Juan Carlos Madrid’s near-death experience

Step 1

August 8, 2022 · Before

He has surgery so he can breathe while he sleeps

Juan Carlos Madrid is Colombian and lives in Barcelona. He was 44, with a wife and a son.

Ever since he moved to Spain, he had had sleep apnea. This means that while he slept, his throat closed and he stopped breathing. To fix it, he had robotic surgery. The surgeons removed part of the base of his tongue and opened up his airway.

He had some minor bleeding. So the doctors kept him sedated for five days, with a breathing tube. Then he woke up. He was still in the ICU, but the worst seemed to be over.

Step 2

Night of August 15 · Awake in the ICU

He says good night to his family and falls asleep

That night he texted his mother and his wife to say good night. Then he fell asleep.

Juan Carlos says that what he went through began right there, as he fell asleep.

Step 5

Exact time unknown · His account

Juan Carlos says he reaches a city in ruins

He arrived in a destroyed city, as if after a war. Everything was gray. Along a road, people walked past with their heads down, in silence. They didn’t come near him.

Other people came toward him. Their faces looked almost tattooed. They frightened him. But he could move instantly, and they never caught up with him.

Juan Carlos says it was “what Catholics call” purgatory.

Step 7

Exact time unknown · His account

Juan Carlos says he sees his family suffering and that something feeds him

He found himself inside a dark, curved place, like a transparent placenta. He was falling, as if on a roller coaster.

Below him he could see his wife, his mother, and his sister, suffering. He shouted to them, but they couldn’t hear him.

In there, something fed him and calmed him. He calls it “the manna.” This was the longest part.

Juan Carlos says that at the end he heard the surgeon say they had finished stitching and to clean him up. He felt the cold of the liquid they were cleaning him with. And he fell asleep.

Step 8

Days later · Awake, unable to speak

He wakes up and talks by writing on a whiteboard

When he woke up, he told his wife he had come back for her. Since he couldn’t speak, he wrote on a small whiteboard with a marker.

His wife took photos of what he wrote, before it was erased. Some of those photos appear in his book.

During those days, his sister told him, “in broad strokes,” what had happened since the early hours of August 16. His book doesn’t say whether she told him how long the resuscitation had lasted.

He writes that neither the doctors nor his family had wanted to give him many details.

Step 9

August 26 or 27 · Ten days after the cardiac arrest

He dreams of the number 45 and writes it on the whiteboard

One night he dreamed of a number: 45. He saw it everywhere.

When his wife arrived, he wrote it on the whiteboard for her. He asked her to write it down so they could play it in the lottery.

She was surprised. She wrote it down and left without saying anything to him. She did know what it meant. The doctors had told her the resuscitation had lasted 45 minutes.

Juan Carlos writes that he had never heard that number, at least not consciously.

He reproduces his medical record in his book. It shows the resuscitation: “45min.”

Step 10

Afterward

He writes a book and puts his family first

He spent 37 days in the hospital. He was discharged on September 14, 2022.

The following year he published a book about what he went through. It is called Tranquilo, ya despertaste en el paraíso [Easy now, you’ve already woken up in paradise]. It also has contributions from his wife and his sister.

Juan Carlos says one thing has changed. Work used to come before everything. Now his family comes first. He doesn’t see himself as a better person, and he doesn’t say a miracle happened to him.

One question remains: how did he come to dream of exactly 45?