A doctor "after an accident I saw the soul of my deceased wife"

A doctor who worked for 25 years in emergency medicine told students about some of his surreal experiences in the field - including a meeting in which he saw the spirit or image of the deceased wife of an accident victim who looked like hover in the air on him in the operating room.

Pacific Northwest University hosted a public event on Wednesday with ex-emergency physician Jeff O'Driscoll, who spoke with students about how to deal with patients experiencing near-death experiences. O'Driscoll says that every day is different for emergency patients: one moment you may have to deal with a baby who has a nose and another moment you may have a man with a gunshot wound.

"On one occasion, for example, a young man came in with a gunshot wound to his chest, and we opened his chest and had a heart massage - which even as an emergency doctor is a rather unusual experience," said O'Driscoll. But O'Driscoll says the most extraordinary cases he faced were those in which patients had near-death experiences. He says that in those situations many patients have spiritual encounters such as feeling like they are out of their bodies or that they are talking to loved ones who have passed away or divine beings. O'Driscoll says that while treating a man who had been in a devastating car accident in which his wife and son died on the scene, O'Driscoll himself had a spiritual experience and saw the man's wife in the trauma suite .

"While in the emergency room, I entered the trauma suite and his wife, his deceased wife, was standing above him in the air, looking down on him and looking at the care he was receiving," said O'Driscoll . Now O'Driscoll has quit his job dealing with emergency patients and travels around the country talking about the spiritual experiences he has personally encountered.

O'Driscoll says he doesn't expect medical students to believe in the spiritual encounters that some patients have or even link him to being a religious thing, but instead get ready just because they might have to deal with patients like that during their career . He says that if there is something he has learned in emergency medicine in this quarter of a century it is to appreciate life and be grateful every day. "You come to appreciate the people you love and how a sudden and immediate change can come in someone's life," said O'Driscoll.