April 23, 2005: Creepy Medical Topics - Dr. Tess Gerritsen

Art Bell welcomes bestselling author and physician Dr. Tess Gerritsen for an exploration of disturbing medical phenomena that blur the line between life and death. She presents multiple documented cases of people declared dead who later revived, including a woman who woke up inside a body bag, a man who grabbed a pathologist by the throat just before autopsy, and a patient who began speaking on an embalming table. Gerritsen confesses that even trained physicians sometimes wonder if they listened to a patient's heart long enough before pronouncing death.

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.