DVD Review: Moment of Death

In yesterday's post I lauded the blackly humorous show 1000 Ways to Die, but today I would like to highlight an item that takes a more serious look at the subject of human mortality.  National Geographic's Moment of Death (which can be Instantly Viewed online by Netflix subscribers) is a fascinating documentary that explores the crucial boundary between "here" and "gone."  Narrated by the gravelly-voiced Peter Coyote, this DVD is stocked with operating-room footage, computer simulations of bodily workings, and the commentary of medical experts (not to mention journalist Mary Roach, author of the terrific nonfiction book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers).  Some of the more compelling elements here include a chronicling of doctors' attempts to manipulate the moment of death (e.g. "therapeutic hypothermia"--an experimental treatment geared to staving off mortification in cardiac arrest victims, and one that gives new meaning to the notion of putting someone "on ice"); an account of the likely physical/psychological responses to traumatic incidents (drowning, excessive bleeding, fire, electrocution, guillotining); a detailing of the procedures used to determine whether someone is merely comatose or actually brain dead.  Most intriguing of all, though, is the concluding exploration of near-death experiences.  Science offers a physiological explanation for those popular reports about tunnels 
leading toward bright lights (i.e. such imagery is a byproduct of the extreme stress placed on areas of the brain), but the documentary also presents a case (the story of a man's incredible experiences while lying on an operating table) that suggests there is something truly spiritual about dying.  Moment of Death is only fifty minutes long, but it will linger in your consciousness well after its ending.