Sebastian Junger was dying — fast. For decades, the famed author, journalist and filmmaker had told the stories of men facing down their own deaths — be it on the decks of the doomed Andrea Gail , which he chronicled in 1997’s hit book and flick “The Perfect Storm,” or on the battlefields of Kosovo, Bosnia, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, which he visited during his lengthy career as a war reporter. But on that day in June 2020, the reaper reached out to him directly — in the form of a ruptured abdominal aneurysm.
The avowed atheist watched as disturbing, nearly supernatural scenes unfolded before his eyes — startling images he details in his new book, “In My Time of Dying: How I came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife.” A deep, black chasm opened on the floor next to his hospital gurney, the 62-year-old Junger told The Post. Then, his long-dead father appeared overhead, whispering words of comfort.
Junger, the father of two little girls, told the doctors in a panic, “You’ve got to hurry. “You’re losing me right now.” The doctors did hurry, and Junger survived.
But the experience shook him to his bones, and an avalanche of anxiety and depression swept over him as he realized the long arm of death could extend far beyond the battlefield. “It was devastating,” said Junger, who primarily lives with his family in Lower Manhattan, to The Post. “It completely undid my sense of there being stability and safety in the world — which war zones .