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“What’s It Like To Be Dead?” This Kolkata Boy Answers By Sharing His Experience

byAnanta Sharma
13th December 2015
4 minute read

What can one possibly know of death until they hold their life by the edges, and release it one heartbeat at a time.

When I was 5 and had just lost my grandmother, all I kept hearing was the word ‘death’. It seemed like such a mystery, as though she headed off to some ghostly island without telling any of us anything about it. So, I decided to ask my grandpa.

“Bhagwan k paas jane ko death kehte hain”– He answered
“Toh meri bhi death hogi kya?” – I asked, curiously.

In response, his emotions trickled down from his eyes, and he hugged me tight.

It was this reaction that convinced me, death was something extreme.

But, what about those moments when one is experiencing his consciousness fade bit by bit, when he is inching towards death?

Dev Sengupta, an engineer by profession, shares his personal goosebumps-triggering experience of meeting death for a brief period, only to say it goodbye. The following is his answer to the question, “What will happen at the time of death?” which was asked on Quora.

at-hospital-1

He says:

“I have been dead for 52 seconds on the Operation Table and then again when I was in the ICU, I slipped into coma. This happened in 2012 when a truck crushed me under its 12 wheels.

I still remember that as I inched closer to the huge gap that is between the first 4 wheels and the last 6 wheels of a long trailer truck, my brain was in the process of diluting the colors from the world. I could see everything was turning black and white, as my body was preparing itself to take the blow.

 

When I finally fell and the last 6 wheels went over my spine and legs, the pain was excruciating.

At that moment I had broken my entire rib cage, my legs were crushed, but they were still attached to my body. My liver was cut in half and the half was floating inside my body. My left kidney burst not being able to handle the pressure of the truck on me, and I dislocated many many bones on my body. A part of my face near the eyes flew off to reveal the bones underneath. My circulatory system was devastated and I developed a heart blockage.

So after giving anesthesia, the doctors concluded that I had 5% chance of survival and they performed an experimental surgery on me, for 8 hours, between which I supposedly died.

 

I know what others have told you, but at that moment when I was dead I saw my recently deceased grandmother who was patting me on my temples.

Everything was in black and white. Nothing except my eyes were moving so she started patting harder and called out my name, she kept calling and calling and calling until I decided I would put my entire might to answer her. I opened my mouth, and gasped, struggling for air. My grandmother looked at me and smiled. And then I came back to the real world and subconsciously felt the cold operating table and blaring AC inside the Theatre. Maybe she had appeared before me to push back my spirit in my body so that I could live again.

 

A day after my operation my condition wasn’t improving, on top of that I was hallucinating and had a bad cold, and was unable to breathe.

It was only then doctors found out my left lung was damaged and was not working properly and both of the lungs had fluid filled within them. So they put me in an automatic breathing machine which pushes air into your lungs. It is extremely painful and makes you extremely thirsty. However I didn’t last the night and slipped into a coma when nobody was looking.

 

Everything was okay at first but then the playback in my brain went into an infinite loop when the order of events reached my accident.

It was repeatedly showing me what happened in those brief 2 seconds when my body had shut itself down and everything went black. The eyes and the brain were still recording the events it seems. And it was an unending loop. It was painful and I was crying to make myself stop. I screamed out at myself (the third person me) but I wouldn’t listen(the first person me). I don’t know how much I screamed and how much I suffered fighting the endless battle with myself. And then I fell asleep, tired. It was a timely dream of “falling” that woke myself up (still in third person) and had enough force to stop the recording from playing.

 

In my dream I saw my grandmother and I were swinging in the playground when I was 4.

I remember she swung so hard that it threw me off balance and I hurtled towards the ground, from a height of 5 feet. It was that falling sensation that saved me by waking me up. Again my grandmother’s memories had saved me.

 

After those events I quickly recovered.

Both my feet were to be amputated as the popliteal artery in both were snapped, but the doctors healed them. I started walking backwards on the 17th day and started walking front on the 22nd day. I was discharged from the hospital on the 36th day and started college only after 20 days after.”

 

Image source
Image source

He concludes this hair-raising account by saying,

“I don’t know if I gave an appropriate answer to your question. I just shared what I had felt.”

No one knows of pain until they experience it by themselves. But, this hair-raising description brought me a lot closer to feeling what he would have felt. Until now, death for me was just how we usually perceive it- A moment that crushes your heart, erasing your whole being from the face of the universe. 

Kudos to you Dev Sengupta for having fought death literally, and more power to you for having shared your experience on a public platform. We could just feel shaken up, but you, you ‘lived’ through the process of death.

Copyright of this story is owned by Dev Sengupta and has been reproduced with consent from him.

Cover Image Sources: 1, 2

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