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Experience of an
11 year old boy

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Having suffered from abdominal pain for a while, the 11 year old boy was rushed into St. Martins Hospital in  Bath (UK) to have his appendix removed. Now this hospital does not perform surgery but 30 odd years ago when these events took place, it was one of 2 hospitals in Bath that had emergency surgical teams.

The boy had been examined in the early evening and so by the time he was scheduled for his appendicectomy, it was late - about 11.30 pm. As was usual for such procedures, the consultants were not around and so the anaesthetic and the surgery were left to junior doctors.

The 11 year old was taken to theatre and his mother left him in the anaesthetic room.

The anaesthetist put a needle in the back of his hand and started injecting. After a few seconds the boy realised he wasn't breathing and felt uncomfortable - like when you start to hold your breath and really need to take in a deep breath. Having told to be good by his parents, he did not struggle as he trusted the doctors as he would his parents.

As time ticked on, the feeling of being suffocated worsened and he felt the anaesthetist put a rubber mask over his nose and mouth. Expecting a rush of fresh air, he continued to lie still.

Nothing happened.

Sudden panic set in - with the realisation that he was dying from lack of air.

That feeling was the last straw. Knowing he would get into trouble the boy tried to sit up and tell the doctors that he was suffocating - but with a crushing helplessness realised that he his limbs were not obeying his commands. He lay there, paralysed and helpless, suffocating.

Starting to give up, he heard a male voice say "Something is wrong - his chest isn't moving." A flurry of movement by his ear resulted in the mask being pulled away and a thick rubber tube being shoved forcibly down the back of his throat. Feeling sick, he realised he wasn't even gagging.

At that point, the boy felt himself fall out of the back of his body. Above him, and withdrawing into the distance, were two bright lights - his eye holes to the outside world.

Rushing backwards along a tunnels, he was then confronted by a circular ring of yellow lights, and a voice chanting something about the "Sons of Sion".

The next thing was a brief feeling of weightlessness as the boy looked down on the operating theatre, himself there on the table. He was simultaneously over his mother, crying in the ward, waiting for him.

Nothing more happened as the boy pass out into blackness and then woke up the following day.  He told his parents and nurses, but in the 1970's in the UK no-one dared ask if something had gone wrong as people were scared of being branded "Troublemakers".

Subsequent requests for the hospital records show they were destroyed/lost years ago.

The boy was profoundly affected by the experience and the inability to find out what had happened. As a schoolboy, he wrote an essay for his "O-level" which was unplanned and made up on the spot. It won him acclaim and was published locally in school newsletters etc.

Now it has all faded into the past and was not talked about - until recent years when his interest resurfaced due to reports of other people having similar experiences.