Ask UK

I'm not very emotional like that. Things are not traumatic in ways I process with immediacy. I still think about him from time to time over 30 years later, so I'm still processing it in a way.

With my almost dying from the crash that disabled me, I have an ongoing hypothesis that humans do not actually experience death in a way that can be processed and understood. Death happens in the limbic system which is like the human kernel space while the conscious mind exists more in a operating system like user space. We can experience the pain and all, but that isn't related to actual death.

We were inside a gym with a large basketball court running laps. I thought he had just tripped over his shoelaces or something. He was only a few feet ahead of me. Then I saw his face was dark reddish purple and his eyes had the most blank stare. He convulsed a few times and that was it. He was likely gone before he hit the ground and never processed or knew it.

In my crash, I lost 3 hours where my memory failed. I was lucid through parts of that, but it is like the blackest black in my mind. I had extensive fractured damage but of particular concern was the base of my skull and C1 around my brain stem. That whole experience processed different than other serious injuries.

I watched a 36yo woman die after crashing on an e-bike in 2022 and she appeared much the same like she did not see death coming at all.

I abstract about everything as a curiosity. At the time he died, it was an anomaly I didn't really understand. It might have made headaches a little more concerning. Now, I think he died super quickly and in a way he did not likely experience in the conscious mind. It was not bad at all for him. His family must have been devastated and traumatized, but I didn't know them.