'I watched own death on operating table before I was pushed back into my body'

Daily Mirror

26-05-2025

Pam Reynolds Lowery's case is one of the most accurate near-death experiences on record - and now a woman who researched her case explained how the out-of-body experience occured
A woman who had a near-death experience claims she saw things she shouldn't have whilst undergoing major surgery - and recalled the scary ordeal, leaving experts baffled. Pam Reynolds Lowery had one of the most well-documented near-death experiences on record when she had a risky brain operation.
Pam had a "standstill operation" where doctors put her vitals into a near-death state in order to operate on the location of her brain aneurysm. During the procedure, she claimed to have 'floated above a doctor's shoulder' and despite being clinically dead, Pam 'observed' the operation where surgeons were drilling into her head.
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Christina Randall, a podcaster who has extensively researched the bizarre case, has detailed exactly how Pam's body went through an out-of-body experience. She explained how Pam had been experiencing symptoms of dizziness, temporary loss of speech and bouts of paralysis before a scan revealed a large aneurysm close to her brain stem.
Christina explained: "As a last resort, a neurosurgeon of the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, decided that a rarely performed procedure called a standstill operation could improve Pam's chance of surviving."
She continued: "Pam's body temperature was lowered to 50° Fahrenheit – or 10° Centigrade – her breathing and her heartbeat completely stopped and the blood was completely drained from her head," as previously reported by The Mirror. During the operation, her eyes were taped shut, and she wore a headset playing a series of loud clicking sounds over her ears.
These sounds, which would have been intensely annoying if Pam had been conscious, allowed the anaesthetist to confirm that there was no activity in the patient's brain. Christina said: "Pam said during this she felt more aware than normal and her vision was more focused and clearer than normal... her senses became so hyper-aware it was as if she had more than five senses."
She was in such a heightened state that she watched as the surgeons drilled into her skull to access the aneurysm. "She was able to see the electric saw that was pulled out to use on her and she described it as looking like an electric toothbrush," Christina continued. Because of her specific details, it meant she had managed to watch the major surgery from outside her own body.
In her own words, Pam recalled: "I was looking down at the body. I knew it was my body but I didn't care. My vantage point was sort of sitting on the doctor's shoulder. I remember the instrument in his hand, it looked like the handle of my electric toothbrush."
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She then explained: "I had assumed that they were going to open the skull with a saw. I had heard the term 'saw' but what I saw looked a lot more like a drill than a saw – he even had little bits that were kept in this case that looked like the case that my father stored his socket wrenches in when I was a child."
She also remembered the conversations between the doctors and nurses - and while she experienced the whole thing, she wasn't alone. Christina stated: "When she tried making out the figures, she realised that it was her grandmother and uncle and other deceased people that she knew."
Pam specifically mentioned her late uncle, who passed away at just 39, seemed to be acting as a guide. She continued: "My uncle was the one who brought me back down to the body but then I got to where the body was and I looked at the thing and I for sure did not want to get in it."
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She said her body appeared "lifeless" and was "hesitant" to return to it, but her uncle persuaded her to go back. She said he told her it's "like diving into a swimming pool, just jump in" and said he pushed her to give her a "little help". She compared the experience to "jumping into ice water" and, after her operation, amazed the doctors with her recollection while she was "dead".
Despite many people being sceptical of Pam's story, Cardiologist Michael Sabom is convinced that Pam's experience is authentic. He has identified over a hundred instances of anaesthetised or seriously injured individuals having experiences that suggest some form of life after death.