Russell Wain, 24, from Lichfield, England believes he had a glimpse into what happens when we die after having a horrific head on crash six years ago. As doctors fought to save his life, Russell claims he went on a spiritual journey.
While doctors at Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham, England, were fighting to save Russell's life, he saw existence from an unexpected angle. He told BBC One's The One Show, of how he remembered waking up in a dark tunnel.
"I was going down a cave and actually felt the side of the cave walls where it is all smooth and damp with an old Roman paving on the floor and a big bright light at the bottom, with an arch. The next I remember is looking down on myself in the ICU ward and my mum was holding my left hand crying and my dad hugging her. I literally floated back to the ceiling and woke up."
Interest in experiences like Russell's have been in the limelight since Dr Raymond Moody's best selling book Life After Life in 1975. 100 patients who were clinically dead reported having some kind of near death experience.
Dr Moody's book, which sold 13 million copies globally, said these experiences involved a typically dying patient experiencing heading down a tunnel towards a light which gave them a great sense of well-being. Other patients reported looking down on relatives gathered around their hospital bed.
Dr Sam Parnia, of the University of Southampton has always been sceptical of such claims until dealing with patients in an intensive care unit. He has now been forced to challenge his own scepticism.
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People who have been brought back to life after clinical death often describe a sensation of separating from themselves and that's called an 'out of body' experience and that can be tested and validated scientifically. So if it's real we should be able to prove it and if it's just a trick of the mind we should be able to prove that as well."
Doctors at 25 UK and US hospitals are now to conduct a three year study, with 1500 survivors to see if people with no heartbeat or brain activity can have out of body experiences. The study will include the setting up of special shelving in resuscitation areas. The shelves hold pictures, but are only visible from the ceiling. Dr Parnia said it would be remarkable if people report seeing these pictures during an alleged out of body experience.
Others are still sceptical. Both Psychologist Dr Susan Blackmore and Dr Parnia agree there is a great mystery to the nature of consciousness, but Dr Blackmore thinks Dr Parnia is taking the old fashioned, traditional view that most people on the planet believe in - that there is a spirit or soul or something inside that requires some force science hasn't yet revealed and thinks he can find this in his experiment. Dr Blackmores own research over the decades on out of body experiences shows that they are convincing, realistic, quite amazing experiences but that nothing leaves the body. Dr Parnia believes that if his study provides evidence of out of body experiences, it may not prove anything about the afterlife.
He explained
"We know that in the sub-atomic world, smaller than atoms - things behave in really bizarre ways we don't understand, they call it quantum physics. At that level things can be none-localised so it could simply be the human mind is not produced by big brain cells connected together but something at a much smaller level that makes it do these incredible things and this would open up a whole new branch of science."
But, for Russell Wain, his life changing experience has solved his mystery of where he is going after death. He is 110% sure that what he saw is what he saw and is definitely going somewhere else.
