text: Pam Reynolds Lowery (1956 – May 22, 2010), from Atlanta, Georgia, was an American singer-songwriter. In 1991, at the age of 35, she stated that she had a near-death experience (NDE) during a brain operation performed by Robert F. Spetzler at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. Reynolds was under close medical monitoring during the entire operation. During part of the operation she had no brain-wave activity and no blood flowing in her brain, which rendered her clinically dead. She claimed to have made several observations during the procedure which medical personnel reported to be accurate.
  Within the field of near-death studies and among those who believe in life after death, the case has been cited as well-documented and significant, with many proponents considering it to be evidence of the survival of consciousness after death. An anesthesiologist who examined the case offered anesthesia awareness as a more prosaic and conventional explanation for such claims. Reynolds died from heart failure at the age of 53 on May 22, 2010, at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia.