Don Piper - the Man Who Spent "90 Minutes in Heaven"

In 1989, Don Piper was killed instantly. Ninety minutes later he sang a church hymn with a minster, while his body lay still covered over by a thick tarp. He claims he spent 90 minutes in heaven.

After a massive tractor trailer plowed into Piper's Ford escort, paramedics examining him on the scene pronounced him dead from massive injuries he'd sustained. Baptist minister Dick Onrecker, passing by in the area, happened on the accident scene. He requested to pray over the dead man and to sing "What A Friend We Have In Jesus." When Piper started joining in on the song, a shocked Onrecker fled in alarm.

Near death experiences, or in this case actual death or clinical death experiences, aren't uncommon anymore. With our advanced medical technology, people who have 'passed over' for a few seconds, or even a few minutes, are resuscitated and make full recoveries. However, Don Piper was pronounced dead, at a rural accident, far away from cutting edge life supportive technology. He lay dead, or in a clinical 'death state' for an hour and a half. Here's how quickly our brains can die.

"The brain, however, appears to accumulate ischemic injury faster than any other organ. Without special treatment after circulation is restarted, full recovery of the brain after more than 3 minutes of clinical death at normal body temperature is rare. Usually brain damage or later brain death results after longer intervals of clinical death even if the heart is restarted and blood circulation is successfully restored. Brain injury is therefore the limiting factor for recovery from clinical death."

Three minutes. Don Piper was dead an hour and a half.

Furthermore, if a living organism is worked on in a laboratory setting, here's the record at which, in this case a cat, was brought back to life "Under laboratory conditions at normal body temperature, the longest period of clinical death of a cat (after complete circulatory arrest) survived with eventual return of brain function is one hour."

Piper says several EMT's worked on him from four ambulances. It's said more than one portable EKG device was used to measure his lifeless body, operated by more than one paramedic. By any standard measure of medical science administered by healthcare professionals, Don Piper was a dead man. Now twenty years later, he's been profiled on dozens of TV shows, including most recently Today on NBC with Matt Laurer and Meredith Viera. Piper has written books on the experience, including the aptly title "90 Minutes In Heaven."

Don Piper's reality shattering experience deserves attention. No matter your religious background, or lack thereof, it's clear something exceedingly rare happened that day. The odds that all paramedics and equipment erred simply can't be logically considered. Is Piper a one in a billion case where his body simply refused to give up? Was a preacher's ministrations and singing a soothing physical, auditory or even neurological boost which jump started him back to life?

Or was Don Piper an Earthly example, one which a higher power wanted us to witness? Despite your philosophical take on Piper's 90 Minutes In Heaven, it truly provides us a very special story.

Sources

http://living.aol.com/morning-rush/dead-alive-today/42407189001

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_death

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Piper

http://www.amazon.com/90-Minutes-Heaven-Story-Death/dp/0800759494