“We have a collapse. Low BP and minimal respirations – cause unknown.”

This was the casualty sister’s voice in a small hospital I worked at in the North East of England. I was about to be involved in a weird and creepy event.

We human beings are a diverse bunch of Creatures. The unconscious man I was about to meet was someone with a truly unusual talent. As the sister had told me, he was as flat as a pancake. He had no response to pain. I was able to slide a tube down and into his windpipe without the slightest reaction or movement on his part; – without the aid of any drugs. The gag reflex is I believe the last one to go. He was deeply unconscious.

I rapidly had him connected to a ventilator and hooked up to an IV with bottle of dextrose saline. His vital signs were stable. After X-rays and various other tests we shipped him up to intensive care.

He looked about forty. We could not explain his condition. We had no history. He’d been found collapse outside the hospital. We called in various specialists and no one could work it out. Everybody felt there was some thing ‘odd’, ‘not right, but what?

One of the night nurses came on duty and on hearing the story said, “I’m pretty sure I’ve see this guy before. If it’s him he was in intensive care once when I worked in Essex.” This night we were in Northumberland. “I’ll ring them up in the morning”.

All we had was a scrap of paper with a name on it and a date of birth. I went to bed for some shut eye. About two hours later I received a call to go to intensive care and to get my skates on.

I was greeted with, “You are too late, that chap has up and gone”.

“What do you mean gone? The guy was out to the world a while ago hooked up to a ventilator. Did he take it with him? Is he an Houdini?

“Well! You are not going to believe this. He opened his eyes and looked around the room while still connected up to IV and ventilator. It was freeky. He was fully conscious and able to move around with an ET tube in his windpipe with no coughing or discomfort and on no drugs. He scared me”

“Really! Come on, what happened next?”

“He leant over and picked up some scissors from his bedside cabinet. He cut the ties to the windpipe tube. He then cut the air line to the balloon that seals the tube in his windpipe. He then simply pulled the tube out and he didn’t even cough. I was spell-bound. Next! He ripped the IV out. He got out of bed and came over to me. He said thank you and simply walked out”.

“That’s incredible. How could he have done that? “

The next day, we received a call from the nurse who’d thought she knew him. She’d phoned Essex.

“The story is so extraordinary. This chap used to do this once or twice a year, in the Essex area, for a couple of years in different hospitals. He usually collapses just outside a hospital, an ambulance station or some other medical facility. It’s always been within sight of someone. He ends up connected to all the machinery and within a couple of hours, he just pulls everything off and out and just wanders off with everyone staring at him”.

“Amazing. What else do you have on him?”

“Well, according to the folk down in Essex, he is a dab hand at self hypnosis. They reckon he does this prank for practice and maybe for the fun of it. Some fun! The man himself never gives correct addresses. Looks like he uses false names. He never carries full I.D. on him. He’s been untraceable. No one knows who he is or where he comes from. He is a mystery man, who appears in the night, does his performance and disappears.”

I thanked her for the call.

commentary

This chap’s abilities are astounding. He can render himself unconscious. He can anaesthetise himself. I’d love to meet him and find out whether he knows what he is doing, have a chat. Maybe it’s some sort of fit, nothing magical or woo woo?

If it is a fit, how come he does it outside the hospitals or other medical facility, in sight of someone? And why does he do his disappearing act? And how come he can pull a tube out of his windpipe without so much as a wee sign of discomfort? Fancy being able to do this without coughing. The cough reflex is about the last one to go when dying. No wonder cough mixtures don’t really do any thing.

You meet some amazing people in this world. One lady in her fifties was admitted for tests. She was slowly losing weight. She had every test in the book and she even had an exploratory operation to her belly, to see if anything could be found – nothin was. She died a couple of months later and no significant abnormality of note was found at post-mortem.

I saw a guy on ‘That’s Incredible’ once. He put himself into a clear plastic, waterproof box, He squeezed himself in like a sardine and some friends closed the lid on him. He filled the box. It, with him inside, was lowered into a swimming pool. He, inside this container, was under water with no breathing gear for thirty minutes. The container was then lifted out of the pool and he simply walked out and jumped into the pool for a swim.

There is a whole science of biofeedback. People learn to control their brain waves, alter their skin temperature and heart rate. The involuntary nervous system is maybe coming within the domain of conscious control. There is evidence that the brain and the immune system are feeding information back and forth. Will we soon be able to have voluntary control over this as well?!

As a student, I was taught that the involuntary nervous system was beyond conscious in-put. My teachers were wrong, What else were and are they wrong about? What will we be doing in another fifty years time, that is considered impossible now?

On a TV documentary they showed a film clip of an Iraqis mountain man having an abdominal operation to remove shrapnel. He was lying holding his son’s hand. He was fully conscious and talking with his son, while the surgeon rummaged around in his belly.

Explain that: The surgeon was UK-trained and a locally born. He said that this was a common experience with the Kurds. What untapped abilities do we have? If we can have conscious control of our immune system, then all sorts of exciting possibilities appear on the horizon. If I can learn to improve the power of my Killer Cells, then, . .. . .?

And what other aspects of our bodily functions will we be considering to and actually having control of in years to come? We are living in a exciting times. Will miraculous cures or spontaneous remissions be able to be explained along these lines?

Or is all of my meanderings above twaddle about hoaxes.

Here we are 20 or more years after I wrote the above and I am way more cynical. Still this man and his act makes one think.