Near-death Experience Shared in Center Native’s Chart-Topping Book
March 12, 2021
Scott Tady, Beaver County Times
Original article link: https://bit.ly/3lkXaor
Rob A. Gentile remembers the day he died.
Flatlining first, then sinking into a four-day coma, he would regain consciousness only to slip into another near-death experience three months later while awaiting a heart transplant.
That’s when he remembers seeing a web of brilliant lights, which have shaped his belief we are all interconnected spiritual beings, temporarily lodged in human bodies.
It’s a belief in an afterlife the Center Township native shares in his debut book, “Quarks of Light,” which became a No. 1 bestseller in 13 Amazon categories.
A once flatlined man’s perspective on what’s beyond this mortal coil would be a compelling enough read, though “Quarks of Light” also delves into suicide prevention, Gentile’s pioneering heart surgery, and inspirational lessons from his special needs daughter.
Center Township native Rob A. Gentile shares his death-defying experience in “Quarks of Light.”
“It’s a lot to unpack,” Gentile said, theorizing that’s why a number of publishers initially passed on his book, which has topped such Amazon charts as Near Death Experiences, Organ Transplants, Personal Growth and Christianity.
“Never in a million years could I have thought I’d have a No. 1 best-seller in 13 categories,” Gentile, 61, said. “I passed up some big names on those lists.”
He tells a one-of-a-kind story with universal themes.
“That’s why it’s got such a broad audience.”
Gentile grew up on Gross Drive in Center, earning his first paychecks, at ages 11 and 12, delivering newspapers for The Beaver County Times.
“I spent it all on candy,” he said. “Though I was the first kid in my neighborhood to get a bike.”
Fresh out of Center High School, and launching an associate’s degree at Community College of Beaver County, Gentile, like so many young Beaver County men before him, followed in the footsteps of his father, and found a steel mill job at Jones & Laughlin in Aliquippa.
Unlike many local natives, he remains in the steel industry today, as a sales engineer based in Charlotte, N.C., where he dwells with his pharmacist wife of 30 years, Melanie, and their adult daughter Maria.
At age 56, Gentile suffered a massive heart attack.
He flatlined at CaroMount Regional Medical Center in Gastonia, N.C., three miles from his home on Jan. 26, 2016, later informed by doctors he had been lifeless for 20 minutes.
The on-call doctor kept trying to resuscitate him, until a cardiologist, Dr. Aja Bajwa, arrived and inserted two stents. Deep damage already had been done to the heart of Gentile, who went into cardiogenic shock. Put on a ventilator, he slipped into a four-day coma.
As described in “Quarks of Light,” Gentile recalls in that period being visited by his deceased brother-in-law, whom friends and family had nicknamed “Frosty.” The brother-in-law had committed suicide seven weeks earlier, and imparted to Gentile a message of peace, wanting him to pass along to family members that he was in a good place, Gentile said.
Raised as a Catholic, Gentile believes he caught a glimpse of an afterworld he calls “the Ethereal”.
While waiting for a heart transplant, he would visit it again.
After a three-month wait in North Carolina for a heart donor, the University of Chicago Medicine admitted him on April 20, 2016, for a trial heart pump procedure.
On May 23, his daughter Maria’s birthday, his body gave out again; and that’s when he says he had his second, most profound near-death experience.
“I was taken up into a timeless place. I found myself inside a shapeless, formless vacuum of sorts, an unending, infinite vastness. I was everywhere at once, like I was made of sand and someone picked me up and threw the grains of my being into a strong wind, scattering me across an infinite, timeless expanse,” he explains on his website, robagentile.com “I was connected to the vast wisdom of the universe — all of it, without words.”
He continues, “Then I saw and simultaneously became part of a gigantic web that covers the Earth and stretches into infinity. I could not explain exactly what this web was, except that it looked like it was made of trillions of neurons in a vast, interactive network that binds us all. Curiously, some parts of the web were brighter, some dim, and some completely dark. I also saw my special-needs daughter, perfect, whole, and full of light.”
His book theorizes the lights are our souls, all interconnected, shining the brightest when we use the unique gifts we are individually instilled with, serving the good of all.
“It made me realize if I hurt myself, I hurt everyone around me, but if I love, the light would spread,” he said. “The most important message I received was of unity, oneness, and our real identity.”
Cows first
North Carolina doctors saved his life the first time. Trailblazing work by Chicago doctors played a role in saving him again.
Chicago doctors inserted into Gentile the then-experimental NuPulseCV heart pump, a balloon-like, minimally invasive mechanical device providing support for patients with advanced heart failure whose medications had not helped.
Before the operation, Gentile inquired how many times NuPulse surgery had been performed by doctors.
“Other than on cows?” Dr. Valluvan Jeevanandam said.
“You mean where steaks come from?’ Gentile replied.
Jeevanandam. said, “Well, we tested it on some pigs, too.”
A NuPulse can bridge the gap, keeping a patient alive until a donor’s heart is transplanted. Gentile believes the device saved his life.
Actually, one other human had received a NuPulse before Gentile, but only had it in his body for three days, before it was replaced with a transplanted heart.
Gentile agreed to the trial procedure because he knew his heart was in such bad shape, he was likely to die otherwise.
“And I knew medicine simply can’t advance without clinical trials.”
The NuPulse allows patients to be mobile, and not bed-ridden, as they wait for a heart donor to emerge.
Being mobile put him in better health, giving him a better chance of a successful transplant and recovery.
“I knew the importance of staying as healthy as I could before I went into transplant. The outcome is always better,” said Gentile, who on June 6 reaches the five-year post-transplant milestone.
He’s suffered no infections or organ rejection, which are most likely in the first year.
His near-death experience changed the trajectory of his life. He needed to write a book about it.
‘Quarks of Light’
The book talks about Gentile’s heart, which he named Molli.
A young woman named Molli donated the heart transplanted into Gentile.
Molli had committed suicide.
Gentile is determined to raise awareness about suicide.
He believes social media pushed Molli toward a tailspin of depression, and cautions others, particularly young adults, not to be misled by the seemingly perfect lives people portray on Facebook and Instagram.
“On Facebook, people only post the best parts of their life,” Gentile said. “‘Oh, look: I have the perfect boyfriend and now we’re engaged, and we live in this perfect house and I’ve got this perfect job.’ But that’s not real life at all. And when people try to compete with it, they lose their own identity, and can lose their direction in life. They begin to feel unwanted. That happened to Molli.”
For a perspective on pure love and happiness, Gentile writes about his 24-year-old daughter, Maria, who has Rett Syndrome, a rare genetic neurological disorder that causes severe impairments,
Maria’s non-verbal communicative skills — eye expressions and smiles — have played a sizable role in Rob’s unbridled gratitude for life.
“She taught me what it meant to be human, and she proved to me God exists,” Gentile said. “She’s one of the happiest, most spiritually evolved people in the world.”
Special needs individuals like Maria can motivate us all.
“They are pure, innocent beings. They don’t know what hatred is,” Gentile said. “They don’t know judgment.”
Rob A. Gentile, a Center Area High School graduate, writes about his pioneering heart transplant and near-death experience in a new book, “Quarks of Light”.
For the most part, Gentile feels healthy.
“I have a tremendous amount of energy,” he said.
Though it’s hard for him to build muscle mass, and medications leave him magnesium-deprived, so he’s prone to cramping and charley horses.
Employed full-time selling steel, he wrote his book mostly between 4:30 and 7:30 a.m., before work.
“I prayed every morning for the words to come through me, not from me.”
His story has caught the attention of medical experts, like acclaimed pediatric neurologist Dr. Jean-Ronel Corbier, founder of the Brain Restoration Clinic, who wrote the forward for Gentile’s book.
“You don’t write a book to make money,” Gentile said.
His mission is to inspire.
Gentile’s website includes his four podcast appearances, including “Stories of Hope in Hard Times,” hosted by Tamara Anderson. More interviews are in the works.
People want to know what he experienced after death.
“Some may want to call that heaven,” he said. “We are spiritual beings living a human experience. The most important thing I learned … is we’re all connected.”
Scott Tady is the Entertainment Reporter for The Beaver County Times and Ellwood City Ledger. He’s easy to reach at stady@gannett.com.
Purchase Quarks of Light here: http://getbook.at/QuarksOfLight