Doctors Dispute Best-Selling Author’s Back-to-Life Story

“Early one morning, after I had hung on in a coma for 44 days, the night nurse on the third floor came to check my vital signs and found no response to her probings. I had slipped from this life into the next. At five A.M. a doctor pronounced me clinically dead, pulled a sheet over my head, and left the room in darkness.”

Twenty-eight minutes later, says Betty Malz, the prayer of her father brought her back to life.

Malz recounts her experience in My Glimpse of Eternity and five other books published by Chosen Books. (The above quotation was taken from Angels Watching Over Me, 1986.) According to the publisher, My Glimpse has sold nearly 1 million copies and has been printed in 11 languages. The 62-year-old Assemblies of God member has conducted women’s retreats throughout the U.S. and Canada and has appeared frequently on Christian television shows, speaking of her “death” and out-of-body experience, which she says ushered her into heaven.

But a recent article in Christian Week magazine, published in Winnipeg, Manitoba, calls into question the truthfulness of the story on which Malz has built her ministry. Medical personnel involved in the case, quoted in the article, say Betty Malz did not die.

In response, Chosen Books says it stands by the integrity of its author, and claims that the hospital and doctors want to cover up their mishandling of Malz’s treatment.

Declared Dead

According to Malz, “Surgery revealed that I had suffered a ruptured appendix 11 days before, and that a mass of gangrene had coated all of my organs, causing them to disintegrate.” By her published account, “The doctor who had declared me dead was shocked. He validated that I had been dead for 28 minutes, and sent me home two days later with no discernible physical difficulties from my extraordinary experience.”

Malz writes that her experience took place July 31, 1959, at Terre Haute Union Hospital in Indiana. To research her article for Christian Week, free-lance writer Lorna Dueck traveled to Terre Haute to interview doctors, nurses, Malz’s relatives, and others involved in the case.

“This is almost a complete fabrication. I had a direct relationship with the patient,” said Dr. Henry Bopp, who twice performed surgery on Malz. “She did not die. She may have dreamt she did, but she did not die in the hospital,” he told Dueck.

Bopp’s brother, James, was the anesthetist for Malz’s surgery. “I challenge [the publishers] to produce the medical records and let independent doctors look at the records,” he said. “I’ll flat guarantee you this didn’t happen.” He is also adamant that the hospital has nothing to hide.

The primary-care physician for Malz (then 29-year-old Betty Upchurch) during her 1959 hospitalization was Dr. H. Clark Boyd, now 79 and long retired from practice. According to Dueck, he has for years expected a reporter to question him on the actions attributed to him. He said his patient was sick, but never in a coma or anywhere near septic shock or death.

“I had a very good relationship with her,” Boyd told Dueck. “That was until I wouldn’t believe her story, and she kept getting madder and madder. Then she didn’t come in anymore.”

“Unverifiable”

According to Dueck, two independent hospital sources confirmed Malz had two July 1959 admission and discharge dates at Terre Haute for a total stay of 29 days. Her final discharge date was the day of her “death.”

“The events related by the individuals are unverifiable,” Peggy Woodsmall, public-relations director at Union Hospital, told Dueck. “It’s not documerited in the record that she died.”

Because of patient confidentiality rules, hospital records on Malz may not be released to others. Chosen Books editor Jane Campbell said the publisher has no plans to ask Malz for the records.

Malz did not respond to requests for an interview from CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Campbell said Malz wished to put the Christian Week article and controversy behind her.

Lost Files

Leonard LeSourd, cofounder of Chosen Books, edited Glimpse of Eternity. He told CT that he traveled to Terre Haute in 1976 to check its accuracy, and there interviewed family members and others, including one doctor, whose name he does not recall. LeSourd says the files containing his research were lost several years ago when Chosen Books, now a subsidiary of Fleming H. Revell Company, was sold to Zondervan Publishing. Nevertheless, he says, “my memory is good on the facts surrounding the Betty Malz story.”

Now associate publisher of Chosen Books, LeSourd says the medical people he talked with denied there was a death. “Of course the doctors would say that. I expected them to be defensive for fear of medical malpractice [lawsuits],” he says.

“The [medical] records weren’t that important to me,” LeSourd says. “Her father said she had a sheet over her head. He was a pastor [of an Assemblies of God congregation in Terre Haute]. Why should he lie?”

LeSourd says he also relied on the research of his late wife, Catherine Marshall, which backed up Malz’s account. The well-known writer was the first to publish Malz’s story in Guideposts, in May 1976.

Vision Of Heaven

“Whether Betty was officially dead, or clinically dead, is not what the story is all about,” LeSourd insists. “Betty has a marvelous ministry. She has encouraged thousands with her vision of heaven.”

Chosen editor Campbell, like LeSourd, believes the doctors involved would never admit to Malz’s death for fear of malpractice claims. She, too, vouches for the author’s character and the fruit of her ministry, and is unconvinced that sufficient evidence has been presented to question Malz’s integrity. “If she were promoting a story that were not true … that would be deplorable,” Campbell says. “I don’t believe she’s doing that. If I did, I’d pull the book in a minute.”

By Ken Sidey.

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