Dead Pool 17th September 2023

A relatively quiet week for us which included the sad passing of Maddy Anholt at the age of 35 to brain cancer.  

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Sir Ian Wilmut, 79, British embryologist (Dolly), complications from Parkinson’s disease.  
• Jean Boht, 91, English actress (Bread, Funny Man, Distant Voices, Still Lives), complications from dementia.  
• Zeus, 3, American Great Dane dog, world’s tallest dog, pneumonia following cancer surgery. 
• Billy Miller, 43, American actor (The Young and the Restless, General Hospital, All My Children).
• Joy Chambers, 76, Australian actress (The Restless Years, The Young Doctors, Neighbours).  
• The career of the rapist Russell Brand. 

In Other News

Sum 41 singer Deryck Whibley has been admitted to hospital with pneumonia, his wife has told fans. In a post shared on Instagram on Friday, Ariana Cooper Whibley – who has been married to the “In Too Deep” rocker for eight years – updated fans on Whibley’s health. Posting two photos, one showing the 43-year-old being stretchered into an ambulance and the other of his hand wearing a medical bracelet, Cooper Whibley explained that the incident had occurred on their wedding anniversary. “ Deryck and I were suppose to be in Chicago right now, celebrating our eight year wedding anniversary but the universe had a different plan for us,” the model wrote. “We spent the entire night in the ER and will now be spending the next few days here in the hospital as he fights through pneumonia. The scariest part is that there is a lot of strain on his heart and they are telling us that there is a possibility of heart failure.” She continued: “This is obviously not our first time in a situation like this but it brings back a lot of really difficult memories seeing him back in a hospital bed connected to wires and IVs. I know how strong he is because I have witnessed what he has been able to overcome but that doesn’t make it any easier to see. I’ll do my best to keep everyone updated but if you could keep him in your heart over the next few days, we could really use it.” Whibley, who is a founding member of Sum 41, has suffered a number of health issues over the last decade. In 2013, Cooper Whibley rushed the Canadian musician to hospital after he collapsed in his kitchen. There, he learnt that his liver and kidney had failed due to alcohol abuse. He was placed in a coma for a week and has been sober since. In an interview with the Flying Monkeys, Whibley said that he had been “very touch and go” in hospital and had “almost died”.  

Chris Evans has shared a positive update on his health, after it was reported he was diagnosed with skin cancer last month. In August, the DJ revealed that doctors had discovered a malignant melanoma on his leg, during a live appearance on his Virgin Media radio show. “We need to discuss what’s going on with this issue. It is a melanoma,” Evans, 57, told listeners. “There’s this phrase called a malignant melanoma – you know once you get something and you find out all about it – that is a redundant phrase because if it is a melanoma, it is malignant.” On Thursday, the presenter revealed that the procedure to remove the melanoma mole had been successful by posting a picture of his healing leg on social media. The image shows Evans’s calf on an operating table, with the site where the melanoma was previously visible now replaced by stitched-up skin. “And that’s a W.R.A.P,” his caption began, adding that he was celebrating with a “cuzza” – a curry – and a non-alcoholic beer. Evans ended his message with: “#getyourselfchecked/checkafriend Peace&Love people. HAPPY THURSDAY”. Evans has spoken about his health publicly on several occasions throughout his career. In 2009, he had a skin cancer scare and spoke at the time about visiting the doctor to investigate some unusual marks he’d discovered on his body around Christmas. In 2011, he spoke about undergoing his first colonoscopy due to instances of cancer in his family. In an interview with the Flying Monkeys, he revealed that some pre-cancerous “nasties” were discovered and removed. “The doctor said the only thing I could have done wrong was not come to see him,” Evans added. Then, in 2015, Evans had a prostate cancer scare but was given the all-clear. 

On This Day

• 1908 – The Wright Flyer flown by Orville Wright, with Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge as passenger, crashes, killing Selfridge, who becomes the first airplane fatality.
• 1976 – The Space Shuttle Enterprise is unveiled by NASA.
• 2001 – The New York Stock Exchange reopens for trading after the September 11 attacks, the longest closure since the Great Depression.

Deaths

• 1985 – Laura Ashley, Welsh fashion designer, founded Laura Ashley plc (b. 1925).
• 1999 – Frankie Vaughan, English singer and actor (b. 1928).
• 2020 – Robert W. Gore, American engineer and businessman, co-inventor of Gore-Tex (b. 1937).

 New Dimensions of Reality

Cardiac arrest patients may experience “new dimensions of reality” once they are revived by performing CPR up to an hour after their hearts stop, suggests a new study.

Recent research on the brain activity of dying people has shed light on the dream-like state some individuals appear to experience before they expire. These studies, including one published in February last year, seem to provide explanations for reports of people vividly recalling their lives in near-death experiences.

Now, a new study, published in the journal Resuscitation, adds more evidence that people may experience life’s memories flash before their eyes during the near-death experience following cardiac arrest.

The research, led by those from the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, assessed reports from survivors of cardiac arrest who described lucid death experiences that occurred while they were seemingly unconscious. 

Fewer than 10 per cent of the 567 patients studied, who received CPR in the hospital, recovered sufficiently to be discharged, scientists said. Four in 10 patients who survived, however, recalled some degree of consciousness during CPR that could not be captured by standard measures. In a subset of these patients, about 40 per cent had brain activity that almost returned to normal from a “flatline” state at points even an hour into CPR. 

EEG scans of these patients reveal gamma, delta, theta, alpha and beta brain waves associated with higher mental function, indicating they may be having a recall of memories. 

Cardiac arrest survivors have long recalled having heightened awareness and powerful, lucid experiences.

In popular literature, this has included “out of body” experiences, observing events without pain or distress, as well as a meaningful evaluation of their past actions and relationships.

The new study finds these experiences of death could be different from hallucinations, delusions, illusions, dreams or CPR-induced consciousness.

Researchers suspect the brain’s processes in such people during this state may be opening access to “new dimensions of reality”, including a lucid recall of all stored memories from early childhood to death.

These new dimensions, according to the study, include experiences of people’s deeper consciousness such as all their memories, thoughts, intentions and actions towards others “from a moral and ethical perspective”.

The latest findings, according to scientists, “opens the door to a systematic exploration of what happens when a person dies”.

“Although doctors have long thought that the brain suffers permanent damage about 10 minutes after the heart stops supplying it with oxygen, our work found that the brain can show signs of electrical recovery long into ongoing CPR,” said study author Sam Parnia from NYU. “This is the first large study to show that these recollections and brain wave changes may be signs of universal, shared elements of so-called near-death experiences,” Dr Parnia said.

These near-death experiences can provide a glimpse into a real, yet little-understood dimension of human consciousness that becomes uncovered with death. 

Researchers said such experiences may also guide the design of new ways to restart the heart or prevent brain injuries and also hold implications for transplantation, raising questions related to the timing of organ donation.

However, scientists agree that research until now has “neither proved nor disproved” the meaning of patients’ experiences and claims of awareness in relation to death. 

They called for further studies on the recalled experience surrounding death and the need to further study psychological outcomes emerging out of cardiac arrest as part of the broader post-intensive care syndrome.

“The recalled experience surrounding death now merits further genuine empirical investigation without prejudice,” scientists wrote in the study.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Ella Purnell (27), Cassandra Peterson (72), Bruce Spence (78), Mickey Rourke (71), Jennifer Tilly (65), Madeline Zima (38), Amy Poehler (52), Nick Jonas (31), Danny John-Jules (63), Tom Hardy (46), Tommy Lee Jones (77), Oliver Stone (77), John Bradley (35), Brendan O’Carroll (68), Prince Harry (39), Sam Neill (76), Andrew Lincoln (50), Lolly Adefope (33), Walter Koenig (87), Alfie Allen (37), Linda Gray (83), Tyler Hoechlin (36), Virginia Madsen (62), Roxann Dawson (65), Elizabeth Henstridge (36), and Johnny Vegas (52).