Smallscreen Features

BIO's 'I Survived...Beyond and Back' - Arlene's Story a life lesson on Apr. 8

By April MacIntyre Mar 29, 2012, 20:36 GMT

In the segment titled "Arlene", she recounts how it took shocking her nun nurse into some sense who was oblivious to the fact Arlene was dying right in front of her.

BIO Channel has an extraordinary episode of I Survived...Beyond and Back airing on April 8, at 10 PM.

In the episode titled "John, Tiffani, Arlene (#18)" you will hear a young guy who suffers a catastrophic allergic reaction to peanuts and dies twice on an isolated beach. A young woman is fatally injured in a dramatic mountain car crash and her body discovered by accident by a passer-by. And an American woman (Arlene Howard) living in Rome dies after childbirth when the doctors fail to remove the placenta, and she encounters her father who died when she was a child.

In the segment titled "Arlene", it took shocking an attending nun nurse into some sense who was oblivious to the fact Arlene was dying right in front of her. 

Synopsis from BIO:

Tiffani

Tiffani is attending college in the mountains in the Sierra Nevada's when she falls in love with a guy who ends up incarcerated. She regularly drives over the mountain pass to visit him in jail, and on one early morning journey across the desolate highway she is driven off the road by an approaching vehicle. Her car flips and flies a long way off the side of the steep road into forest where it cannot be seen. Tiffani dies from multiple injuries, and suddenly finds herself inside her no-longer wrecked car, over-looking an extraordinary vista where the sky and river are inexplicable colours. Meanwhile a volunteer fire-fighter, Steve, is travelling the same road and somehow spots a tiny piece of wreckage from Tiffani's car and following hunch finds her lifeless body in the mangled car. As he calls for help via his radio, Tiffani encounters her Uncle Gordon who died many years ago. While smoking a cigar Uncle Gordon tells Tiffani she must go back and prepares her for the pain to come. Tiffani is resuscitated by paramedics and endures a long recovery, but goes on to achieve academic success, comforted by the knowledge that her Uncle watches over her.

John

John and his girlfriend fly to Monterey for a family wedding where they enjoy the wedding feast. Afterwards while exploring the beach John feels unwell and suspects he has somehow eaten peanuts which is he highly allergic to. He begins to enter anaphylactic shock, as his throat swells up and he can't breathe. he sends his girlfriend to run for help but as she leaves he stops breathing and suddenly finds himself in a whole new world. He spies a person who looks like his twin and then begins to understand that this being is God, who then shares every experience John has ever had. John faces a choice whether to stay in this place or return and decides to return and begins breathing again. However as he struggles to move, he falls again and this time chokes on his own vomit, and suffocates again. Meanwhile John's girlfriend arrives with her mother who is a trained nurse and they perform CPR until paramedics arrive. John is resuscitated and eventually shares the story of what happened to him while he was dead with his mother.

Arlene

Arlene Howard today is a successful Hollywood publicist -  but back in 1965 she was living in Rome with her husband when international movie production was big business.

In the BIO segment, Arlene recalls how she is due to give birth to her second child and checks into a luxurious Roman Catholic hospital for the very wealthy.

Arlene is set on having a natural delivery despite her first child being a caesarean. After a 36 hour labor, Arlene is sedated just before she gives birth, and she comes to in her hospital room where she is being watched over by an Italian nun.

Arlene is in terrible pain and tells the nun she knows something is wrong, as her stomach is extremely swollen and growing more so. She has to shock the nun by calling her a "whore" to get her attention.

As the nun races off to find the doctor,  Arlene leaves her body and ascends to the ceiling of the room where she watches her body. The next thing she knows she is navigating her way through a cylinder-like tunnel. When she reaches the end she encounters her father who died when she was very young. She embraces him and is thrilled to be with him but he insists she must return to her body and her two young children.

Meanwhile the doctor realises that the placenta was mistakenly left inside Arlene and had poisoned her system, and in a dramatic emergency action he expels it from her abdomen, as Arlene comes back to life.

Arlene continues to live the rest of her life feeling as if she has been anointed, secure her knowledge that her father is watching over her, and that death is nothing for any of us to fear.