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Dannion Brinkley
“Brinkley’s efforts have become widely
known. He has recruited so many volunteers that he has single-handedly
reinvigorated the hospice movement in the
United States”.
This is a quote from Era Three Medicine,
by Larry Dossey, MD Co-chair, Panel on Mind/Body Interventions National
Institutes for Health
Chairman of the Board for Compassion in Action
Dannion Brinkley is author of
the international bestseller Saved by the Light and At Peace in the
Light. Made into a television motion picture, Saved by the Light has
been seen in over 30 countries.
Dannion is loved and
respected worldwide for his inspirational lectures on the Near-Death Experience,
Palliative and Hospice Care, Complementary and Alternative Healing Practices,
and self-awareness. Having survived numerous brushes with death, Dannion is an
expert in the dying process. He was twice struck by lightning and has since
survived heart failure, open-heart surgery, ruptured subdural hematomas, brain
surgery and a massive seizure.
That first lightning strike,
which left Dannion clinically dead for 28 minutes, radically changed his life.
Dannion became a hospice and nursing home volunteer. In the past 24 years of
volunteer service, he has been at the bedside of over 320 people at the moment
of their last breath and has accrued, personally, over 14,000 hours at the
beside during their final months, days, and hours of life. These years of
hands-on experience qualify him as a leading expert in the grief and bereavement
process as well as being an authority in the field of necrophobic reduction.
For more than 20 years,
Dannion has investigated the integration of conventional medicine and
complementary healing modalities. Through his study with music and vibrational
healing, Dannion helped develop conscious awareness and the need for
vibro-tactial response equipment to the hearing-impaired. He helped sponsor the
first music therapy symposium for the handicapped at the St. Valerie School of
Medicine in Montpellier, France in 1980.
As
a member of the National Institutes of Health’s ad hoc committee, he
assisted in research and preparation of The Chantilly Report and the
formation of the Office of Alternative Medicine.
In October 1999, Dannion
Brinkley and Ira Byock testified in support of improved end-of-life care before
the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight Committee on Government Reform.
Dannion has presented
comment multiple times before the White House Commission on Complementary and
Alternative Medical Policy and the National Institutes for Health. Among which
are his presentation in October 2000, “Improving End of Life care with
Complementary and Alternative Medicines”, July 2001, “You Cannot Drug A
Child to Safety: Ways of Reducing Stress in
America”
and December 2001,
“Prayer; The Ultimate Complementary Healing Tool”.
On
October 11, 2001 Dannion provided testimony “Describing Death in
America”
to the National Cancer Advisory Board for the Institute of Medicine.
In October 2000, Dannion
Brinkley participated in the meeting on The Science and Spirituality of
Healing . This very special meeting was co-sponsored by Duke University
Medical Center/Duke Clinical Research Institute, the Duke and Wake Forest
Divinity Schools, the Institute of Noetic Sciences, Lawrence S. Rockefeller and
the Rockefeller Family Foundation, and Wake Forest University/Bowman Gray
Medical Center.
Dannion is co-founder of
Compassion in Action – The Twilight Brigade (CIA), an international
organization that recruits, trains, and places volunteers, with the goal of
providing companionship during the last months of life. With more than 76
million Baby Boomers now confronting the mortality of their relatives and
friends many of whom are Veterans, this program is providing a much-needed link
to assure quality in end-of-life care.
As the son of a World War II
disabled veteran, and being a veteran himself, Dannion crusades for Veterans’
issues. With over 38,000 WWII veterans leaving this world every month,
Compassion in Action is in partnership with 14 different Veteran facilities in
the U.S. CIA volunteers have dedicated over 63,000 hours in VA’s, hospitals,
hospice and nursing homes since July 1, 2000.
Dannion was nominated for
the NATIONAL HOSPICE and PALLIATIVE CARE ASSOCIATIONS’ Heart of Hospice Award in
2001.
Compassion in Action
was chosen to be included in the December 2000 issue of Oprah’s O Magazine
segment on Volunteerism.
Dannion is a board member of
Volunteers for Inter-America Development Assistance (VIDA), an organization
in Central and South America that promotes prenatal and natal care, as well as
orphanage development and support.
Dannion’s amazing story and
insights have earned him appearances on Oprah, Larry King Live,
CNN World News, Unsolved Mysteries, the BBC, and many other
international television and radio shows, including Art Bell’s Coast to Coast
and Dreamland. At present, Dannion is developing a television series and
a made for TV movie. Dannion’s next book will be published in 2002.
Dannion lives in
South Carolina. With an animated, colorful style that’s woven with humor and
compassion, he continues the quest for the evolution of consciousness through
his near-death experiences and hospice work.
For
more information contact: websites:
http://www.lightstreamers.com
http://www.twilightbrigade.org
http://www.dannion.com
Email:
CIANatl@aol.com
COMPASSION IN
ACTION;
The Twilight
Brigade
contact
information:
National Office
Phone: 310-473-1941
Fax:
310-473-1951
Email:
CIAHOfc@aol.com
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