You can be 'dead' but still aware, study finds

Some people may retain awareness after they have technically died, according to an unusual study of hospital patients who went into deep cardiac arrest.

Fifteen hospitals in Britain, Austria and the United States pooled information about more than 2,000 cardiac arrest patients.

The research, published on Wednesday in the European journal Resuscitation, sought to assess "near-death experiences" and other phenomena recounted by people hauled back from clinical death - when heart and brain activity have stopped.