blank for Robert and his memory started to fade. 

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He fell into a 14-hour coma. 

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“We were terrified,” Robert’s mother Veronika explained, “We were getting updates while in a completely different continent and time zone.” 

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While in his coma, the doctors completed a lower lobe lobectomy and they removed the lower thirds of his lung. After the surgery was finished the doctors noticed something was off. 

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They hit an artery during surgery and he started internally bleeding. He was losing blood faster than they could give it to him. 

He flatlined for 7 minutes. Heart completely stopped. 

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They had to reopen him and drain all the blood. Veronika couldn't sleep. Worried about what was happening, she felt hopeless. She kept calling the doctors time and time again until they finally picked up. 

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“We are saving your son.” 

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Hearing this, Veronika's heart stopped. Body shaking, mind racing, she felt empty. All she could do was wait and pray. 

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Being in a coma Robert experienced the unexpected. 

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“I had a dream in my coma, but in the first person. Everybody that ever had an impact on me would come up to me and say a quick thing and when they would start talking everything in the back would go black. They would speak to me for a sentence and then leave… This sentence being the biggest moment we had together and then they’d leave.” 

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From his first girlfriend to his cousin, and then his 5th-grade teacher, people were coming and going every second. 

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A tunnel vision of darkness spotlighting one important person in his life over and over. It seems as if what we see in movies was coming to life for him. 

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Hours later after the surgery, Robert woke up in the ICU with doctors surrounding him while his body lay there lifeless. He couldn't feel anything. 

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“I was basically paralyzed for another 10 hours and they had to clean my body,” Robert explained. 

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In this process, they had broken five of his ribs. Begging for the doctor to either stop or kill him, Robert couldn't bear the pain. Tears filled his eyes, and his whole body felt numb as the doctors were crushing his ribs trying to clean him. 

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“I'm not super religious but I do believe there's something more powerful than us… I kept begging, whether it is God, Satan, whoever it is that has the power to make this pain end by either killing me or healing me.” 

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On repeat, he kept praying. Praying that he would be ok and the pain would end.

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Eyes shut so tight he gripped his hands. Trying to feel the pain somewhere else. Breathing in deep and exhaling out. All he could do was pray. 

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After being in a 24/7 ICU for three weeks, they transported him to a normal pulmonary room of the hospital. Robert felt a sigh of relief. Something he had not felt in weeks. 

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Looking over there was a small window beside his bed just above his side table. Tears filled his eyes as looked at the horizon. 

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He could smell the damp leaves from the trees that filled the land. The wind whistled through the sky around the town. There were two big yellow castles. Both with red accents on the tip of the roof. Beautiful castles lined with stones and filled with history. 

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Robert rolled over to reach for the bag of his items on the table next to his bed. Grabbing his phone, he rolled back onto the bed, then opened the device and typed in his password. He typed in his password slowly but carefully. He felt different. Robert felt at peace. 

Everything clicked once Robert opened his phone. 

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A video of the sunset painting the sky in hues of gold and orange filled his screen. There was an angelic lullaby of violins and harps strumming in the background. This was the first thing he saw on his phone when he opened up Instagram. 

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He cried for eight hours straight. It felt like a sign that he made it. 

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Now back at High Point University, Robert is a changed healthy man. He left this summer with only a scar full of memories and a different look on life. After coming face to face with death, he feels a sense of peace in this world.