Near Death Exeprience

My wife and I migrated to the United States in October 1995. In July 1997, we discussed among ourselves that we need to become a little more health conscious and decided to join the nearest gym. The very first visit to the gym was excellent noticing so many people walking in the treadmill, some doing the stair master and others doing exercises that would help them tune the lower and upper bodies. My wife ordered number of energy products for $100 dollars apart from signing a contract of membership for a period of 3 years that is unbreakable.


When I left from India I was diagnosed with high blood pressure due to stress level at work and the need to work from 7 a.m. in the morning to 10 p.m. in the night. After moving to the U.S. within a year, the Company went public that intensified my hours of working. My wife had good reasons to be afraid of my health and she thought that the only way I would go to the gym was if she accompanied me. I was on medication for hypertension since 1995 as you all know, once I start taking medication for hypertension; I need to take it for lifetime.



The next day, my wife and I along with my son who was 9 years old at that time went to the gym. We asked my son to remain in a play house inside the gym and there was a baby sitter watching all the kids. We both moved into the main hall were enormous amount of equipment were located. Because we were new members to the gym, a personal trainer was appointed to train us to get into the rhythm. This trainer was busy with his earlier schedule when we walked in. I am being an over enthusiastic individual, I have called my wife and we went together do some exercises. After 5 minutes, I got very attracted by stair master and told my wife to move over to that part of the gym. She cautioned me that it would be better if we take instructions before we really start doing things of our own. I ignored her request and asked her to accompany me. She got on a stair master and I was right next to her on another machine. She was a quick study and adjusted the settings and started exercising. I struggled a little bit further but managed to set it up at a speed to claim 27 stairs in 3 minutes. The computer was resetting the target as per my exercise speed, my wife did not bather about the setting and kept doing at the same pace. My ego did not allow me to lose to the computer and hence I adjusted my speed to catch up with the computer. After 3 minutes, we both stepped out to take an energy drink.



The instructor called us for the next exercise. We both walked towards him and I felt some discomfort in my ability to follow instructions. After a few seconds, I told the instructor that I was not feeling too well and grabbed a chair as quickly as I could. Suddenly, when I opened my eyes, I noticed that I was sitting shirtless and someone was slapping me real hard asking me to tell my name and simultaneously applying ice on my back. I saw an ambulance parked right in front of the entrance and two people asked me to lie down in a stretcher. A paramedic measured my blood pressure and it read 40/30. My body was shaking so uncontrollably. Within the next five minutes, the paramedic measured the BP again and again and found that it moved up to 60/40, 80/60, 90/70 in the next 3 readings. By that time I felt alright and I politely declined to the paramedics that I would not like to go to an emergency room. The gym staff asked me to sign about 20 sheets agreeing not to hold them responsible for what had happened.


I drove the car back slowly to my house and relaxed all day. My wife explained later what happened. I went to the chair and slowly started losing my consciousness. I also remembered that the last words of mine to my wife before I became unconscious were, “I am unable to see anything as a white screen completely blocked my vision.” My wife told me that my tongue came out and at some point of time she thought I was dead as I was not breathing. That was one near death experience I had in my life. The next day I went to the cardiologist and he simply asked me to go through a stress test and told me that the results were normal. Then he explained what happened when I exercised in the gym. I was taking a BP medication which they call as beta blocker and that medicine helps to reduce the heart rate to control blood pressure. I took that medicine just before I left for the gym. The stair master helped me to raise the heart rate very rapidly and the medicine tried to reduce the heart rate rapidly. Net result, medicine won the battle and stopped my heart. I was gasping for breath. He suggested that I should not do hard exercises that would increase the heart rate beyond 120-130 per minute.



Needless to say, our venture to the gym lasted just a day but we paid $ 35 for the next 3 years as it was unbreakable contract. Since then, all I do is to walk around the subdivision for 30 minutes and that is it. One benefit derived out of that near death experience is I have lost the fear of death as I consider every day after that incident as bonus to me.

 

RGS,

Thank you for your kind wishes and for reading this blog.

Viswa

 

Thank you Nihasvin for your feedback.

Viswa

 

Dear Mrs.Srinivasan:

Thank you for your feedback. What you said is absolutely true.

Viswa

 

Thank you for your feedback. You are absolutely right. Each person should do only what they should be doing as exercise and no more no less. Unstructured exercise is not good. Especially, if anyone is on medication, they need to check up with the physician first before venturing anything out.

Viswa