A Virginia woman has shared what she saw after she suffered a sudden cardiac arrest and clinically died for an astounding 24 minutes.
Just what awaits us when we shuffle off this mortal coil is a topic that has been debated for millennia. Naturally it’s an argument that’s exceedingly difficult to obtain a definitive answer for. Why? Well, because thus far it’s proven rather tricky to die, get a good feel for what happens, and then return to tell the tale.
Yet… yet, there are those who have supposedly toed the line between the realms of the living and the not-so-living.
Virginia resident Lauren Canaday is one such person. After she suffered a tonic-clonic seizure – also known as a grand mal seizure – in 2023, her muscles violently contracted, leading to her losing consciousness and stopping her breathing.
As per Newsweek, the then-39-year-old had a sudden cardiac arrest—sudden loss of heart function, typically due to an irregular heart rhythm, leading to the stopping of blood flow to the body.
She was clinically dead for a total of 24 minutes.
Speaking to Newsweek a few months after her brush with the afterlife, Canaday, who had been on medication for controlled epilepsy for a number of years, explained: “My husband was across the hall and heard me say, ‘Oh s***.
“He rushed in to find me unconscious on the floor. I had stopped breathing and turned blue.”
Her husband leapt into action without delay, promptly dialing 911 and performing CPR for four minutes until responding EMTs could take over. 24 minutes and four defibrillator shocks later, and her heartbeat was restored.
After being rushed to the hospital, Canaday tested positive for Covid-19. She was also diagnosed with myocarditis, a condition that inflames the heart muscle and can lead to a reduction in the heart’s pumping abilities.
Doctors believed her sudden cardiac arrest might have been triggered by Covid.
Writing on a Reddit thread, Canaday recalled how it was recovering from her near-death experience, shedding light on the consequences of such a life-altering event.
“After 9 days in the ICU, I was declared ‘cognitively intact’ and have no visible brain damage on MRIs. I also have a normal EEG despite a history of seizures and status epilepticus for over 30 minutes right after resuscitation,” she wrote in her ‘Ask Me Anything’ session.
After her stint in hospital, however, Canaday says she was left to fend for herself.
“I think people assume that when something so drastic happens there’s like a social safety net for you, like you get special assistance. WRONG. I was just sent home while still in searing pain from ICD surgery and on 10 meds that dropped my blood pressure so low I had to go back to the ER,” she said.
“My husband and I were left to fend for ourselves. No social worker appeared to tell me how to apply for disability (and in the US this is hard to get for cardiac arrest, so hard I didn’t even try despite being unable to work right now) and doctors only have 10 minutes with you at a time so I answered most of my own questions/needs by finding support from other survivors. Which isn’t easy to do b/c there aren’t many of us.”
She added: “I feel like my first life ended in February and I woke up to my second life. People think I’m better b/c I can walk and even hike again (slowly) and they might not know I have the defibrillator in my body or whatnot.
“But when people tell me I look well/better, it’s eerie for me b/c I don’t feel like the same person and I’m always aware of the experience.”
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