Sudden death experience: David Gemmell on second chances, default YES

In this piece freelance journalist David Gemmell talks about his sudden death experience. He doesn't remember what actually happened during the experience but talks about the events leading up to and those preceding. The contradiction that it all happened while he was in the gym trying to be healthy. His big lesson – not everyone gets a second chance – so make sure you do the things you want to while you still can. – Stuart Lowman

"For he who lives more lives than one More deaths than one must die."

Oscar Wilde – The Ballad of Reading Jail

by David Gemmell

At the Virgin Active Gym on the corner of main and Nichol, at 5.30 pm on Monday the 9th of March 2015, I died.

Ironically, it happened while I was getting into shape – it was a bit like buying a dog for protection and then being attacked by it.

I remember very little. Apparently I was on the stepping machine when I suddenly keeled over, biting my tongue and cutting my head as I fell. Serendipitously, a cardiologist, Dr Mars Goldstein, was training nearby. Alerted to my bloodied, lifeless body sprawled amongst the machines, Mars, together with the gym manager Dave and his staff, brought me back to life.

Amongst other things, they jumpstarted my heart with one of those machines you see in the movies. I'm just relieved I didn't have to watch.

Five days in hospital, three stents in my heart and I was back on my feet.

At some stage during my brief sojourn in ICU, I asked my new cardio, Dr Gebka, "What actually happened to me?"

"In simple terms an artery to your heart closed and you suffered an SD experience," he said. "…and SD is an acronym for?"

"Sudden death," he said. "You died."

So, given that I am no longer dead, axiomatically, I have been given another chance. The weeks that followed my death were confusing. While I recuperated, (my tongue ached and my chest had all but been compacted by the athletic Mars' pummelling), my mind raced.

To say the whole incident was a shock is the understatement of both my lives. Many people asked if I had an out-of-body experience. I didn't, so am still unqualified to comment sensibly on the existence of an afterlife. But what I can attest to is there has been an automatic and wholesale restructuring of my beliefs, hopes and aspirations. Nothing seems quite as important as it used to. Resentments and prejudices are now remarkably inconsequential. Kindness, giving and behaving properly are suddenly, infinitely more important.

After my passing I was warned I was vulnerable to severe depression. However, when I met a fellow stentee at the pharmacy, (I spoke to him because he was buying the same variety of pills I was) that threat evaporated.

After establishing that we had both had had similar experiences, he asked me how I was "Physically, I'm good," I answered, "but I think I might have a few problems with my head – scary stuff this dying business."

"Crap!!" he said. "You have to revel. For whatever reason, you have been given another crack at life so there is only one thing to do. Revel."

So that's it; I am revelling.

During one of my early check-ups, Dr Gebka said that until the stents settle, I should refrain from anything strenuous.

"In six weeks you can start gym again," he said. (Sex immediately, interestingly, if I could find a partner was no problem.)

"What must I NOT do when I go back to gym?" I asked. "I wouldn't really like to go through this again."

He laughed. "Oh, now you can do anything you like. Before you were playing with a loaded gun; now you are fixed. Your heart is as good as new."

So why am I telling you this? In my first life I seldom listened to advice and rarely took it. But a number of things were put into perspective by my recent death and hopefully through this account you will discover something useful without too having to perish.

Once the import of what had happened fully dawned on me, my biggest concern was, 'if only I had done more of the things I had dreamed of; if only I had attained more goals; if only I had spent less time telling everyone how I was going to achieve this or how I was going to conquer that and actually got on with the achieving and the conquering;  if only I hadn't waited so long for circumstances to be perfect; if only I had realised earlier that death was arbitrary and hovering around every corner ready to pounce at any moment; if only I had done a lot more than I had.

Curiously I didn't spend much time regretting the silly or nasty things I had done. It was the things I hadn't done that concerned me. I also didn't wallow in my odd success.

Around then I stumbled en passant across this quotation by Henry David Thoreau:

"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them."

Disappointingly, I had done just that. I had died with my song in me.

To try and understand why I got a second chance would be a futile exercise. To know why Mars the cardio decided to train at the precise time my heart decided to expire or to make sense of Dr Gebka's remarks, "If you had died anywhere else we would never have met. You would have stayed dead; you are a lucky man;" are always going to be my new life's imponderables. What is eminently more important is what to do with this second chance.

My primary concern is to get into proper shape. Narcissistic though this may be to many people; I have found losing condition the single biggest negative of getting older. I am 63.

All my life I have been in reasonable, if not jaw-dropping shape. I ran the Comrades, paddled the Duzi and swam the Midmar Mile. I cycled the Argus and I did a 160 km Iron Man in a day (canoe, cycle, run). I played rugby at university and social soccer for 25 years. So finding my strength seeping away and my belly inexorably expanding was depressing. But I never did much about it.

A number of people have asked me if I was nervous when I returned to exercising. I was, but soon quashed that by starting my comeback on the machine that killed me. Once I had laid that ghost to rest, it was no problem.

Well, given that a few days before I shuffled off the mortal coil I had achieved a personal best of 15 pull-ups; on returning to gym I felt that would be a good benchmark as to what form I had lost. I managed 4.

Last week I did 11. Surprisingly, only six months after croaking, I am nearly back to where I was. I am nearly back to where I am now working on all the books I was one day going to write when circumstances were perfect. I've always had these wonderful plots and would divulge them to anyone who would listen, yet never got down to writing them.

When I was growing up, (still haven't quite got there) I played guitar. Each year I got a little better, learnt a few more tunes and then for no reason, stopped. Another, 'if only'. If only I had carried on playing, by now I would have been a maestro. So I have now bought a guitar and daily spend time playing it.

For many years I have hankered after joining the professional speaking circuit. It would take too long to explain why, but suffice it to say, I never got there; absurdly I just talked about doing it. If only I had got on and done it; I have now hired a coach and intend to deliver a paid speech before I die; again.

I have stopped being one of life's spectators and haemorrhaging time doing nothing.

On the philanthropic level, I hope my nascent, varied efforts to help my fellow man and improve his life because I passed his way (a couple of times) makes me a better person.

And my new default position is, 'Yes'. Whatever anyone wants to do, (subject to the odd T and C), I'm in.  As the old Chinese proverb goes, I want to live a thousand different days rather than the same day a thousand times.

Lastly, I have stopped worrying about dying or failing.

These were lurking, omnipresent fears that permeated my entire first life. Fears, which constantly prevented me from challenging myself. Worrying about the inevitable is as futile as complaining about the weather, gravity or anything else that is what it is. Worrying about failing is just as absurd. We all fail – but that will never be a valid reason not to try.

David Gemmell (1952 – 2015 – ….  )