Similar near-death experiences of Nikola Tesla and Harry Houdini

Have you ever had a near death experience? Many of those have given remarkably similar accounts. Here are two similar accounts from two of the most brilliant people of the 20th century.

Nikola Tesla was one of the most talented scientists the world has ever known. His two greatest inventions, the alternating current transformer and the step-up transformer that became the basis for television broadcasting, have historical significance for the modern world. And while Marconi is credited with discovering radio, Tesla held patents on much of the necessary equipment. Another familiar, though less important, invention was Jacob’s ladder, which appeared in nearly every early science fiction movie made in the 1960s. (According to some film historians, Tesla was the basis for Dracula.) Yet another invention has led to low intensity radio transmissions used to communicate with submarines and a tracking device that would have allowed the government to track all navy submarines. Tesla also imagined and experimented with countless other things that were unsuccessful because his ideas were centuries ahead of their time.

It goes without saying that Tesla was a scientific giant. But he also had uncontrollable visions that could be described as hallucinations. These visions often haunted him, but at least occasionally they helped save his life. As a child he swam in the river near his hometown in Croatia. To impress his friends, he dove in and swam underwater to a diving dock some distance from shore, intending to swim below and surface where his friends couldn’t see him. He swam until he was sure he was off the dock and surfaced. He hit his head on a beam under the pier. He swam farther and came back out, hitting his head once more. Now out of breath, he had a vision of the entire pier filled with foam and realized that he could reach a point between the slats and breathe that way. Fortunately for him, the strategy worked. It still took him many tries before he reached open water.

A similar event occurred in the life of Harry Houdini, who made one of his escapes from a straitjacket after being lowered, in chains, through a hole drilled into the frozen Detroit River. He easily escaped the straitjacket and chains and was paddling toward the surface toward the hole. To his horror, the hole wasn’t on top of him. The current had carried him downstream and he had no idea where the escape hole was located. His chest was heaving from lack of air and he had resigned himself to the fact that it would grow. Instead, he saw a bright light over his head and swam towards it. He found his forehead above the water, but not in the hole. He had gotten into a pocket of natural air. Able to breathe, he fought against the current to return to where he found the chain and straitjacket. After two more trips back to his airbag, he located his exhaust and emerged.

Both men had several more close escapes in their lives. Both died in unusual circumstances, although not the ones you imagine. Houdini liked to dare people to punch him in the stomach. He tensed his muscles and the blow never hurt. On one occasion, the beater caught him off guard. Houdini folded in bread. The blow had ruptured his appendix, which was on the right side instead of the left. Tesla was hit by a motorist in 1943 while crossing a decongested street.

Life is strange, isn’t it?