The conversation shifts to the science of dying itself, including how quickly the brain loses consciousness after the heart stops, the historical origins of the Irish wake as a safeguard against premature burial, and evidence of entombed bodies found repositioned when crypts were reopened. Art raises the provocative question of whether a brain could be kept alive indefinitely with artificial blood flow, a scenario Gerritsen finds scientifically plausible but ethically nightmarish.
They also discuss anesthesia awareness, where patients paralyzed by surgical drugs feel every incision but cannot alert the surgeon, and the broader implications of near-death experiences. Gerritsen offers a physician's skeptical perspective on the afterlife while acknowledging that the profound personality changes reported by NDE survivors remain difficult to explain.
Key Moments
Woman wakes up in body bag: Gerritsen recounts a Boston Globe case of a young woman declared dead in a cold bathtub after a pill overdose, zipped into a body bag, sent to the morgue, and waking up hours later just fine.
Corpse strangles pathologist: Gerritsen tells of a 1984 case where a pathologist picked up his scalpel to begin an autopsy, the corpse woke and grabbed him by the throat, and the doctor died of the shock while the patient survived.
Doctors confess on rushed death calls: Gerritsen confesses that exhausted residents called late at night may listen to the heart only twenty seconds before pronouncing a patient dead, and many doctors privately wonder if they listened long enough.
Resurrection as misdiagnosed death: Gerritsen suggests there is a theory that the resurrection of Jesus was actually a case of misdiagnosed death - Jesus may have been entombed alive and was still alive.
Spanish flu actually started in Kansas: Gerritsen reveals the 1918 'Spanish flu' actually started in Kansas, but wartime censorship in the US and Britain suppressed reporting; only neutral Spain's press covered it, giving the pandemic its misleading name.