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I’ve recently been reading Titus Rivas, Anny Dirven, and Rudolf H. Smith, The Self Does Not Die: Verified Paranormal Phenomena from Near-Death Experiences, translated by Wanda J. Boeke (Durham NC: International Association for Near-Death Studies, 2016). It’s an expanded English translation of a Dutch original.

Today, I share with you Case 2.18 (“Helen”), which is recounted on pages 49-51 of The Self Does Not Die. It is taken from Near Death in the ICU (Appleton, Wisconsin: Sloan Press, 2015), which was written by a critical-care physician named Laurin Belg.

“Helen” – the name is a pseudonym, adopted to protect the experiencer’s anonymity – was involved in a very serious multi-vehicle accident. However, she immediately got out of her car in something of a panic in order to assess the damage and to determine whether anybody else needed help.

Afterwards, she was able to report how many vehicles had been involved—there were four—and to describe a gray floral-delivery van that was ornamented with company decals on its side. They consisted of blue writing superimposed on a spray of red roses.

She walked over to a dark green four-door sedan that was smashed against the hood of her own car at a very sharp angle, where it had hit her from the side after running a stop sign. A bearded, dark-haired man was slumped over the steering wheel, moaning. She saw how the bearded man’s car had impacted hers and, thus, had led to a pile-up because the floral-delivery van behind her and a white suburban behind it had been unable to stop in time. Her car was wedged in between the van and the green car, smashed, accordion-like, between them.

The door of the van was too damaged to open, so that, although the driver seemed to be essentially unhurt, he couldn’t get out of his vehicle.

The driver of the white suburban was also in good shape. Helen very clearly heard her calling emergency services for help anthen, having finished her call, Helen saw her rushing rather frantically around, checking on people. Helen saw her reach into the green car, weaving her arm under its injured driver to turn off its engine, which was beginning to billow smoke. Then she leaned in to try to soothe and comfort him, rubbing his back and assuring him that help was on its way.

Helen saw that the passenger in the green car was crying, obviously upset. So, while the driver of the white suburban focused on the green car’s driver, Helen went around to the passenger side of the vehicle. She tried to offer comfort and support to the crying woman through the shattered window, but the woman didn’t answer or respond. In fact, the woman didn’t even appear to notice her presence, which, Helen thought, was probably understandable because of how very upset she was.

It was then that [Helen] heard the wailing sirens of approaching police cars and ambulances. She took that as a cue to get back to her own vehicle so that they could all be properly cared for. Walking back to her own car, a sudden realization stopped her in her tracks—she was looking at a woman, apparently unresponsive, in the driver’s seat of her car and realized that she was that woman.

She was simultaneously standing outside of her own car, looking at what appeared to be her body trapped in the driver’s seat of a very damaged vehicle. It took her a while to orient to the fact that she was looking at her own body while somehow being separate from it. In doing so, she eventually came to the sobering reality that if she was outside of her body, looking at herself trapped in the heap of mangled metal, then she must be dead. Nothing else made sense.

The official police report indicated Helen was quite entangled in the debris of her car and it took nearly thirty minutes to extricate her. It was unclear, at the time, exactly what was injured or broken, but, soon enough, the odd angles of her ankles revealed the truth of her injuries and that was what was called into the hospital ahead of her arrival. Not only was she trapped in the rubble of her car, both of her ankles were clearly broken, and she was observed, by experienced rescue workers, to be unconscious at the scene. There is no physical way that she would have been able to get out of her vehicle, let alone walk around and report with such great accuracy what she later described. . . .

She told us details she couldn’t possibly have been aware of unless she was awake and walking around, observing from the specific angles she described – especially when she saw her own body in the driver’s seat of her car.

Posted from Portland, Oregon

Today, I share with you Case 2.18 (“Helen”), which is recounted on pages 49-51 of The Self Does Not Die. It is taken from Near Death in the ICU (Appleton, Wisconsin: Sloan Press, 2015), which was written by a critical-care physician named Laurin Belg.

Laurin A Bellg, MD is a critical care physician working in the ICU, author and Monroe guest trainer. Over the past twenty years she's heard numerous mysterious and beautiful stories from patients who've returned from the brink of death to share. She wrote Near Death In The ICU, a collection of patient stories over the years, in hopes that it will contribute something new, powerful and lasting to the conversation of near-death, out-of-body and other anomalous experiences.

Everybody Wang Chung wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 13, 2025 8:36 pm

Absolutely. When you apply basic economics, the entire house of psychic cards comes crashing down.

The fact that not a single psychic has managed to beat the lottery, let alone short a major corporation before its public implosion or forecast the stock markets, is pretty damning. Psychics/remote-viewers/dowsers seem perfectly suited for low-end scenarios that are conveniently unprovable.

Patheos should be embarrassed. Sic et Non and Ye Shall Prosper In The Land have all but guaranteed people will continue to view Mormonism as a strange cult.

I Have Questions wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 13, 2025 8:20 pm

Today, I share with you Case 2.18 (“Helen”), which is recounted on pages 49-51 of The Self Does Not Die. It is taken from Near Death in the ICU (Appleton, Wisconsin: Sloan Press, 2015), which was written by a critical-care physician named Laurin Belg.

It’s Laurin Bellg, not Belg.

Laurin A Bellg, MD is a critical care physician working in the ICU, author and Monroe guest trainer. Over the past twenty years she's heard numerous mysterious and beautiful stories from patients who've returned from the brink of death to share. She wrote Near Death In The ICU, a collection of patient stories over the years, in hopes that it will contribute something new, powerful and lasting to the conversation of near-death, out-of-body and other anomalous experiences.

Helen’s story has been recorded as she told it. It’s not been tested against things like the police reports. Or incident reports. Laurin doesn’t claim it as anything other than a story that Helen told her. That’s it.

Physics Guy wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 13, 2025 9:13 pm

Some checking is required for this kind of story. People in car accidents are often disoriented. Was this woman’s account of the accident aftermath actually accurate or did she just claim that it was? If her account does match someone else’s description, then did she at some point hear a description of the situation, and unconsciously fabricate a memory of having herself seen what she actually only heard?

Things like that happen. It’s pretty important to check them. It wouldn’t be so hard to do so. And some checks like this would make the difference between someone getting confused about an accident and evidence for noncorporeal existence. Yet this book author didn’t bother to dig for these crucial details?

The absence of any checking may not prove that this was only confusion, but it does prove that the book author wasn’t actually interested in investigating the possibility of noncorporeal existence, but only in selling books.

I wrote Near Death in the ICU because I felt I had something to contribute to the conversation about near-death experiences as a part of good patient care. Many well-meaning care providers will discount patient's experiences for which we have no scientific proof, but as many patients reported to me during interviews for this book, this approach is not only unhelpful, it is potentially harmful.

Near Death In The ICU is a collection of patient stories that I've encountered over the years and I hope it will contribute something new, powerful and lasting to the conversation of near-death, out-of-body and other anomalous experiences not only surrounding trauma and severe illness, but also during routine medical procedures. Patients have a story to tell and it is our role and great honor to listen to and respect them.