Here’s the final segment of Biola philosopher and apologist Sean McDowell’s recent interview with Kennesaw State University philosopher of religion J. Steve Miller on the “Top 5 VERIFIED Near-Death Experiences”(February 4, 2025)

Miller is the author of a number of books on philosophy of religion topics, including Near-Death Experiences as Evidence for the Existence of God and Heaven (2012), considers the comparatively well-known case of Pam Reynolds as #1:

1. 47:23 Pam Reynolds

This video is set to play at 47:23.

When Pam Reynolds (1956–2010), a American singer–songwriter, consulted a doctor in 1991 over puzzling neurological problems, she was told that she had a huge aneurysm (blood clot) at the top of the main artery supplying blood to her brain. When it burst, it would kill her.

The only known surgical procedure that could help her was a radical one called a cardiac standstill. She was referred to Dr. Robert Spetzler, director of the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix. As neurosurgeon Michael Egnor describes the procedure in The Immortal Mind (Worthy June 3, 2025),

She would be placed under general anesthesia and her body would be chilled to 60°F (15.6°C). Then her heart would be stopped so that no blood flowed to her brain. And her brain would be drained of blood.

In other words, Spetzler’s strategy was literally to create brain death due to a low body temperature and no blood circulation. That would give him a thirty-minute window to get rid of the aneurysm while her brain was like an object, unable to react. She would be protected from permanent brain damage both by her hypothermia and by the medications administered during the time she was brain dead. Later, her body would be warmed and her heart restarted, so blood flow to her brain would resume. (p.85 )

Her eyes were taped shut and her ears were fitted with plugs.

She was for all practical purposes dead and insensible. It was during this operation that she had a near-death experience. As Miller recounts in the video,

When she woke up [48:44], she talked about an experience she had during that time when she was clinically dead by all counts.

She described in minute detail the specialized instruments that were used for the surgery the thing that looked more like a drill than a saw. It even had little bits that were kept inside of a case … These are the instruments that you’re not seeing before the surgery or after the surgery. They’re covered up to keep sterile and yet she describes them perfectly well.

During that time, she went through a tunnel, talked to deceased relatives who looked like they were the prime of life, and and eventually came back and reported these. Now this is coming from Dr. Sabom’s book* where — and he’s got a whole chapter detailing his research into this — where he talked to the doctors, read the doctor’s records — he was not even familiar with this.

He thought this sounds crazy. He would do a surgery like this? So he went into it. He ordered the specifications for the instruments that were used, to see if they look like she actually described to them.

They did. Reynolds also saw deceased relatives.

● The book Miller references is Light and Death (Zondervan 1998) by Michael Sabom.

A well-documented case

Biographs notes that “Pam Reynolds’ case is considered one of the most compelling and well-documented accounts of a near-death experience. While medical explanations for her memories remain elusive, her story has sparked significant research and debate within the scientific and spiritual communities.”

One effort to explain her striking case away has been to argue that Reynolds wasn’t really dead. Egnor responds, “Unlike the vast majority of NDEs, in which absence of brain function is inferred based on routine data collection, Reynolds’s case was measured and documented by highly sensitive instruments (EEG and brain stem auditory evoked responses). Indeed, brain death was an essential feature for the success of the operation.” (p. 91)

The video above is an excerpt from the BBC documentary The Day I Died (2002/55 min). The whole documentary is provided here.

Near-death studies as a science field

NDE studies only began to be a science field in the last half century or so. Perhaps the palliative care movement played a role. It arose largely in the last century, focused on hands-on but science-based care for dying patients. Of course, health care workers began to observe NDEs and other unexpected phenomena like terminal lucidity among patients with dementia. The health care connection may have helped sever near-death research from occultism.

Put bluntly, we hear much more often now from cardiologists than from mediums on the subject and that is a promising development for future research.

You may also wish to read the first four parts:

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.
2. When information from a near-death experience is confirmed… A seven-year-old girl who was a near-fatal drowning victim reported things that she saw during a state of clinical death that were later confirmed. The pediatrician who wrote up her case for a medical journal did not himself believe in life after death and sought an explanation for NDEs in the brain.
3. A cardiologist encounters a near death experience. Dr. Aufderheide hardly expected the patient, who was in prolonged cardiac arrest, to tell him what he had been doing — and thinking — when he was in the patient’s room!
4. A prominent physicist’s report of a deathbed vision. He was intrigued by the fact that the young woman, soon to die, knew that her sister had died. But no one had told her… Deathbed experiences that include knowledge of information not otherwise communicated to the experiencer would seem to rule out naturalistic explanations.