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A) "Did Gary die or not?" There's no reason to think he died other than their conviction that he died. Even their account said it was a "COMA." Medicine keeping people in a coma alive is not startling, coming out of a coma is not startling, either. B) "Could he then breathe on his own without functioning lungs?" There's no reason to think his lungs were non-functional nor significantly damaged, other than her testimony. "Could this have been a miracle from God giving Gary a new set of lungs?" Possibly. Equally possible? His lungs were not damaged to the degree you were told- if at all. It's all based on their testimonies, nothing from the reporter actually spending time in the hospital. If I were to place a guess, the only reason he didn't follow up on this was that he was already supremely confident this whole story was "an exercise in creative thinking." Otherwise, he'd have been all over the hospital, getting quotes, photocopying medical reports and diagnoses and so on. C) I'm sure there's more remarkable testimonies than this one- but let's finish with this one before getting to others. As for this one, it's full of question marks. I accept he's in decent health now, and that he had some sort of attack before. Anything else would need the hospital or a doctor who treated him to document something- and this entire article skipped that step. It doesn't guarantee any of this was false, but it does nothing whatsoever to support the claims. They documented that the couple made these claims.

there is no evidence gary died. there is less than no evidence that gary was dead for two weeks. testimonies are CLAIMS. Every religion has adherents with claims. All magically verify their own religions. imagine that. His recovery would have certainly been miraculous had it not been accompanied by nonstop 24/7 medical care. Thank Doc he lived to tell his "miraculous" tale.

Ok, let's see.... "Gary Laude, 73, of Sebring and Muskegon, Mich., suffered a serious heart attack on Sunday, Feb. 21, 2010, and was in a coma and on life support for 15 days. He believes he visited Heaven during that time." "In the ambulance his heart stopped and also later at Mercy Hospital. He was given electric shocks 37 times." "Gary believes for 14 days he walked and talked with angels and visited patients in many hospitals in Michigan. On Day 15 his guardian angel took him by the hand and brought him back to his body, which was on life support. On Day 16 he woke up and the doctor said his lungs appeared okay." "Laude said his guardian angel since being a small boy was Jesus Christ. It was Jesus escorting him to the hospital room, who said he had to leave Heaven and go back to his body. " 'Heaven was so beautiful words cannot describe. I did not see loved ones since I was coming back. I walked with two angels.'' " "Gary said an old gray-haired nurse helped him in the hospital. A charge nurse said the old gray-haired nurse retired 10 years ago and died in 2006 but comes back on occasion as an angel to help someone who is terminally ill." "A Dr. Stewart told Laude no one had ever survived a full aspiration." "When he had his six-month checkups, the medical staff called him the "Miracle Man." " " "Gary died five times and God performed a miracle in Gary's life through divine intervention, and Gary feels compelled to tell his story wherever he goes," wrote Carol." ====================================================== The article says he was in a coma and on life-support for 15 days. Not common, but not exceptionally rare, either. Gary believes that he walked with angels and visited hospitals, and visited Heaven. All the especially odd things are all hearsay from Gary. Gary said this old nurse showed up, and Gary said a charge nurse said this dead woman shows up as an angel. Gary said a Dr Stewart said no one had ever survived a full aspiration. In fact, the whole "he was aspirated" thing was from him, as well. "When a tube was placed in his throat for breathing, a lot of his dinner left his stomach and went into his lungs, a medical term called aspiration." I'm having trouble buying that he was intubated- which in this case meant a tube placed in his throat from the outside air to his windpipe- and then his windpipe was that big that it expanded past the intubation and accepted food backed up from the esophagus. "A nurse told Carol he had a three percent chance of survival." That's awfully freaking precise. Is it common for nurses there to say things like that? I thought they were trained to never get specific about survivability, and placing percentage odds is NOT professional. Carol's part is to add "Gary died 5x and God performed a miracle." That's her conclusion and what she believes. We never get the story corroborated by the hospital. Oh, sure, the coma and so on, but not that he "died" or "some of us call him Miracle Man" or anything like that. I believe THEY believe this is an accurate account of what happened. I believe this is an accurate account of what they SAY happened. Ultimately, every reader will have to make up his mind for himself. The facts were NOT corroborated by the newspaper account, no matter who was told that. In fact, that alone makes me suspicious. If I thought I had corroborating newspaper articles, I'd carry photocopies, printouts, PDFs, etc of them. Otherwise, it's a little like "I did lots of miracles in India. Before and after that in the US, no."

So I found the article. The first thing that should be noted, is that the story does not say this person was dead. It specifically says he was in a coma. Yes, it says he died several times. Technically speaking, that is not true. But that is not an uncommon journalistic convention, to say someone died on the operating table and was revived. In real hospital rooms, you are pronounced dead exactly one time. After that, they stopped working on you. Funny how that works. So this guy never actually died in any real sense of the word. However, he was in grave mortal Danger. So he hallucinated. Big deal.

Not so fast. My initial search turned out to be inadequate. If you go to that paper's web site, you can't find anything about the reporter or those subjects. That paper doesn't have a reporter by that name. That's because he's the publisher. I asked. So now I'm asking whether they are catalogued by Nexis (the journalist's Google) and if not, whether there was an article published on that date by that writer covering those subjects. I will advise.

In my opinion, you're dabbling in self delusion.

Jim, if you have the date of the story, the name of the paper, and the names of anyone ANYONE involved (like, say, the person who wrote the story), I can hunt it down. This is not.hard.at.all. The notion that journalists would not be interested in verifiable miracles taking place at hospitals is absurd on its face. And someone who was dead for TWO WEEKS only to hpp back up and ask for a filet-o-fish would have made international headlines. People here are being way too nice. This story is horse manure.

Links to news articles where the information was reported publicly.

I am not skeptical, I do not believe a bit of it. By that time the human body is well along into the putrefying process. This story is full of gas and smells like the body would have.

Fifteen days, huh? Those sound like some awesome mushrooms.