Dr. Sanjay Gupta | BIO
AC360° Contributor
CNN Chief Medical Correspondent

Program Note: Tune in tonight to hear Dr. Sanjay Gupta report on a near-death experience. Tonight AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.

Editor's Note: Below is an excerpt from CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta's new book, "Cheating Death: The Doctors and Medical Miracles that Are Saving Life Against All Odds" published by Wellness Central, an imprint of Grand Central Publishing. The following is from Chapter Two: A Heart-Stopping Moment.

Cheating Death: The Doctors and Medical Miracles that Are Saving Lives Against All Odds,

Sanjay Gupta, M.D.
CNN Chief Medical Correspondent

Mike Mertz was driving home, an hour after finishing his run as a school bus driver in Glendale, Arizona. He told me he doesn't remember why he didn't come straight home from work that day. He thinks that maybe he went for a jog. A trim fifty-nine years old, Mertz enjoyed a two- or three-mile run several days a week. Maybe he was looking for a cheaper gas station than the one on his usual route or was just trying to avoid taking his Saturn over a nasty set of new speed bumps. Whatever the reason, whatever route he wandered, it brought Mertz not to the usual entrance of his townhome complex, but the back driveway. The change in routine may have saved his life.

Corey Ash, a UPS driver, was making deliveries that Wednesday afternoon, when he heard a terrible engine noise. Thinking the sound was underneath his own hood, he pulled over. Hopping out, Ash immediately realized that it was coming from a Saturn almost directly across the street.

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Dr. Sanjay Gupta
CNN

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who contracted H1N1 in Afghanistan, receives treatment.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta | BIO
AC360° Contributor
CNN Chief Medical Correspondent

It started as a cough. It wasn’t the kind of cough where something is temporarily stuck in your throat. It wasn’t the kind of cough where simply clearing your throat would’ve been adequate. This was the kind of cough that hurts when you do it. A stinging pain that makes you wince and guard and hope that you don’t have to cough again any time soon.

I thought I might have a fever, but of course, I was in the middle of covering a war in Afghanistan, and the conditions were… well, hot. So, maybe it was that. Problem was, the next day I wasn’t feeling any better – in fact, I was worse. I woke up in my dusty desert tent and tried to step out of my sleeping bag. Two steps later, I almost hit the deck. Incoming. Except this wasn’t due to any sirens going off, this was due to my own body simply being unable to hold myself up. I was lightheaded and freezing cold – even though it was over 100 degrees outside at that early hour of the morning.

I was nauseated and my entire body hurt. I tried to explain away my symptoms with lots of different excuses. You don’t sleep much while covering a war. My bulletproof jacket didn’t fit perfectly and was very heavy. There was a lot of dust and dirt, and maybe I had what the Marines referred to as the Kandahar Krud. It turned out to be none of those things.

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Danielle Dellorto
CNN Medical Producer

I remember shuffling through moondust up to my knees in Helmand Province when a U.S. Army combat medic turned to me and said, “If I ask you something, do you promise you’ll be honest?” I nodded yes. “Do people back home still think about us? Do they realize we’re still over here?”

I’ll never forget that moment.

Truth is, while most of America might know that 62,000 U.S. military personnel are in theater, they apparently aren’t happy about it. A recent CNN/Opinion Research poll found that support of the war in Afghanistan has hit a new low. Only 39 percent favor U.S. military action in Afghanistan.
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Program Note: Tune in tonight to see Dr. Sanjay Gupta report from a field hospital in Afghanistan. AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.

Tim Langmaid
CNN Medical Managing Editor

I work with Dr. Sanjay Gupta in CNN’s Medical unit. Sanjay is a practicing neurosurgeon who spends much of his time away from CNN working at a hospital in Atlanta. Since he joined CNN in 2001, Sanjay’s two worlds (brain surgeon and journalist) have collided (so to speak) on a few occasions.

While covering the war in Iraq in 2003, Sanjay was called upon while reporting on the U.S. Navy’s Devil Docs - the military's nickname for a group of physicians who provide battlefield medical care. A 23-year-old Marine hit with a sniper’s bullet was left with massive head trauma. Jesus Vidana was declared dead – twice. But he had a faint pulse when he reached Sanjay, the surgeon. Vidana survived the surgery,  and the war.

Sanjay was still in the war zone in Iraq when he was asked about the surgery. His response offers some insight into Sanjay the doctor, the journalist and the human being.

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