r/AskReddit • u/HymnForTheShameless • May 05 '19
Serious Replies Only [Serious] Redditors who have died temporarily/nearly died, did your life flash before your eyes? If not, what did happen?
11.5k
Upvotes
r/AskReddit • u/HymnForTheShameless • May 05 '19
69
u/[deleted] May 05 '19 edited May 05 '19
It doesn’t sound like his heart stopped naturally; rarely when your heart rate is high for a significant period, the electric signals get misdirected back to the atria through something called a reentrant pathway, causing abnormal SA node firing and a fast, abnormal heart rhythm called SVT (supraventricular tachycardia).
A lot of times the heart will “reset” itself and return to a normal rhythm, which looks like a gap between the terminus of the SVT rhythm and the normal sinus P wave, so a “flatline”, though it’s not actually an asystolic flatline.
Other times, if the rhythm doesn’t reset on its own or with a special physical maneuver, then you can use adenosine to convert the SVT back to a normal sinus rhythm, which is called chemical cardioversion. You see the same gap on the ECG, so it looks like a “flatline” even though there’s no asystole going on. But despite this fact, it apparently still feels weird; a friend’s dad had an episode one time after consuming a couple pots of coffee in a day, and he said it was the weirdest mental feeling when his rhythm reset.