b. 1943 · A portrait
A Dutch cardiologist tracked 344 cardiac-arrest survivors and published the results in The Lancet in 2001: 18% reported a near-death experience, with no medical factor explaining who did or didn't.
The line above is how his claims were received — by the scientists whose job was to doubt them. It rises as a claim is tested and accepted, and the room brightens with it. It is not a verdict on truth: some accepted ideas are later overturned, and some rejected ones come back. A hollow point is a claim still open.
He and colleagues began a prospective study following 344 consecutive patients resuscitated after cardiac arrest at ten Dutch hospitals, interviewing survivors soon after and again years later to see whether reported experiences changed their lives.
He published the results: 18% of survivors reported a near-death experience, most often awareness, deep peace or seeing a light. Medical factors like drugs, oxygen levels and time unconscious did not reliably predict who reported one — a genuine, published clinical finding.
Cognitive neuroscientist Jason Braithwaite published a detailed critique crediting the study with useful data but arguing it misread what a flat EEG during cardiac arrest can and can't rule out, leaning further than the observations support.
The clinical data are not disputed; why only some patients report the experience remains unresolved, and most researchers still expect a physiological account will eventually be found. In 2021 his essay on the question won second prize in a private institute's consciousness-survival contest.