My Near Death Experience (NDE): Life After Death
I wrote the poem above shortly after this experience
I have lived a life full of experiences on an array of controversial topics. Some of us are just born more susceptible to these experiences than others. I believe we all have the ability to experience these things. Of all my experiences, this one is the icing on the cake. I do have many others and a very rare UAP experience story to tell one day. I am 38, and this experience happened when I was 14 years old and in the 8th grade. I have always kept my experiences hidden, never telling my stories until this year. I don’t want to have lived my life and never told my stories. So, I started writing.
This experience took place in the small town of Benton, IL, in late 1999 or early 2000. I have searched for the newspaper article but have been unsuccessful. Our names were all left out due to everyone being minors at the time. The crash location was at the intersection of Hwy. 14 and Long Prairie Rd in Franklin County, IL. After the accidentI was taken by ambulance to the Franklin County Memerial Hospital located on Bailey Lane in Benton.
I’m giving this information in hopes someone might read this and successfully dig that article up in newspaper archives, as I would love to have it. The only other information I can think to share is that the other vehicle in the accident was driven by a big-time lawyer in Franklin County. His name was John Drew, at least that’s what I knew him by. When researching, someone informed me that they believed Drew was actually short for his middle name, which was Andrew, but that they too only knew him as John Drew. He has since passed away. I know his name was listed in the article. I know this due to my parents being upset at the time about the paper listing him as the worst injured in the accident just because of who he was. I have since lost contact with all the other persons involved except my sister, who can only remember as much as I do about the date of the accident.
My story: Benton, IL (99-00)/ age: 14/ 8th grade
The day started just like any other day. I was in the 8th grade. I skipped school this day, which I often did. I know, I know...
Now, when I say I skipped school, I don’t mean I faked sick or played hookie. I went to school, but I entered through the front door and right out the gym doors. I did this often. On this day I left school with a friend and my sister. My boyfriend at the time was a sophomore in high school, and he had a vehicle. He was picking us up with two other friends who also went to the high school. We all met at a Hucks gas station, located not far from my school. In Benton, the high school is a separate building from the Jr. High school.
After we all met up at the gas station. The six of us were heading to another friend’s home located one town over.
Now, getting picked up at the gas station is the last memory I have until I open my eyes to an EMT leaning over me who had been attempting waking me up. I do not remember the drive or the wreck. Probably never will.
I was nearly killed, and I sustained the worst impact from the wreck. No one else was seriously injured. However, I was lucky to be alive. The vehicle we were in was an older style box car. I have no idea the make or model, but the front seat was an older style bench seat. One solid piece, no console or fold down cup holders. Just a solid seat all the way across. I had been positioned in the front middle seat, as I was sitting next to my boyfriend at the time and he was the driver. When we wrecked, all three backseat riders had slammed forward, hitting the back of the front bench style seat. The head-on collision at 55 miles an hour caused the front seat to buckle, under their weight hitting with such force, right in the middle, pinning me to the dashboard.
The wreck knocked me out on impact. When I woke up, a good amount of time had passed. Long enough for my boyfriend at the time to run a good way to find a house and call for help (as this was a time before we all owned cell phones), plus the time it had taken an ambulance to get to the scene. We were outside of town at the time of the wreck. We had jumped on the highway and were well on our way to the next town over. It put me out for quite a while. The wreck had dislocated my rib and left me with a permanent dent in my skull and leg. However, this was not the moment of my experience.
When I did wake back up, the entire day had felt like a vivid dream. Cloudy is the best I can describe it. I remembered getting into the vehicle at the gas station, but even though I could remember it, it still felt like I had dreamed of it. I couldn’t recall the wreck at all, and I still can’t.
I was loaded into the ambulance and taken to the hospital. Once we arrived, my parents were already there waiting. I was taken for an x-ray, then hooked up to an IV and placed in a room in the ER. It was here that this experience happened. There came a point when I decided to close my eyes and lay back for a minute.
This is when it happened. I closed my eyes, and I laid my head back onto the pillow. I only closed my eyes for a moment. When I opened them, I was on the ceiling looking down at my body on the hospital bed. I could see my body, and I could see the doctor in the room. He was standing to the left of my hospital bed. Out of the corner of my eye to my left, on the ceiling, I could see what looked to me like rolling clouds with light shining through them. My biggest regret is that I never turned and actually looked at it. This all happened pretty quickly.
The doctor was to my bodies left, and he was looking at paper. I watched as something got his attention (I assume the machine I was hooked up to was going off). I watched as he looked up and across my hospital bed to the machine. Then, rushed to the side of my hospital bed, grabbed my left wrist, and ran around the head of the bed over to the machine. I don’t know what he did at the machine, but just like that, I was back in my body, opening my eyes.
I want to note, and this is something I did notice later, that even though I know the machine had to be going off and was what got his attention, I never heard a thing. While I was on that ceiling, I never heard any sounds at all.
When I was out of my body, looking down at myself on that bed, I knew who I was. I knew that was my body, and I was still me. But I didn’t care at all that I was on that ceiling. I had no fear of any of it at any time.
Imagine yourself sitting anywhere. You close your eyes and instantly open them. When you open them, you are all of a sudden on the ceiling looking down at your body. What do you do? Freak out, right?
I’ve thought about this 1,000 times. You would think that you would scream for help. Freak out or attempt to air swim back down to your body, anything! But I didn’t.
I am horribly afraid of heights, but in this moment, I wasn’t. I was at peace. No fear, nothing. I couldn’t even hear the machine go off, and we all know what the alarms on those sound like. I didn’t care at all that I was on that ceiling. Even knowing what was coming from my left, I didn’t care enough to even look at it.
It was as if I knew what was coming. As if I had been in that position 100 times before and I was going home. I was only 14, a kid, and didn’t feel like I had a worry in the world at that moment. It was a peaceful calm.
I still remember waking up and couldn’t wait to tell my stepmom. The thought that she wouldn’t believe me or even how crazy the story sounded never crossed my mind. The very minute she walked through that door, I started right in. I remember looking up, halfway through the story and seeing her face. I’ll never forget it. It’s not that she didn’t believe me. She believed that I believed something had happened to me. I remember her saying “You know, you’ve had a traumatic day.” It was then I realized how crazy the experience sounded. I didn’t tell another soul about it for over a decade.
A day came over a decade later when I was visiting my biological mom. We were watching Netflix, and a show came on called “Who is God” by Morgan Freeman. Morgan Freeman did an interview with a woman in this episode. I remember sitting there, unable to believe what I was hearing.
Now remember, I told my story to stepmom moments after my experience. Therefore, I can prove I told my story years before this interview aired.
I sat there and listened to this woman tell my story, nearly word for word. Right down to the thing coming from my left. It was a very validating moment in my life. It was at this time I told my story for the second time. Receiving the exact same results.
Now, her experience was much longer than mine. She tells of what came from the light to my left. What they showed her, where they took her, and a choice they gave her.
I couldn’t figure out how to reach out to her, so I won’t tell her story here. However, I remember the second part of her story being unbelievable to me. Of course, I believed her. How could I know, without any doubt, that the first part of her story was true and not believed in the second half.
That night, when I went to bed, I had the most vivid dream. I lived out the second part of her story. In my dream, the stone angels came from the light. In my dream, they looked just like a pillar that would hold a roof up. They weren’t rounded, more cylinder shaped. They flew me over a beautiful garden. I can still see it in my head. There was this beautiful waterfall right in the middle. I can remember looking out at the sky ahead. Even though they didn’t speak, I heard them. They gave me a choice to stay in the garden or go on to what’s next. I chose to stay, and that was that. I was instantly descending. There was no second guessing or wait. I changed my mind. The second a choice was made, they were gone. I was falling but it was ok. I knew I was going to land on my feet. Again, I’ll go back to my fear of heights. I had no fear in this dream. I was just descending gently. Floating, really. I woke up just before my feet touch the grass.
I believe this was not a dream at all, but a memory. Either way, someone else lived out the exact same experience I did. Years apart, and like I said, I told my story year before that show aired. To me that’s as good as a step towards proof.
You do not die. Your vessel does. You go on. My body on that bed was just that, a body. A vessel I used to walk in this life.
It’s peaceful. I hope my story helps even one person. Just one makes it an experience worth sharing. Thank you for reading, and I hope you share this.
