J. Steve Miller, a Kennesaw State University philosopher of religion, appeared on Biola philosopher and apologist Sean McDowell’s video podcast discussing the “Top 5 VERIFIED Near-Death Experiences”(February 4, 2025) at YouTube. His second example of verified near death/otherworldly experiences involves a seven-year-old girl in Idaho in 1982. She reported things that she saw during a state of clinical death that were later confirmed.

4. 17:51 Melvin Morse: Katie Sees Heaven

This video is set to play at 17:51.

Melvin Morse (1953–) was for most of his career a well-regarded pediatrician, an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Washington, practicing in a suburb of Seattle. According to the Chicago Tribune, his interest in near-death experiences was sparked by an incident when he was practicing in Idaho in 1982.

Katie almost drowned in a swimming pool and had been without a pulse for 19 minutes before she was resuscitated. When Morse, then a pediatric resident, first saw her, her fixed pupils were dilated, suggesting irreversible brain damage.

Miraculously, Katie made a full recovery three days later. Trying to figure out how the little girl had drowned, Morse casually asked what she remembered about the experience. He was stunned at her response: ”Do you mean when I saw the heavenly father?”

Over the next few days, Katie recounted leaving her comatose body and described in detail the doctors who cared for her and what they did. Then she told of going through a tunnel and being met by an angel, who took Katie home, where she could watch her brother play and her mother cooking dinner, even though they couldn`t see her.

“Life After Death,” October 27, 1992/Updated August 10, 2021

As Miller recounts, “Katie”* offered details:

At one [20:57] point she was given a glimpse of her home. One of her brothers was playing with a GI Joe, pushing him around… the room in a jeep. One of his sisters was combing the hair 21:16 of a Barbie doll singing a popular rock song she drifted into the kitchen and saw her mother preparing a meal of roast chicken and rice. Then she looked into the living room and saw her father sitting on the couch, staring quietly ahead. Later, when Katie mentioned this to her parents, she shocked them with her vivid details and they confirmed that that’s what was cooking. That’s what everybody was doing in the house yet this was far away.

Morse confirmed the details that she recounted with relatives.

One source that did not simply discount his story as a pious fable is the American Journal of Diseases in Children, which published his paper on the incident:

Abstract: Near-death experiences occurring to persons who have survived near-terminal events, such as cardiac arrests or profound comas, have been widely reported in the lay literature; however, there is little documentation of such events in the medical literature. These experiences generally have a consistent core of euphoric affect, an out-of-the-body state, encountering a being of light, meeting others (especially dead relatives), and going from a dark tunnel to a world of light. This core remains consistently present despite wide variations in the religious or cultural background of the person. Such an event occurred to a 7-year-old near-drowning victim. Pediatricians should be alerted to the potential need for counseling in children who have survived near-fatal events.

Morse M. A Near-Death Experience in a 7-Year-Old Child. Am J Dis Child. 1983;137(10):959–961. doi:10.1001/archpedi.1983.02140360023008

Morse studied other NDE cases, especially those involving children. He then packaged his research into books, including Closer to the Light (1991), written with Paul Perry. That book unexpectedly became a New York Times bestseller. He then appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show.

As Paula Bock described Closer in the Seattle Times,

The book has a plain yellow cover with no picture. It is not a literary masterpiece. It is a rehash, in simple language, of Public Health Service Grant #1F3ZCAOF234, perhaps the only study of near-death experiences funded by the U.S. government. In 1985 Morse and other researchers interviewed 26 critically ill children at Seattle’s Children’s Hospital, kids on the brink of death who somehow recovered from cardiac arrest or deep coma. Twenty-two of them reported sensations of being conscious yet not alive, leaving their bodies, seeing a wonderful light, relatives, comforting images. The study included blood gases, drug names with dozens of syllables, coma scores – basically, data of interest to scientific types.

But now the story gets complicated…

In her 1994 profile of Miller for the Seattle Times, Bock portrays
a dedicated but perhaps troubled pediatrician:

“IF I TELL you the truth, you probably won’t believe me,” Morse says. The reason he wrote that first article about Kristle Merzlock? Publish or perish. He was a research fellow on academia’s fast track and needed to get his byline into medical journals. Kristle’s case seemed interesting and no one had written anything like it. Voila! What was originally conceived as a few lines for the pediatrician’s resume ended up changing the course of Morse’s life.

He got caught up in it. Someone suggested he write a book. Before Morse went into private practice, he moonlighted as a nighttime emergency-room doctor at Children’s Hospital and as a flight physician for Air Lift Northwest, jetting as far as Alaska to transport sick children to Seattle for medical treatment. These were the extreme cases, kids on the edge, and not all of them lived. Losing young patients was sad enough. Handling parents’ grief was even harder.

“Incredible Journeys — Dr. Melvin Morse Looks For Insight Into Near-Death Experiences,” Dec 11, 1994

In any event, as a Utah journalist had reported earlier, Dr. Morse did not believe in life after death:

During Morse’s interview with the Deseret News he said, “I don’t really believe in life after death. My researcher, Dr. Vernon Neppe, the director of the Division of Neuropsychiatry at the University of Washington, has more of an open mind. But finding an area of the brain where these experiences originate does not negate them.”

Karen Boren Swedin, “Doctor Probes Mysteries of Near-death Experiences,” November 8, 1990

In fact, Morse has long sought a naturalistic explanation for near-death experiences involving the brain’s right temporal lobe.

Later conviction and sentence

In 2006 he retired from full-time pediatrics but worked at a pediatrics office in Milton, Delaware. Things did not go well for him there.

In 2014, he was convicted of child abuse — attempting to waterboard his 11-year-old stepdaughter. There was massive media coverage. He went from being considered one of the best doctors in the country to having his license suspended and he was sentenced to three years in prison.

But then things took a turn again: The stepdaughter admitted that she had lied under oath about her sister molesting her and gotten her sister sent to a juvenile detention center as a result. “She also admitted to telling a therapist that Morse had never really slapped her, but that she had gotten the idea from talking to her half-sister.” (Reuters)

Morse’s medical licence was reinstated in 2022.

One thing stands out here

If a public relations expert were packaging near-death experiences to market to a gullible public, it’s hard to believe that he would have chosen Melvin Morse as a spokesman. This sounds more like a slice of reality, which famously descends on all kinds of people.

● Kristle Merzlock was the girl’s actual name but it is common, when discussing a case, to use a pseudonym like “Katie” for the patient.

Next: 3. A Respected Cardiologist Encounters His First NDE

You may also wish to read: 1. When actual experiences challenge the viewpoints of skeptics. Sean McDowell recently hosted J. Steve Miller to talk about his top five believable near-death experiences. Mark Twain and Michael Shermer each had an anomalous experience that he could not explain but would not deny.