Robert Canaga

I was flying through a swirling blue tube, so fast.

Near Death Experience

The First One
The Set Up

In September of 1965, on a bright and sunny morning, my life changed forever.

Robert CaganaMy car, an old 1951 Ford that my dad had given to me the year before for my 16th birthday, was in the shop of a guy named Joe Tolomei. He owed my Dad a lot of money for all the tires he went through as a circle track racer so Dad made a deal with him to fix up my car. The motor was a flat-head 8 and was fine for any 16 year old at the time, but Dad had other ideas.

Joe had built an engine for his race car from a 1953 Ford truck engine. He went though it and did every thing he could to squeeze more power out of it including balancing and blueprinting. When he took it to the track the racing committee said "NO!" It was too much for the track and so he was stuck with this monster. So now he needed another engine to rebuild and to make less deadly.

Dad decided it would be a good idea to put an engine that was banned from a race track in my car. So I was without a car on a really huge weekend. I had made a date with an older woman, the 18 year old cousin of a girl who I also lusted after. We were going to the drive-in and we were going to waste no time with the movie. She had already shown me serious skin and kissed like she was going to devour me.

I pleaded with dad to use the real car, my brother's 1959 Impala. He had left it with dad for safe keeping but when he got to France he said we could keep it. He bought a 1956 Mercedes Gull wing when he got to Nancy and got settled in at the air base. He later moved to Paris and the car was crushed by a truck that tipped over while going around the big traffic circle near the embassy. Another reason I refuse to drive while in Paris, ever!

Dad ask mom if she minded and she said that as long as I dropped her off early Saturday morning with my sister across town in Sodaville, she was fine with the idea.

I got up extra early Saturday morning and called Kathy to see if she wanted to make a whole day of it and go to the coast, then to the drive-in. She sounded excited and we set up a time. I was waiting in the car for Mom for what seemed like hour until she finally came out and settled in.

As we drove over the bridge in to town she remarked on how pretty the river was and told me to take the road along the east side of town along the river.

As we were about to turn on to River Road a very odd thing happened.

Let me go back in time a bit. When I was about 3, dad and mom loaded me up in the old Chevy, a 1947 Sedan I believe, and we took off down the hill to town. The Mastenbrook's horse had walked through the gate at the bottom of the hill and when Dad hit it, it came though the front window in between mom and dad and ended up on me, head first. I have no real memory of that but I know I was unhurt. However, after that happened I started doing odd things that upset dad a lot. Like the time we were over half way to town in the '51 Ford and I turned around in the seat and started yelling that the barn was on fire. We were so far away from the house there was no possible way I could have seen flames or even a glow but I would not relent. Dad was yelling at me to shut up and finally slapped me. That did no good so he angrily turned around a drove back home, thinking that dinner had been ruined by a screaming brat. As we pulled in to the driveway, a small flame flickered in to sight under the barn.

Dad had been drying corn in an old tin bushel tub over another one with a bed of coals. They were set up on bricks but a coal had dropped through a rusted out hole in the tub and dropped to the straw. The fire was just gaining a hold when we got home and Dad easily put it out with the hose.

He did not speak to me for a really long time after that, just watched me.

A few more events like that including running away from the little one room school at the base of the hill in the middle of a lesson, just in time to find my mom had fallen through the back door window while on a ladder cleaning the gutters. She had badly cut her arm and I stopped the bleeding and called the neighbors to come help. That also was rewarded with a quiet that countered mom's over stated praise.
Back to 1965
Anyway, back to 1965. As we turned on to River Road I had an overwhelming feeling that something was wrong. I stopped the car and put on the seat belt. I had never worn one, my old Ford did not have them, and I was adamant that Mom put her's on also. She refused saying it hurt her hernia and she would be fine. I relented and we had a pleasant drive along the Santiam River with Mom commenting on the sites and me thinking about getting laid.

As we turned off the river and headed to Hwy 20 by way of Weirich Drive, she suggested we take the short-cut, Weirich Cut Off, to Sodaville Road. This was a short gravel road and at the time was overgrown with bushes so you were driving through dense plants on each side, ones that leaned in to the road. At the end of the road was a raised railroad crossing, one of those where you have to drive up and over the track. The crossing sign was so old it had collapsed and the "X" was almost straight up and down. The sun was over my shoulder and the bushes were brightly lit. The brush had not been cut back for the year and the tracks were raised just enough that you had to slow down to get over them. This has changed now as they have lowered the track and removed most of the brush from around the tracks.

As I slowed down to look I could not see down the track to the left. I drove forward and heard a thud.
NDE
I was flying through a swirling blue tube, so fast.

As I came "up" into the open I was on the edge of a huge area with , for lack of a better word, souls as far as I could see, some close, some forever far away, but there was a deep sense of perfectness, quiet, and wonder. It was like being with everyone who had ever lived or ever would all at once. I could feel different people. I felt such overwhelming joy and love.

The fact that there is no there there, no sight, sound, anything we can relate to, it is the best I can do to put the whole thing in words that may make sense.

As I came up to the edge I was met and embraced by such a powerful feeling of joy, good, and well being that I began to forget everything before. I could remember every thing that had ever happened to me, see the faces of everyone I had ever known, and this was all at once and forever at the same time, well, I use the word time because that is what we know, but there is no time there.

I was given a very direct choice of whether to stay or return but was encouraged to return.

The only way to describe what happened next was to have you visualize being braided like strands of flowing water with other souls, made whole, and returned in to this world to a point above the car. I could see the whole world, then the horizon, then the scene below me.

There was a train with our car stuck to the front, a crowd of frantic people, an ambulance was pulling up, fire trucks, cars and trucks stopped on both sides of the road. I watched this for a very long time, then the strand continued down in to the car and I was back inside my body.

I opened my eyes to bright white. My right arm was free so I lifted it and brought it to my eyes only to find cloth covering me. I pulled it off and heard people yelling and a few screams. As I looked over a woman who was holding my Mom's head fainted.

There was a flurry of panic and excitement and one of the guys started talking to me. I focused on what was going on and realized there was a train in my lap. My legs were bent back at the knee just a bit, the coupler was atop my lap and the knuckle was resting just to my right. The seat belt had pulled me down with the frame of the car and held me while the couple came through the door, or really, over the door.

I felt no pain, just a lot of pressure but my right hand had a piece of window glass though it between the thumb and fingers and I was watching it start to bleed. Blood had been pooling in my arm and now things were working again so the blood was really coming out.

They wrapped my hand with the glass shard still in, I guess to keep it from bleeding even more.

The medic ask me if I could understand him. I told him "Hell yes, get this fucking train off me!"

I ask about Mom and they said, as they got her out of the car and in to the ambulance, that she had made at least 7 trips from the front seat to the back seat, like a rag doll.

The tires were on the ties and none of them had lost air so it was a very bumpy trip. 510 feet sideways down a railroad track. To put that in perspective, think two football fields minus 30 yards.

The sheet had been put over me by one of the ambulance guys. He found no pulse, no breathing (he said he used a hand mirror to see if there was any breathing) and my hand was not bleeding. They were all convinced I was gone for good so when I pulled the sheet off after so long a time it was a real shock!

It is hard to figure out just how long I was gone but the train hit us, traveled 510 feet, cars stopped, the ambulance was called and they had been there long enough to get Mom almost out of the car when I came back. The hospital is 4 miles from the crash so they may have taken 5 or 6 minutes to get there.

The reason it is so hard to put a time line on the event is because there is no time there. It seemed like a lifetime that I was there. There was so much to learn. I tell people it is kind of like being a person living in a deep forest that has never seen anyone but his friends and family, never seen a plane in the air. Suddenly a helicopter drops a net on you and takes you at the speed of light to Times Square at midnight , leaves you there for a few minutes, then flies you back, drops you in the middle of your village and your friends all run up and ask "What was it like?"
Getting Out
I was told to stay calm and still. They could not see my left side but there was blood visable, and my head had a small cut above the left eye brow that was bleeding a lot. The car had been filled the day before so there was gas everywhere. They could not figure out how to get the train off me. They could not use cutting torches because of the gas. They let the air out of the tires thinking that would lower the car. No luck. I finally told them to go and get the tie down chains off the Rose Logging truck because the trailer was up and it was empty and ties the car to the tracks and back the train off.

One guy said "What about your legs?

"What the hell? Are you afraid you're going to hurt me? Christ!"

So they got the chains off the truck, wrapped them around the ties, hooked them to the frame and the engineer started to back the train up. There was an awful sound of steel on steel as the knuckle slid over my lap.My legs bent backwards even farther and I could feel everything pulling from my waist down. The pain was intense and I saw white dots. Suddenly the door sprang up and away from me, my legs popped up a bit, and my arm was free. I was pretty torn up from the upper arm to below my elbow, but that was all the damage I could see. They got me on to the stretcher and examined me, prodding and poking to assess any internal injury. In the ambulance I spent a great deal of time floating in and out and watching from above as we passed through town. I remember thinking how beautiful the day was.

A State Policeman went to our tire shop before he found out I was still alive and asked Dad if he knew a John William Canaga. Dad said he was his son and lived in LA. The cop told him the car was out by highway 20 and the boy in it was dead. Dad's name was John William Canaga but every one called him Bill, hence Bill Canaga Tire Company. This was a while after they got me out.

He took off for the hospital where he was told the woman would be.

When he got there he rushed in to the emergency room and past me. He ran over to Mom, who was in a coma and was being treated for all of her injuries, including broken ribs, a concussion, broken knee caps, and lots of cuts and bruises.

As Dad was standing there in shock I spoke up and asked how Mom was. He almost fell over.

He rushed over and grabbed me as I told him a was sorry for wrecking the car and hurting Mom. He was so confused and excited he could not say much except "to hell with the car" and "Ruth will be fine!"
Dead on the Radio
The whole day KGAL had been telling everyone I died in a train crash. This was really annoying as that was the station I was listening to in the hospital bed. I had the nurse call my friend Larry, Kathy and Carrol, and my sister so they would know I was still alive.

So a full day of being dead on the radio was a really odd thing. My dad even tried calling out there and saying I was alive but they thought he was a prank caller and hung up on him. Finally, later that night about 11:00 after having a few shots, dad drove out to the studio and stopped them from playing requests in my honor, told them I was in the hospital and that yes, they could call me in the morning.

They did but who listens to the radio on Sunday morning?

So after hearing myself be dead on the radio all day and being told that I would not be able to walk for several weeks, I started ringing for a nurse. I had to go to the bathroom really bad and they would not come and help. I got up out of bed and fell on the floor, dragged myself up and fell again, and again, and again but I made it to the bathroom. When I was done I was in no mood to lay down so I held myself up on the bar that runs along the wall, pulled myself along the wall to the door, out the door and down the hall. I kept getting my legs under me and walking by lifting my hips and letting my legs fall ahead. This worked well enough that I made it all the way around the hall from my room and back again.

By this time about an hour later, I was able to balance without the bar as long as I did not let my knees bend forward.

Must have looked pretty funny.

I got up about 6 more times in the night and walked so by the morning when the Dr came in I got out of bed and told him off for telling me I could not walk.

I was still on a lot of drugs for the pain but was in a much better mood. Mom was across the hall and I went over often to check on her.

Larry showed up with the books I had asked for and I lay back in the bed like a dead guy, breathing raspy short breaths and moaning. He was only there for a minute and started to leave. I sat up and said, "Hey! Where you going"?" He almost slugged me.

I must admit I did milk the whole pain thing and got some fast hot sex from both girls (cousins) who came to visit. Monday morning some lawyers from Southern Pacific came and they talked Dad in to settling for $250,000 instead of suing. That was a lot of money then and Dad needed it for the tire shop so I signed a paper and that was that. I later learned that the brakeman had a heart attack when he saw the car on the tracks, the train was going 45 MPH (they told everyone it was going 30 mph) and did not blow a whistle before the crossing. They were hauling lumber out of a mill and were full. That is why it took so long to stop.

On Tuesday I was back in school on crutches. As people would see me they would either scream, faint, or just stare.

My first class was Biology with Paul Brown. I sat in my usual seat and when he read the roll call he skipped my name. I waited for a few names then said "Hey! You forgot me!" I swear half the class about fell of their chairs and so did Brown. All we talked about for the rest of the day in any class was the wreck, who saw it, why they said I was dead, why wasn't I dead, and what was it like being dead.

After a few days I tossed the crutches and began to realize I was not the same person who had left on that Saturday morning.

Without thinking about it too much or realizing this was not normal, I began to see, hear, smell, and fell EVERYTHING around me. I could hear what people were saying across the room and the same time I was watching something else. It was like being in the 360 degree lens I was in during my ascent back to the car. It was a little overwhelming and it took a long time to get used to it. Then when I did I just assumed everyone was doing the same thing. To this day I still am amazed at how little people see and hear of what is around them. This is a talent I have put to good use over the years in the Army and just about every day.

The other odd thing is my hands. They heat up so much they almost glow. I can put my hands a foot away from someone and they can feel the heat. I have worked with people who have joint problems, and other health issues. They clam it helps but I have no idea what or why it is there.
The next two
August 8th 1994
After three years of a medical trial testing a drug that reduced the production of acid in the stomach, many endoscopy's ( and other-end-oscopys), and the assurance of my Doctor that it would be an easy and quick surgery, a Nissen fundoplication, I went to the VA Hospital in Portland ,Oregon. After prep and a brief meeting with the surgeon in charge, I was put under.
Hello Again
I was back to where I had been many years before, surrounded by light and warmth, and the feeling of familiarity of those who had been close to me in the past. Again I was bathed in the feeling of perfectness. I was quite suddenly pulled back to the room and I could see the people panicking and feel their dread. I watched as they worked on me and used the paddles to kick start me. Then I was awake in the recovery room. I was still trying to organize what had happened when one of the nurses and a doctor came in and told me"Well, three hours in to a two hour surgery, things went bad. My thorax muscles had a spasm and the co2(?) that they had inflated me with was expelled up though my lungs. My heart stopped, my lungs were "popcorned" whatever that means, and I was gone. The got me back and re-inflated me, finished the procedure, stitched up the little laparoscopic holes and all was well.

They sat me up and gave me a little pillow to hold against my stomach and told me to breath carefully and slowly for a few hours. Then the left and another nurse came in and hooked my up to a couple of monitors. My girlfriend came in and sat with me, held my hand, and I dozed off. I woke up feeling very out of breath, like I had just run a sprint. "Odd" thought I, as I began to try to breath in but could only take short small breaths. I told the nurse, whom I had to send Maria to get, that I was sure something was wrong. She assured me that it was normal to feel that way and not to worry.
Out of Body
About an hour later (this was about 6 hours after they had finished the surgery,) I was beginning to feel panicked. I could not breath in more than a small gulp of air. I felt as if I were drowning! I kept trying to get someone to pay attention to what was going on but they simply would not respond. I sat there and in one moment I shall never forget, I yelled, stood up, and listened to the monitor go from a pulse to a solid tone. I had flat lined. I was out of my now limp and quite dead body. I floated up and watched in wonder as they ran in to the room, threw me on a gurney and ran with me down the hall in to an elevator, then out in to a hall and in to a room where they threw me over the bed on my front, took huge needles and pushed them in to my back and up in to my lung cavity and drained the fluid off. I can still see these two people working in tandem drawing out the grey thick fluid.

The then tuned me over and began to prod. The one Dr. with dark hair and an accent jumped up on me and put a scalpel to the skin just under my left nipple and cut in along the rib. I woke up.

They said you could hear the scream two floors away.

They inserted a rib spreader and then put in a tube. They then repeated the process on my left side under my arm, TWICE. They missed the first time and had to do it again. If you take your finger right now and find the place where you are most sensitive, about half way from your arm pit to where your elbow touches you side and press you will find the place where they cut me open and put in another hose. Three tubes all in all. This was a most unpleasant experience and one I do not recommend. Ever.

I spent many weeks on my back with the glopitat-glopitta machine attached to me like a hungry octopus. I became weaker and lost more weight until I was about 165lb. I was being eaten from the inside. When I had deflated, the laporoscopic tools that were inside me nicked a bowel and punctured the pleura, introducing an e-coli infection in to my lung cavity were he and his offspring set up house keeping and were very happy, warm, and well fed.
3:00 pm
Finally one afternoon a new face showed up at the door and introduced my to the head of thoracic surgery from San Francisco General. He informed me that I needed to have a cat MRI so he could see how bad things were "in there" and tapped my chest.

My nice young female Dr. , who had shown up a few days prior, told the nurse to draw a blood sample and to fit me with another IV line.
4:00 pm
After a valiant effort and about ten tries she gave up and was called away. My Dr. came back and was less than kind to the poor nurse. She picked up my left arm and shoved the needle directly in to the vein. Pure art. She then found the one small vessel left in my right hand and inserted an IV line.

She took my gurney and wheeled it down the hall, down the elevator, down a another hall to the MRI room, where the staff had already put on their coats and were headed out the door. She ordered them to put me through and the grudgingly did.
5:00pm
The doctors came in to the room next to the MRI lab and he sat down on the gurney, while she took my hand."You are going to die if we do not do this surgery right now."

I smiled and told them they were too late.

They said I had about a 30% chance of living if they operated within the next couple of hours and brought me a phone. "Call your family and friends and tell them good-by."
Good-by, Perhaps
Those calls were the best and worst calls I have ever made. I cry as I write this thinking of the pure love that I felt for those who had been there with me and that were now hearing me say farewell.

As they put me under I felt the most amazing sense of peace. I opened my eyes to the smiling face of the Dr. He patted my hand and congratulated me on surviving. "You must be here for some other purpose. You must have work to do."

They had spread my ribs on both sides and moved my lungs around in my chest and rinsed out all the junk they could. I guess it was quite a difficult surgery as they kept coming in and telling me how amazing it was that I was still alive.

I left the hospital a few weeks late weighing 162lb. When I went in I was at 219lb. Not a weight loss plan I would recommend.

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