A Second Act by Dr Matt Morgan review – what nearly dying can teach us about living

In this sequel to his bestseller, Critical, the intensive care doctor draws lessons on the joys of a ‘second life’ from the experiences of patients who have flatlined and been revived

“We have two lives,” Dr Matt Morgan writes, before clarifying: “The second begins when you realise you have [only] one.” Sometimes, as the case studies in this book detail, this realisation comes more suddenly and profoundly than most of us can imagine. For more than 20 years, Morgan has been a specialist doctor in intensive care, labouring at the extreme margins of life. Just occasionally, in his day-to-day education in human mortality, he has witnessed what might, in other traditions, be thought of as supernatural events: people whose vital signs have flatlined, but who have returned to tell the tale. The stories in this book – a sequel to his bestselling Critical – are his accounts of those impossible second acts, and his reflections on what we can learn from those lucky few who have experienced both possible answers to the question of “to be or not to be”.

The “deaths” Morgan examines here come in several shapes and sizes. Ed, now 47, was “fatally” struck by lightning at 17 (and had to overcome his guilt at his best friend not being so fortunate); Luca, 30, lost a battle with Covid during the pandemic, but was restored by the blood oxygenation technique ECMO; Summer took her own life at 25, and regretted it even as her breathing petered out; Roberto was frozen solid on a mountain ledge in the Dolomites and did not register a heartbeat for eight hours and 42 minutes before a flicker returned; the former Welsh rugby international Rhys Thomas, after a catastrophic heart attack, has lived for 11 years without a heart at all – an artificial alternative giving him a lease on life while he awaits a transplant.