Shiv Gerwal: I died for seven minutes before being brought back to life – now I’ve painted what I saw
AN artist who was dead for seven minutes before being brought back to life has painted what he saw on the other side.
Actor Shiv Grewal decided to use his experience in a creative way and draw what he believes is the afterlife.
He said: “I remembered everything that happened when my heart stopped and have tried to translate it into art.
“My works act as a map to rediscovery and to understanding my experience.”
The artist from Peckham, London, suffered a massive cardiac arrest after going on lunch with his wife.
Even though he was healthy and fit, he started feeling unwell on the way home from the restaurant before his eyes rolled back into his head.
The man, who was 60-year-old at the time, had just finished an RSC production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, had to be revived by paramedics.
He said: “I remembered everything that happened when my heart stopped and have tried to translate it into art.
“My works act as a map to rediscovery and to understanding my experience.”
He said: “I knew, somehow, that I was dead.”
“I was aware my brain was dying and crying out for help. But, at the same time, I felt things completely separate from my body. It was like I was in a void but could feel emotions and sensations.
“Despite knowing I was dead, I also knew that there was a chance of coming home.
“I also understood that I’d be reincarnated, but I didn’t want that just yet.
“I wanted to return to life, to the material world and to my wife. I demanded that I was coming back and I got my wish.”
Paramedics who rushed to help him were able to revive him but in the minutes he was unconscious, Shiv says he was on a strange “cosmic journey,” where he could choose between life and death.
He said: “I felt there was a whole set of possibilities, various lives and reincarnations that were being offered to me. But I didn’t want them.
“I made it very clear that I wanted to return to my body, to my time, to my wife and to go on living.”
Shiv was rushed into surgery at Kings College Hospital for an operation and went into an induced coma for a month after he suffered cerebral hypoxia – oxygen starvation in the brain – which left him with epilepsy.
He added: “I needed to be proactive. I said I was coming back. I said it as a demand not a request.”