37 Seconds - Classic

Stephanie Arnold is pregnant with her second child and she’s really excited. Until the premonitions begin.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Glynn Washington?

  When Stephanie was pregnant, she had premonitions of her own death. She told everyone, her husband, her friends, her doctor, but no one believed her. Still, she knew that when she got to the delivery room, she was gonna die.

• 0:28Glynn Washington?

  From Snap Judgment's Underground Layer, you're listening to Spooked. Stay tuned.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  Why have so many crop circles appeared around Britain? How did thousands of people demonstrate powers of telepathy? Can the dead suck the life from the living? Join me, Tim Harford, for a trip into the paranormal throughout Halloween month on Cautionary Tales. Listen to Cautionary Tales on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:17Glynn Washington?

  I remember picking up the phone. Before it even rang, "Where are you?"

• 1:22Speaker 02

  I'm in heaven, E.

• 1:23Glynn Washington?

  "Tell me where you are."

• 1:24Speaker 02

  I'm in heaven, E.

• 1:26Glynn Washington?

  "Tell me where you are."

• 1:30Glynn Washington?

  The phone went dead. And I think that sometimes you just know. Maybe you know when your child needs you before they call out. Maybe you know not to make that left turn. Maybe, maybe you feel like it's better if you wait for the next bus. You don't know how you know, but you know.

• 2:04Glynn Washington?

  From Snap Judgment's Underground Layer, my name is Glynn Washington. Know this. However you know, we believe you. Spook starts now.

• 2:27Glynn Washington?

  Stephanie Arnold was pregnant with her second child, and she couldn't have been more excited. The pregnancy started off easy. Stephanie had no complaints until she reached her 20th week. Spooked.

• 3:00Speaker 03

  I was walking through Tribeca Park in the middle of winter with my daughter in a stroller. And I was explaining how this fountain is so beautiful when it's flowing. And then all of a sudden, in my mind's eye, the fountain turned to blood and started gushing blood. And I grabbed onto the stroller. I felt the blood hemorrhage in my body, like all the blood was rushing out.

• 3:25Speaker 04

  Stephanie stood in the park, clutching her daughter's stroller. She was due in a few months, and this was not a good sign. So she rushed to the emergency room. And when she got there, she realized she wasn't actually hemorrhaging. There wasn't even any blood. The doctor said, whatever she felt was just a false alarm.

• 3:53Speaker 03

  And I'm like, it's not a false alarm. It's a warning.

• 3:58Speaker 04

  A warning because just the night before, Stephanie was sitting at her desk when she got a vision.

• 4:05Speaker 03

  I saw my body flat, dead on the operating table. I saw my body cut from sternum to pelvis and across the pelvic area, almost in a T, just cut wide open and dead.

• 4:23Speaker 04

  Stephanie was starting to feel like what happened at the fountain and her vision from the night before were somehow related.

• 4:32Speaker 03

  I had seen it all happening like flash before my eyes.

• 4:37Speaker 04

  Stephanie had recently found out that she had placenta previa. But her doctor told her that the risk of death was pretty low. Still, the vision to her was more like a premonition.

• 4:51Speaker 03

  I'd be grocery shopping, and I'd be in the aisle, you know, getting the flour because I was making bread that night. And all of a sudden, I would see the Sabbath dinner table, and the mother's seat would be empty. The next day, I'd be walking, and I'd have a flash of my burial.

• 5:15Speaker 04

  Stephanie lay dead in a shiny, coffee-colored casket, wearing her husband Jonathan's Air Force dog tags. Right next to the casket, Jonathan stood crying with her daughters. In his arms was their newborn son, Jacob.

• 5:34Speaker 03

  There's flashes of life continuing without me.

• 5:43Speaker 03

  I was looking at a ticking time bomb that was going to go off the day I gave birth.

• 5:52Speaker 03

  I was in Starbucks getting, you know, hot chocolate or something. And the barista was like, "Was pregnant also in New York?" And she's like, "Oh, how's the pregnancy going?" I'm like, "I'm gonna die." So people would stop talking to me.

• 6:08Speaker 03

  I'd have ultrasounds. Baby's fine. I'd have blood tests. I'd meet with the psychologist. I am trying to figure out what I need to do and who needs to be in that operating room in order to save my life.

• 6:22Speaker 04

  With only five weeks until her C-section, Stephanie had gone to every doctor she could think of. The only one left was the anesthesiologist.

• 6:32Speaker 03

  So I pick up the phone and I call. And then I said, "Well, what happens in the event that my placenta previa turns into an acrida and I need a hysterectomy?" And she was startled by that. She was quiet. And she says, "You know, Mrs. Arnold, you're in a teaching hospital, and you're in very good hands. And we're aware of your condition. And I hope I made you feel better." And I, you know, I sat there for a moment, and I finally, you know, let out a sigh. And I said, "It is what it is."

• 7:07Speaker 03

  I felt alone through the whole process. Nobody was believing me during this time. And so it was up to me to do something, and I just felt very, very alone.

• 7:20Speaker 04

  Stephanie's husband commuted from their home in Chicago to his office in New York. So most weeknights, Stephanie was by herself. After she put the kids to bed, she would sit in the rocking chair in the living room on her laptop.

• 7:37Speaker 03

  I took to Facebook. I posted, "If anybody has my blood type, I'm gonna need it." I wrote goodbye letters. Every time I started to write something to Jonathan, I would break down crying because I knew that whatever letters I would write would be something that he would be holding on for the rest of his life and continue to read. And I wasn't being poetic. I was scared.

• 8:06Speaker 03

  I tried to write letters to each one of my children, including my unborn child, and thought, you know, where do I even start? It's the pain of not being there to kiss a boo-boo better. It's the pain of not cooking a family dinner and having Thanksgiving around the table.

• 8:30Speaker 04

  One week before her C-section, Stephanie wakes up and walks downstairs to prepare breakfast for her youngest daughter.

• 8:38Speaker 03

  All of a sudden, a rush of blood comes out of me and lands on the kitchen floor. My daughter looks up and says, "Mommy, why are you peeing red?" You know, I'm smiling, and I said, "You know, we're just gonna have your brother today, so you're gonna get to meet him."

• 8:54Speaker 04

  Stephanie strapped her daughter in the car and drove herself to the hospital. As soon as she arrived, the nurses hooked her up to the monitors and told her to relax. But Stephanie knew that once the doctors wheeled her into that operating room and delivered baby Jacob, she wouldn't come back out.

• 9:15Speaker 03

  I was focused on what the heck is going to happen in the next few hours? Is Jonathan gonna get here on time? What are the last words I'm going to say? What does one say as they're running out of breath? If you're being buried alive and that last bit of dirt is hitting your face, what are your last words going to be?

• 10:02Speaker 04

  Stephanie's doctor came in and told her, "It's time."

• 10:07Speaker 03

  So I start texting Jonathan and I said, "You know, you've made me the happiest woman in the world and please take care of this baby and be a great father like you are, but not just to our two girls, but to Jacob as well." And he still wasn't getting it. So he said, "Honey, where do I meet you?" And I said, "Eighth floor recovery, hopefully." And I closed the computer and, you know, Adina's there and I had a smile on my face. My doctor's like, "You know, we'll be back with mommy and, and your brother soon." And I kissed her a million times. As soon as the gurney turned the corner out of the

• 10:48Speaker 03

  room, I broke down crying because I knew I wasn't going to see Adina again.

• 10:57Speaker 03

  I get into the operating room. The noise in my head felt like it was just a pulsating of my heartbeat ringing in my head, like, you know, bum, bum, bum, bum. I felt this bomb getting louder and louder and louder.

• 11:17Speaker 04

  The nurses strapped Stephanie's arms on the bed and put a curtain in front of her face.

• 11:24Speaker 03

  So at that point, I was done. I mean, there's nowhere to run. There's nowhere to hide. I can't, I can't escape this.

• 11:33Speaker 04

  The doctors began the C-section and they delivered baby Jacob. Then Stephanie started gagging. Seconds later, she flatlined.

• 11:48Speaker 04

  The doctors called the code blue. They scrambled to revive her, bringing in a crash cart with extra monitors and extra blood. The first one didn't work and time was running out. Stephanie was losing blood fast, so they brought in a second crash cart.

• 12:07Speaker 04

  She'd been gone for 37 seconds.

• 12:14Speaker 04

  Finally, the monitor picked up a pulse and Stephanie came back to life.

• 12:23Speaker 04

  The doctors put her into a medically induced coma. And during that time, Stephanie's placenta previa turned into an accretia, just like she saw in the visions. She started to hemorrhage and the doctors performed a hysterectomy.

• 12:42Speaker 04

  On the sixth day of her coma, Stephanie finally woke up. Her body had swollen up to 200 pounds from the kidney failure. And the first thing she saw was her big swollen belly. And she was confused. She thought she was still pregnant.

• 12:59Speaker 03

  Now I'm terrified. I haven't gone through it yet. Like, I was on pause. Then my husband whispers in my ear, "Sweetheart, you know, no, you're not pregnant anymore. You gave birth six days ago."

• 13:13Speaker 03

  And that blew my mind. So when they transferred me back to the maternity ward and they got me settled in, Jonathan, with the head nurse, wheeled Jacob in like as a surprise. And I just broke down crying and I'm like, "You need to get him out of here."

• 13:32Speaker 04

  Her husband Jonathan thought it would be healing to have the baby there.

• 13:37Speaker 03

  I, I could tell he was disappointed immediately. He went and he held Jacob and he put him on his chest. You know, to be perfectly honest with you, I was scared of Jacob because of the fear that he was going to kill me. I thought I was going to die and stay dead. I'm alive now on the other side of it and it's not the bliss and the gratitude. I was afraid of being. I was afraid of any kind of emotions that would lead to another fear of foreboding.

• 14:18Speaker 04

  Stephanie visited therapist after therapist, but no one could explain how she got those premonitions or what happened in the 37 seconds that she died before she came back to life. A friend suggested hypnotherapy. Stephanie figured she'd try it. It was online and she could do it from the comfort of her own home. But when she told her husband...

• 14:42Speaker 03

  He was like, "Why would you ever want to do that?" And I'm like, "I want to go into the fire, rip the Band-Aid off, and then come out of it on the other side because what if I, you know, am crazy with my children? What if I get divorced with my husband?" I didn't want the anger to grow into something else and then take its toll.

• 15:06Speaker 04

  The hypnotherapist told Stephanie that she could take her into deep meditative states that would allow her to observe what happened in those 37 seconds when she flatlined in the OR.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  I had never been hypnotized before and I didn't know if it would work. I didn't know whether I'd remember anything, whether, or whether somebody was tampering with my mind.

• 15:41Speaker 04

  She decided she would videotape herself while she was in her deep meditative states.

• 15:47Speaker 03

  There was something about the therapist's voice, so she's a Cuban Jew, and this woman's voice sounded almost identical to my grandmother. We were just starting. She's like, "Do you think you're ready to go into the OR?" And I said, "Well, let's try it."

• 16:02Speaker 04

  The next thing she knew, Stephanie was back in the OR, back to the moment when her heart was beating loudly in her ears.

• 16:11Speaker 03

  And I'm laying flat on the operating table and I'm alive and my arms are out and, and attached to the gurney. I have a curtain in front of my face. I am completely catatonic. They were talking to me and saying things to me. "Are you cold, Mrs. Arnold? Do you need a blanket? Your husband should be here soon." I wasn't acknowledging it. It was like a muted conversation. Like, it was just noise.

• 16:39Speaker 04

  The nurses put the soap on her belly and they wait. Stephanie begins to slip under.

• 16:46Speaker 03

  And then what I saw was spirit Stephanie perpendicular to my body. The only thing I could hear was the beat of the machine and the tapping of my finger on top of the machine. My heart's getting louder. The beat is getting louder and louder in my head. I am tapping. My spirit is tapping physically on the monitor, counting down, slower and slower and slower until they were going to take the baby out of me.

• 17:32Glynn Washington?

  When we return, Spooked, the 37 seconds episode continues. Stay tuned.

• 17:56Glynn Washington?

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• 18:39Glynn Washington?

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• 19:14Glynn Washington?

  When we left Stephanie, she was deep in the middle of hypnotherapy. And she was going back, back, back to the moment she died on the operating table. Spooked.

• 19:39Speaker 03

  The only thing I could hear was the beat of the machine and the tapping. My spirit is tapping physically on the monitor, counting down slower and slower and slower until they were going to take the baby out of me.

• 19:57Speaker 04

  The doctors delivered Jacob.

• 20:00Speaker 03

  And the minute that Jacob was removed and they were delivering the placenta.

• 20:09Speaker 04

  Stephanie's body begins to seize and convulse.

• 20:13Speaker 03

  You hear the flatline beep.

• 20:19Speaker 03

  And you see my spirits like shoot up like a shooting star, this bright white light shoot up.

• 20:26Speaker 04

  A nurse jumps on her chest, breaks her ribs, and begins to give her CPR.

• 20:31Speaker 03

  My doctor kept saying, "This can't be happening. This can't be happening. This can't be happening. This can't be happening."

• 20:39Speaker 03

  I see my Uncle Marvin, I see my grandmother, I see people that I know that had passed.

• 20:47Speaker 03

  So my uncle was standing right there. And if you look at it like there's three steps going up to whatever platform all these spirits were at, I was three steps below. And as I'm walking, my uncle is standing there and, you know, he's saying. You always knew what to do. You told the doctors what was going on. You need to go back. I physically feel that scalpel hitting my skin. And I could feel the cutting and the incisions and hacking away at my stomach. And the feel of an umbilical cord being pulled from high above me down into my body. I can't breathe.

• 21:34Speaker 04

  Stephanie was in her living room clutching her stomach. And at that moment, the therapist's voice came in.

• 21:42Speaker 03

  Okay, okay, we're going to come down. We're going to take you past this moment. We're going to go to the moment where you held Jacob for the first time, in five, four, three, two, one. When I got done with that therapy session, I felt a sense of relief, just a lot of pain released from my chest.

• 22:06Speaker 03

  And Jonathan came upstairs and he said, you know, "Is everything okay?" Because he had heard me screaming. And I said, "I need to take a look at this." And so I showed him about, I don't know, five seconds. He slammed down the computer. He said, "I want you to stop this therapy. It's hurting you. It's really, it's traumatic and you're re-traumatizing yourself." And I said, "I feel better.

• 22:33Speaker 03

  Like, I feel a little more connected, like I'm connecting the dots of what happened." And he looks at me and he says, "How do you know any of what you just said was true?

• 22:43Speaker 03

  It could be an episode of Grey's Anatomy in your head." And I looked at him and I was really pissed, but I looked at him and I said, you know, "It's a fair point."

• 22:54Speaker 04

  So Stephanie called one of the anesthesiologists who was in the OR when she died on the table. She asked what it looked like when she went into cardiac arrest.

• 23:04Speaker 03

  And she said, you know, "It wasn't like a normal cardiac arrest. It was like you were having a seizure and you were gagging."

• 23:13Speaker 04

  Stephanie pulls up the video of her hypnotherapy session. It's queued up to the part where she sees herself start to seize and convulse.

• 23:24Speaker 03

  My eyes rolled back.

• 23:30Speaker 03

  And I said, "Did it look anything like this?" My chest was out and stopped breathing and I had a T-shirt.

• 23:40Speaker 03

  And she looked in horror and she said, "It looked exactly like that."

• 23:45Speaker 04

  Then, the anesthesiologist told her that back when she was pregnant.

• 23:50Speaker 03

  You said something that would haunt me forever. And she said, "You said, 'It is what it is.'"

• 23:56Speaker 04

  Even though the anesthesiologists had told Stephanie not to worry, afterwards, she flagged Stephanie's file for delivery day. She made sure to have an extra crash cart with blood and medical supplies, just in case.

• 24:11Speaker 03

  And the only reason I am alive is because they had the blood and they had the crash cart available because she flagged the file.

• 24:24Speaker 04

  Stephanie felt she had enough validation and she didn't need to be afraid of the premonitions anymore. But the one person who still didn't seem convinced was her husband.

• 24:36Speaker 03

  After me trying to get him to talk several times and him saying, "Honey, I'm fine." I'm like, "I know you're not." And he's like, "I think you're just trying to get me to say something and be emotional about, but I'm okay, really. The crisis averted. Now let's move on. Let's move on with our lives." And I'm like, "I'm like, no, I feel there's something else going on." And he's like, "Don't feel anything. It's what's happening. The reality is, I'm fine." And so it was very frustrating for me. So I'm just like, you know, keeping myself busy.

• 25:05Speaker 04

  So one evening, she was sitting at Jonathan's desk tidying up when she found a small prayer book.

• 25:12Speaker 03

  A paperback version of the Torah. So it's just a little Bible. And there were papers stuffed within it. So I open the prayer book and I see a folded piece of paper with numbers on it. And it's only numbers. It's mathematical equations.

• 25:32Speaker 04

  Stephanie's husband was an economist. And while she was in the coma in ICU, Jonathan was calculating how many amniotic fluid embolisms happen in a year and how many are fatal and what the chances of Stephanie surviving could be.

• 25:48Speaker 03

  And then there was another piece of paper. And then I opened the piece of paper and I started reading it.

• 25:53Speaker 04

  It was a letter written to Stephanie.

• 25:57Speaker 03

  So the letter read,

• 26:02Speaker 03

  "My only love of my life, I am sitting here in the still of the night, listening to the machines beep around you. You look like an angel, which devastates me. What am I to do if you're gone? How will I ever reconcile this to our children, to myself? I should have listened more. I should have been there, if for nothing else but to hold your hand. I should have prayed for you.

• 26:30Speaker 03

  Rabbi told me this is a test of faith. If I was being tested, why isn't this happening directly to me? Why to you? What did all this mean? How did you know? I can't lose you. I would be a shell of a man if you die. Please don't die. I don't..."

• 26:52Speaker 03

  And then he stopped mid-sentence.

• 26:55Speaker 03

  So we came home later that day. I let him finish, you know, playing with the kids and put him to bed. And he was upstairs and he was watching TV.

• 27:08Speaker 03

  I told him I found the letter.

• 27:12Speaker 03

  And at first, he brushed it off and he was like, you know, "What letter? What are you talking about?" And I'm like, "The one in your prayer book."

• 27:20Speaker 03

  He's like, "Oh."

• 27:24Speaker 03

  He was watching television. His phone was next to him and I sent him a few texts.

• 27:30Speaker 03

  And I said,

• 27:34Speaker 03

  "Do you believe

• 27:38Speaker 03

  that I could see dead people?" I was standing behind him.

• 27:47Speaker 03

  I had tried to have so many conversations.

• 27:52Speaker 03

  And I think it was easier to have him answer in black and white without having a big emotional conversation, just to ask straight questions, to get a straight answer, than to look into his eyes and have him answer me directly that way.

• 28:14Speaker 03

  And he responded with yes.

• 28:17Speaker 03

  And I said, "The last question.

• 28:22Speaker 03

  Do you believe me?"

• 28:28Speaker 03

  With tears rolling down his face,

• 28:33Speaker 03

  he said, "Yes."

• 28:57Glynn Washington?

  Big thanks to Stephanie Arnold for sharing her story. Stephanie lives in Chicago with her husband and three children, including baby Jacob. You can find a link to Stephanie's book on our website, spookedpodcast.org.

• 29:21Glynn Washington?

  The Spooked monster team includes Mark Listich, Anna Sussman, Adisa Egan, Eliza Smith, Jody Colley, and Jasmine Aglera. The Spooked theme music was by our own Pat McSibby Miller. Original soundtrack by Pat McSibby Miller, Renzo Gorio, and Leon Morimoto. There are more full episodes of Spooked. Download or stream the show right now. Where you got this one, spookedpodcast.org.

• 29:50Glynn Washington?

  As we count down to All Hallows' Eve, be afraid. And if you like stories with heart and soul, remember to check out the magical Snap Judgment Podcast. And if you feel time and space closing in on you from all sides, threatening to trap your very soul, I have the remedy, the antidote, the back door. Please remember and never forget to never, ever, never, never, ever, never turn out

• 30:25Glynn Washington?

  the lights.