(NaturalNews) Three teenage boys fell through the ice on Lake Ste. Louise, the smaller of two lakes in the City of Lake St. Louis, Missouri, during Martin Luther King Day, January 19. By the time a rescue team arrived, one of the boys had almost made it to shore, another was clinging to ice on the lake, but a third was missing from view. That's because he was under the ice and underwater, drowned.

That was 14-year-old John Smith. The two rescued boys were treated for hypothermia and that was the end of that. But it was around 15 minutes before John was hauled out of the water, not breathing and without a pulse. CPR was performed as the rescue team rushed him to nearby St. Joseph Hospital West in St. Louis, MO.

After arriving to St. Joseph West's ER, CPR was continued even though it appeared John's condition was hopeless. The on-duty physician, Dr. Kent Sutterer, explained, "In my mind this is a very grim, very poor chance of survival already. The question was raised: how long should they continue [CPR]. He was dead for 45 minutes."

Upon Dr. Sutterer's announcing the bad news to John's mother, Joyce Smith, she rushed into the room where John was and started praying loudly. She doesn't remember every word of her spontaneous outspoken prayer, but she remembers pleading, "Holy God, please send your Holy Spirit to save my son. I want my son, please save him."

Almost immediately, one of the ER's medical team announced that John's pulse was back. Dr. Sutterer was so shaken and moved by the experience that he handwrote a report stating that Smith's "heart was jump started by the Holy Spirit listening to the request of his praying mother." After all, what else could he say?

After going through an extended hypothermia experience and not breathing for so long, what is equally amazing is that John seems to have pulled through without significant brain damage. Only 48 hours after drowning to death, he was sitting up and answering questions from medical staff and local reporters.

Dr. Jeremy Garrett, who helped Smith through his recovery, called the entire spectacle a "bonafide miracle." John's dad, John Smith Sr., also considered the event miraculous. "I know it doesn't fit into our neat little box of today, but again, you can't refute the clinical evidence."

Despite being able to answer questions, John claimed he had no recollection of the event. Some others who came back from the dead have had better recall of what happened to them while their bodies were dead.

The similarity of many "near death" experiences

Most near death experiences (NDE) have common features among those who are able to relate them, regardless of religious backgrounds, even with no earthly religious activity or belief.

Actually, they're death experiences where the soul in its subtle body winds up in a different universe of light, beauty and love. They become visitors in the astral realms, but not necessarily permanent residents.

Most are returned to the earthly realm to work out more of their life's issues. And virtually all who get to visit those dreamlike realms mention how they didn't want to come back to this physical realm. But they were gently told that they weren't ready to stay yet and had to return.

For most NDE folks, it was a profound lesson in the levels of life beyond the physical realm that made earthly life more rewarding than before their NDEs.

And the reassurance of life beyond the body's death had given many NDE folks more courage to live life fully without the pervasive fear of death, humanity's foundation for nearly all fears and phobias.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.theblaze.com

http://www.usatoday.com

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