A surgeon has made the astonishing claim that life does not end when we die after years of speaking to people who have had near death experiences. Manuel Sans Segarra says these experiences (NDEs) cannot be explained as hallucinations or dismissed in some cold scientific way.

Instead, he says he has encountered things that contradict medical law. And he says there are thousands of such cases across the world.

The 81-year-old - the decorated former head of the surgery service at Bellvitge Hospital in the Barcelona province - spoke to the respected Spanish newspaper El Periodico after years of study into the matter. He said he does not care if people believe him - but said his research means he is no longer afraid of death.

Now the surgeon, who introduced laparoscopic techniques in Spain to make some forms of surgery less invasive, has set out his arguments in a recently released book. It looks at the testimony of patients who claim to have come back to life after having been clinically dead.

His interest in the subject began after a case in an emergency room "with a patient I managed to revive after he was clinically dead". He told El Periodico: "When he awoke, he recounted things that had happened while he had no neural activity, something that contradicts medical laws.

"Another patient experienced the same. When I revived her, she told me she had been travelling around the hospital and described what she had seen. I checked the computers, spoke with colleagues, and her account matched what had occurred."

So taken aback was he by this that he began researching near-death experiences (NDEs). The surgeon, who has two million followers on TikTok and Instagram, said he found many studies published by highly respected doctors in books and scientific journals across the globe reporting thousands of cases with similar experiences.

What these patients said fascinated him - and their experiences often tally with what we hear from people who claim to have been to the edge of life. "Their first sensation is leaving their body and observing from above what is happening in that place," he said.

"They often communicate with beings they call beings of light, who help and guide them. They frequently contact deceased loved ones."

He said one patient sobbed as she said she had spoken to her mother and even embraced her. He said patients see their lives flash by like on a screen - and talk of seeing a light that conveys a great sense of peace.

Yet rather than stay in such a place, he said these people came back. And he said such patients usually offer one of two reasons.

He said: "Some do so because those beings of light they've contacted tell them they must return to complete their life cycle. Others return because seeing their life flash before their eyes shocks them with something they've done in the past that they need to rectify, often due to some harm they've done to someone."

His conviction at first was that these experiences must be linked to some kind of neural activity - the electrical and chemical signals generated and transmitted by neurons in the brain. But when he spoke to psychiatrists and psychologists, he said what they told him about hallucinations did not match what these patients were saying.

Analysing the differences, he said NDEs follow a logical structure but said hallucinations do not. He said NDEs usually have a similar narrative - again, unlike hallucinations. And he said the key thing was that people who suffer with a hallucination want to forget it.

Yet those who experience a near-death experience always remember it vividly, he said, arguing that it changes their life. "Clinically, NDEs and hallucinations have nothing in common," he argued.

His conclusion? "Traditional medical science doesn't explain this phenomenon."

He has now reached a settled view that some might find it hard to believe a doctor could accept. He said: "When we die, we only shed our body, which is a shell made of stardust from the Big Bang. Not an atom is lost here. But our existence, in spirit form, continues, and at death we join the superconsciousness to which we belong. Death is not the end - we continue to exist afterwards."

He added: "Our true reality is something else, and it does not disappear when we die. I don't know what happens afterwards, nor do I talk about religion or beliefs, I only explain what I am told by those who have been on the brink of death and have come back, and I try to find an explanation for it as the scientist that I am."

His findings, perhaps unsurprisingly, mean he does not fear his own death. He said: "For me, death is the prelude to living something better."

The book, ‘Supra consciousness exists: Life after life’, is available now. Visit the surgeon's website for more details.