Medically, it is quite difficult to describe the case that happened to me during our family vacation in Bangkok－Thailand’s capital city. Some say this incident belongs to the category of a Near Death Experience (NDE). Others say it was a variant of the so-called teleportation. A few religious-oriented friends say it was a wake-up call, and that I must start atoning for my undeclared sins! One rather close colleague even insisted that I simply had a very wild imagination.

Let me share my bizarre story. As discerning readers, you may be able to share your thoughts – or related personal experiences, if ever you have had one. Up to this day, I am not sure whether such event was real at all – or if it was simply a product of my ailment-induced imagination.

On 1 February 2016, two days prior to our departure back to Manila, Philippines, we decided to partake a late breakfast. Robert, our eldest son, brought us to Prachak Pet Yang at this address: 1415 Thanon Charoen Krung (opposite Robinson’s department store) in Silom, Bangrak. Being a techie with interests in culinary, he claimed that this legendary Cantonese style duck restaurant serves a delicious and reasonably-priced roasted duck. (Among the Chinese dishes, roasted duck belongs to my top three favorites.) We arrived there around 1000 to partake our brunch – meaning combined breakfast and lunch meals.

We sat at a round table, which was located at the restaurant’s second floor. They ordered the famous roasted duck (Figure 1), pork with noodles/veggies (Figure 2), noodles with veggies (Figure 3), and assorted dimsum (Figure 4). All of the dishes they ordered looked really yummy. As the orders came, they started eating. I was about to partake the roasted duck when, suddenly, I felt an excruciating stomach pain. My tummy simply grumbled, as if my intestines were being intertwined. I was not sure if this was due to the packed fruit juice that I have consumed before we left the hotel. What followed was a massive bodily perspiration – unusual considering the area was an air-conditioned one – combined with an abrupt dizziness. Anyway, for a voracious eater like me, I suddenly lost any appetite at all to eat.

I desperately felt the need to relieve myself at the toilet, which was located at the ground floor. I mumbled to my wife that I was going down to the rest room. I stood up and slowly walked towards the stairs. To keep my balance, I extended my right arm to secure additional support from the wall near the stairway. As I prepared to descend, I closed my eyes momentarily while trying to steady my footing and tried laboriously to steady my breathing (Figure 5).

As my right palm sought greater bodily support from the wall, I was not sure if I momentarily passed out – or I simply hallucinated due to my severe bodily pains. Without warning, I felt an unusual bodily sensation that I have never experienced before. Or so I thought. Like a time warp in a science fiction movie, I was simply ‘teleported’ to my home town in Sablayan, Occidental Mindoro, Philippines.

More specifically, I found myself inside Castillo Theatre, which was the lone movie house in our rural village. The structural configuration was exactly like what it was during my elementary days: high ceiling, wooden chairs and walls with asbestos to improve the acoustics, among others. It was almost complete darkness inside the theater. I was grouping near the aisle, trying to find my bearing and sense of surrounding. My eyes were gazing towards the projector area, with my back behind the screen wall. It appeared that I was the lone moviegoer. Quite strange. I could decipher sort of dark human-form silhouettes, but was not entirely sure.

Then, the screen wall was suddenly illuminated as the film projector simply turned on. As I turned backwards to watch the screen, the usual countdown numbers started to flash. The flashed images were in monochrome, with slightly pigmented haze of black and white. The numbers appeared in the usual reverse sequence: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Then start.

Instead of a movie, however, I was flabbergasted as I suddenly saw myself on the screen. The film virtually started from the beginning of my life. Various self-images were depicted in succession that included: newborn sleeping in a hospital bed; crawling on the floor; playing inside a crib; learning how to walk; walking fast in a sunny beach; a toddler attired in a Sunday dress; wearing a school uniform in our elementary school, etc. The scenes were in slow motion, as if depicting an evolutionary progression of myself right before my very eyes.

Of all the thoughts, what I suddenly recalled was a scene/conversation from the movie titled American Beauty. Released in 1999, American Beauty was a drama film directed by Sam Mendes and written by Alan Ball. Kevin Spacey (who won the Best Actor at the 2000 Academy Awards) played the lead role as Lester Burnham, an advertising executive who got infatuated with his teenage daughter’s best friend. Meanwhile, Annette Bening played the role of Carolyn, Lester’s materialistic wife. I am paraphrasing here Kevin Spacey’s monologue about death. In one of the scenes, Kevin Spaceywas narrating that if you are about to die, your life story will flash back like a movie right before your very eyes. That is, starting with your childhood up to the present moment.

At that particular point in space and time, I realized that I did not want to die. At least not yet. More precisely, perhaps, I was truly scared to die as I was simply unprepared for it. I was bloody scared to be quite honest about my emotion. I looked back and shouted (in my native Filipino language) at the projector room to no one in particular: Tigil! Tigil! Tigil! Huwag muna ngayon. Hindi pa ako handa mamatay. English translation:  Stop! Stop! Stop! Not now. I am not yet ready to die (Figure 6). I was begging, holding on to my dear life, trying to bargain whatever precious time that I could still hang on to. No reply. The projector light had remained on. There was only eerie silence, against the backdrop of darkness inside a theatre.

Then, also without warning, I was transported back to the same Prachak Pet Yang Restaurant. Somebody was gently tugging on my left arm. (Remember that my right hand was leaning on the wall.) At the same time, I heard a soft feminine voice uttering these words: “Daddy, Daddy!” It was Zarina Hannah, our twenty-year-old daughter, who recently became a registered nurse or an RN. I was abruptly back to my senses, but was still massively dazed, feeling very weak and was experiencing much bodily pain, particularly in the abdominal area.

Collectively, my family members helped me back to our dining table. I became the center of attention as I sat down. Several waitresses congregated around me. One waitress was using a huge paper fan to ventilate me, while another one gave me a sort of mentholated liniment to inhale. It was like a Tiger Balm brand that is put in the nostrils to keep one awake. I inhaled it while my wife was wiping the perspiration from my head (Figure 7). (Our second son, Michael Angelo Jr. (simply called as Jr.) snapped this photo as ‘souvenir’ about the event with the amused waiter at the background). All the while, other Oriental and Chinese-looking diners were silently staring at me. Since we were speaking in Filipino, they may have surmised that I got sick from eating too much roasted duck!

My family members reacted differently about the incident. My wife (also an RN), while wiping my perspiration, started to nag. As with a typical housewife, she started with her litany that I should have slept early and refrained from drinking the mixed fruit juice. Robert curtly told her to stop nagging, as she was annoying everyone and her tirade was not the solution to my medical situation. He was the most level-headed who located the nearby Lerdsin Hospital by using his phone’s internet. Hannah as an RN was just cool – agreeing with him that a hospital is the most logical solution to the situation. Jr. who earlier snapped the above photo simply kept quiet – knowing, as an architect, he could not do anything substantial.

We eventually ended at the Lerdsin Hospital and stayed there for about two hours. I was a little sober then while waiting at the emergency room (Figure 8 taken again by Jr.) while Hannah tried to lighten the mood by doing a sort of Go Pro documentation. I was attended by very kind Thai doctors and nurses who gave me some medicines; they did not confine me but advised me to go back to the hotel and rest. Our three children brought us back to our hotel. I told them to just leave us and enjoy the promenades on their own. My wife stayed with me – and was surprisingly kinder and stopped her litanies of woes.

Reflecting back, this bizarre experience reminds me of the most popular TV episode, The Game of Thrones. The scene was about Arya Stark of Winterfell (second daughter of Lord Eddard Stark and his wife, Lady Catelyn Stark) and her dancing master (sword instructor) from Bravos. I shall paraphrase that conversation while they were practicing sword fighting. The dancing master told Arya that there is only one true God – and that is, the ‘God of Death’. He elaborated that when the ‘God of Death’ comes to you, or comes knocking at your door, you tell or bargain with him with these words: “Not today.”

Lesson learned: life is indeed so fragile. You can expire anytime, without even a moment’s notice. Bottom-line: it was not yet my time. If it was indeed the ‘God of Death’ (alternatively referred in the Christian literature as ‘Angel of Death’) who ran the movie/film of my life story, then I had successfully bargained with him not to take me out on that particular day. More than anything else, I was reminded of my feeble mortality. And I was given a second lease – and likewise provided a grim reminder that I must enjoy my waking moments to the fullest as you never know when your time is up.

Post script:

Two days later, we flew back to Manila, Philippines. Upon arrival, we (together with my wife) went to the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay hospital to see my cardiologist. (His name is Dr. Rodney Jimenez, a heart specialist who happened to be a brother in an academic organization from the university where we both graduated from.) After he examined me and took my vital signs, I narrated to him what happened (less my bizarre experience that I thought was not essential) as clinically as I could: the pains and related medical symptoms. After our conversation, I thought that he would simply advise me to go home and take an extended rest.

Medically, though, his judgement was different about my case. Rodney said that I needed to be confined immediately. He added that I have to take on some critical medicines (to be added to a dextrose) to be administered in an intra venous (IV) that will require several hours to finish. Before I could react, my wife gave me a cold, deadly stare. Meaning: don’t argue and just follow the doctor’s directive. As a subservient husband, I simply followed.

Rodney brought me to the emergency room (which was adjacent to his clinic). There, he asked me to lie down on the hospital bed. With the assistance of two intern doctors, they prepared the medicines and incorporate them in a dextrose set-up. After which, a long IV needle was inserted in my left hand’s vein.  (Ouch! I have a phobia with needles and blood.) Unfortunately, the medical intern’s first insertion did not properly hit my vein. Thus, the needle was re-inserted. More Ouch!!!

With nothing more to do, I simply watched the IV fluid as it dripped through the dextrose tube (Figure 9). The rhythmic dripping made me fall asleep: rather soundly. I didn’t recall having any dream at all. But this time, I was absolutely sure that the ‘God of Death’ did not bother me at all. Perhaps, He was too busy attending to the other clients on his master list. 

Copyright © 2019 Michael D Pido