The first time Matt Branch died, the first time his heart stopped beating on December 28, 2018, he was thinking about his wife and his son.
He doesn't remember the second death. That's all lost, as are the 12 days that followed, days when his spirit walked the tightrope between this world and the next, when his body lay comatose at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, and when doctors performed nine surgeries, infused him with 300 units of blood, and, ultimately, amputated his leg.
Branch only remembers the day of the accident, the hour after – the 12-gauge shot in his leg, the vacuum on his head, the elephant on his chest, the fear that everything was over – and the odd dreams that haunted him as he desperately and unknowingly clung to life for almost two weeks.