Who Is Dr.Tony Cicoria? NDEs
Revelation of the Afterlife; Peace, Warmth and Love
A look at the astounding life of Dr.Tony Cicoria, an orthopedic surgeon whose life changed in a split second; he was hit by lightning and experienced the afterlife.
Dr.Tony Cicoria is an orthopedic surgeon from Oneonta, New York, who experienced an unusual near death experience (NDE) after being hit by lightning on a summer day in 1994. He remembered seeing the lightning, which struck him on the mouth, but after that there was nothing. He felt himself falling backward, then he seemed to be going forward. His mother-in-law rushed past him without speaking to him and he suddenly came to the realization that he was dead. He was surrounded by a bluish-white light and he could see and hear the people around him, but they didn't seem to notice him. They were all looking at his lifeless body lying on the ground some distance from where he was standing. Tony was filled with an "unbelievable feeling of peace and love and warmth."
Return to Life
Cicoria could sense speed and direction while 'dead' and he saw highs and lows of his life pass by. His scientific mind was analyzing what was happening, and he was happy to go where where he seemed to be headed. Suddenly he was being jolted back to life by a woman who was administering CPR. He felt anger and pain, and cried out "Please don't make me come back." But he was back in his body and experiencing excrutiating pain. After some time thay were able to get him to sit up and they insisted that he go to the hospital. He refused. "When you are hit by lightning you are either dead or alive, and I was alive," he says. So he made his way back to the place where his family had gathered in a pavilion for a picnic. He was in great pain, his mind was in a fog, and he allowed them to take him home.
Classical Piano Music
Tony Cicoria was a child of the 60s and was raised on rock and roll, especially Led Zeppelin. He had no interest in classical music at all. However, after being checked out by a cardiologist and neurologist and being pronounced well after his experience, he began to have an insatiable desire to hear classical piano music. He purchased records and cassettes and spent most of his spare time listening to these artists. He says that he was possesssed.
At this time his baby sitter needed a home for her piano for a year and Cicoria gladly offered to keep it. He began piano lessons and tried to play a composition he had first heard in his mind a few weeks after his near death experience. Every time he would sit at the piano this music would keep playing in his mind. On January 29, 2008, his 56th birthday, Tony Cicoria played this composition, along with two others he had composed, in a concert performance.
Education
Lest anyone think that Tony Cicoria's experience was some kind of fantasy, his educational background in science would tend to negate that idea. He earned a bachelor's degree in biology from The Citadel, South Carolina; a term's scholarship at the Woods Hole Laboratory in Massachusetts, where he studied developmental biology; a doctor of philosophy degree in physiology and cellular biophysics from the Medical University of South Carolina; a degree in medicine from the Medical University of South Carolina and spent his residency at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville.
Asked if he is afraid to die, Cicoria replies, "No. Not in the least. Not when I've experienced the most wonderful feeling imaginable."
Source: Personal conversations with Dr.Tony Cicoria, April, 2008.
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