[dramatic music] It felt like every part of
my body was being ripped apart. I could hear myself screaming,
no I don't want to die, I don't want to die. At that point, that's
when I realized, I'm dead. And then I was back in my
body, back in all that misery. [eerie piano music] I was probably close to six
foot tall, 100 pounds, a long-- skinny legs, long thin arms and
probably look a little PeeWee Herman-ish. [giggle] Almost. Absolutely a loner, you know,
just completely different than anybody else. David is an only child. We were excited when we had
him and he was a very big part of our lives. We did a lot of things together. Probably overindulged in
him as parents often do. [shimmering bells] The feeling of
diving was freeing. The more I dove, the
more comfortable I got, the more I felt like that
I was part of the ocean. They hired a captain. His name was Jerry Beaudry. And, we-- David was a
senior in high school now and decided that this
would be his profession. He was my deckhand, my
first mate for a long time. We kind of hit it off right away
even though he was considerably younger than me at the time. It's wintertime
and the water's cold and we got to wear a full suit. And I'm trying to
get my full suit on and I'm struggling with
it, struggling with it. I wasn't feeling well that day. I had a drink a little
bit the night before. And I kind of felt
a little hung over. I'm getting that that feeling
like phew I'm going to-- I'm going to throw up. And I'm sw-- Now, I'm getting hot,
sweaty, and clammy, and-- but the thought
comes in my mind-- as soon as I get in the
water it's going to be-- it's going to be all right. So I get my stuff on, but I
don't get it on quite right. And I just bought
a new hood to wear. And the hood really
didn't fit very well. I just shove it on, and
I get my mask over it, and I get in the water, and,
kind of, bobbing in the water, and-- ooh, I'm really feeling bad. So I put the regulator in my
mouth, and let the air out, and I start going down. [suspenseful music] We're diving the kelp beds. It's a dangerous place to dive
as well as a beautiful place to dive. I noticed that there must have
been an air bubble in my hood or whatever because it
was pulling up on my chin, and it was pulling my head up,
and next thing I know, my hood kind of got turned, and
my mask got shoved off, and next thing I
know, my mask is gone. [whoosh] I started to get a little bit
anxious or a little bit worried about what was going on. About that time,
Josh had come over and was trying to
help me with it. And in that process,
I lost my regulator-- my breathing device. And I panicked. And I remember Josh-- I think he was trying to
put a regulator in my mouth and I started fighting with him. Everything that I'd ever
learned about scuba diving was out the window. I think Josh had realized
that his life might have been in danger at this point
and he backed away. And time stopped. [calming music] When I was 18, I married
my childhood sweetheart and promptly produced
three beautiful children. We had everything imaginable. We had an airplane, a swimming
pool, fancy vacations, everything-- everything that
you needed to have in order to have the American dream. I had fallen in an accident. And it felt like I had a
whiplash in my lower spine. The pain that I had
was debilitating. And I would be taking more
and more pain pills trying to get it to stop. I wasn't a mother to
my children anymore. I wasn't a wife to my husband. I was just this poor pathetic
person on a lot of drugs. It was my only hope to be
able to function without drugs again. [heart rate monitor beeping] I woke up in a
Stryker Frame circle bed which is an awesome way
to survive from surgery. It looked like a
Ferris wheel for one. There were two big chrome
hoops and a stretcher suspended in the middle with me on it. [creepy music] Three times a day, two
nurses would come in and then rotate me straight up and
then over onto my face. And they would air out
my back for 20 minutes so I wouldn't get
pressure sores. Three days after surgery,
a respiratory therapist came in and told me
that they were concerned about my breathing-- that my
breathing was becoming very shallow. And so he was going to
hook me up to this machine and it would breathe for me. He put this thing
in my mouth that was between my gums and my
lips so I couldn't remove it. Air would flow in and I could
feel it expanding my lungs. And then it would stop
when my lungs were expanded and flow back out again. And he watched about
three or four breaths. And then he kind of signaled
me that he was going to go out for a few minutes
and he'd be back before the treatment was over. And he left. And I just was lying there
feeling it moving in and moving out, moving in and moving out. And then, all of a sudden, it
just kept going, and going, and going, and it was
as though somebody had stuck a hose in my
mouth and turned on water and I was drowning. There was no way I
could catch my breath. It was just expanding me. It's like my lungs
were going to explode and it was so terrifying. I became so scared that
I lost consciousness. [intriguing guitar music] The father of my
children, he, unfortunately, passed away at a very young
age of a massive heart attack. Even though we were divorced,
we still had a very good, a very good friendship and
respect for each other. It was a sad day
when he passed away. I was a bus driver
for disabled students. They were all in wheelchairs. I loved my job. I went to work everyday
with a smile on my face. It was my honor to
work with those people. I got up at 5:00. I took my shower, made
my lunch, made my coffee, said goodbye to my cat Lucas,
and out the door I went. I'm driving back to
newton South High School, and I'd gotten this sharp pain. And, you know, I thought
it was indigestion. I had coffee that morning and
I have acid reflux disorder. And, all of a
sudden, I felt pain that went right up my left arm. And this was very painful,
and I was like, uh oh. And I'm thinking to myself,
something's definitely wrong here. I'm in trouble. I'm having a heart
attack but I need to get this bus in
a safe position. I called my boss and
told her that I would not be finishing the day out. And I'll never forget the sigh
in her voice like [sighs] like, why? And I said, I'm
having a heart attack. And she said, that's not a
good joke for April Fool's Day. I said, it's not
a joke call 9-1-1. [industrial music] When there's an emergency,
a 9-1-1 needs to be called. We're all paged. I don't think I've
ever seen anybody in that much pain in my life. You could see the
pain on her face. It was so intense. So we had her lay down and
then she started yelling that the pain was really bad. And we're like, Laura, we're
right here right, right here. And she just kept
screaming and screaming. Last thing I remember
was a female stating we're cutting her clothes off. Wow, cut my clothes off? If I wasn't having
a heart attack, I'm definitely having one now. And I looked down, and
her eyes were wide open, and she wasn't moving. Everything that I'd ever
learned about scuba diving was out the window. And time stopped. [intriguing guitar music] I no longer was thinking
of any of this stuff that I'd learned from
my dive training, or even, that that was my
buddy trying to help me. What's going through my
head is basically survival. I'm going to drown and I
need to get out of here and get to the surface. I decide that it
would be better to die on the surface of the ocean
than it was to die down here on the bottom. So I dropped my weight
belt and I go flying up like a rocket from 90 feet. And as I start to go up, I feel
a tremendous amount of pressure throughout my body. I saw Dave, David pop out
of the water like a cork. Very loudly he was
screaming, I'm going to die. I'm going to die. When you come up to the
surface from a depth and you do it quickly, you
have a buildup of nitrogen. And these are very
small bubbles. And they grow. They get bigger and bigger. And when you come up
from depth that quickly, they will go to parts of
your body that are delicate. Your lungs in particular. And tissue in your lungs
will literally explode. Feels like I can't let the
air out of my lungs fast enough. I feel like I'm going to pop. I hit the water
very, very quickly. I noticed right when I
got to him that there was some blood from his
mouth and it was frothy. I knew what that meant. It usually meant the
bends, nitrogen, embolism. [eerie music] Grabbed him by the back
of his wetsuit collar and started dragging
him to the boat. And he would repeat,
I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I told him many, many times. Keep saying that,
keep saying it loud. As long as you're saying
that, you're alive. I can't breathe
and I can't see. It stops. Everything stops. [heart rate monitor beeping] And I realize, I'm
not in my body. As I open my eyes, I'm
looking at this body floating in the water and it's me. I see that my eyes seem swollen,
are bulging out of my head. I see that I'm not breathing. And I said, wow,
I think I'm dead. [creepy music] And about that time is when I
feel this energy or this pull behind me. I look, and I see this light
or this energy above me. I have fleeting glimpses of
like, wow, I'm not in my body. And, wow, maybe I need
to try to get back to it. But the pull or the power of
the energy that's behind me is so strong that I really lose
interest in my physical body very quickly. [guitar music] It was as though somebody
had stuck a hose in my mouth, and turned on water,
and I was drowning. [suspenseful music] And I looked down at my body. And I looked like I
was in my ninth month. And I thought, oh, I'm
having another baby. I must be in labor. My whole body had swollen up
and I had two huge incisions in my back and they
were pulling open. So the pain was excruciating. And I started calling and
then I started screaming. And people started rushing in. [heart rate monitor beeping] My blood pressure
had fallen really low and they were screaming
out my blood pressure. It was so chaotic and
it was so intense. And that's when I started
yelling, leave me alone, let me die, let me die. It was just-- it was so
frightening the way everybody was acting. It just really wasn't worth
trying to struggle to survive. And it was-- it was
too much for me. I became overwhelmed
and lost consciousness. [suspenseful music] [heart rate monitor beeping] The next thing I knew, I
was out in the hallway. And I looked up and down the
hall and I didn't see anybody, but I thought, if they
catch me out here, I'm going to get into trouble. So I turned around to
move back into the room and saw the PA
speaker at nose level. Now, I knew when I came into the
hospital their PA speaker was mounted on the ceiling. And that's when I thought,
something really strange is going on here. I moved back into the room and I
saw my body lying in the circle bed, but it didn't feel
like it was me anymore. I was up at the
ceiling looking down. And I realized I felt calm. I probably had never felt
that peaceful in my life. It was like all the
stress was gone. But the next thing I knew,
I was in total darkness. I believe that from the
beginning of that experience my body was dead because my
soul wasn't in my body anymore. [creepy music] I'm in trouble. I'm having a heart attack. You could see the
pain on her face. It was so intense. Her eyes were wide open
and she wasn't moving. It's like the whole world had
melted away and it was just-- I was so focused on her
and so much adrenaline. AED is an automated
external defibrillator. There are pads. They go right on the victim, and
there are little computers that sense if this person
has a heartbeat or not. If it doesn't find a heart
rate, it'll say, shock advised. I just remember looking down
at this blonde-haired woman, very pale, eyes wide open. I gave her her first shock. And as soon as that
shock went into her body, she sat up screaming. All of a sudden, the
machine said, analyzing. I shocked her again. And the second
time I shocked her, she kind of mumbled and groaned. The AD said re-analyzing. For the third time
it shocked her, and there was no
response at all. She was gone. [heart rate monitor beeping] I was alive one second
and dead the next. And I remember floating
straight up out of my body. And I looked down, and I seen-- I seen people and I seen
myself, but I couldn't make out what they were doing. You feel really light and very
much at peace, like meditation. You know? You're deep into this peace. I believe it's your soul
because your body stays. I mean, I was
looking over my body. So it is there. So what part of me went? My soul? My heart? That's when I
realized, I'm dead. I'm dead. I'm here. I'm dead. I was unconcerned
with my dead body. [whoosh] [timer beeping] I gave her two breaths
and 30 compressions. Like, she's blue. I've never seen someone
literally blue before. What truly convinced me
was how can all these people be beating the living
daylights out of me and I not feel nothing. Then these bright lights
like the ray of sun coming down like a
bolt of lightning. How light it is and how
bright and powerful it is. And beautiful,
vibrant, bright colors. It was like-- it was
like 4th of July. I believe I kept floating
upwards and I kept on going. And did I want to come back? No. I look and I see this light
or this energy above me. And I said, wow,
I think I'm dead. [eerie sound] Once I got about onto
the back of the boat, the only thing I can do
to help him with the bends is to get him on his side
and elevate his feet. Theoretically, the
nitrogen bubbles are going to go uphill, and
try to get those bubbles away from his brain. I went up to the bridge,
called the Coast Guard, and put out a mayday. And I said that I had a
diver that had popped out of the water. [bubbles popping] She keyed back and said, we have
to analyze what the situation is for a proper response. I got back on the radio
and got pretty stern. And said, lady, if you don't
get this man off the boat very, very quickly and
launch a helicopter, it's going to be
your ass, not mine. A lifeguard boat pulled
up, assess the situation, noted that we had him in the
correct position for what had happened. [timer beeping] At that point, I
really become focused on this energy and this
light that's surrounding me. It's everything that
I ever wanted to be, because I never really felt
like I wanted to be who I was. But I've never felt such
peace, and love, and comfort. As I embrace this light, it
became me and I became it. And the energy proceeded to
tell me, and not with words, with feelings that my
time wasn't done on Earth, that I had to go back,
that I had a purpose. And I realized at
that point that I wasn't going to get to stay. [creepy music] I was alive one second
and dead the next. And did I want to come back? No. [timer beeping] I don't believe in any point
that I was here on Earth. I believe that it was-- it was heaven. When you're there, you
have no sense of Earth. It's like all your daily routine
of things that you need to do-- like, you know, you
need to go to the store, you need to do this,
you need to do that. It doesn't-- that
doesn't go with you. [timer beeping] To do CPR for nine minutes
is a very extended time, so it's exhausting. [ambulance sirens] The ambulance arrived and
they just grabbed her from me. And I remember feeling like
they were going in slow motion. They picked her up. They put her on. No one was doing any CPR still. I was like-- I didn't know if I should
run over and continue the CPR while she was on the stretcher. And I remember turning around
and just hysterical being-- just started crying
I think, and shaking. And then, all of a sudden,
there's my ex-husband. He didn't look anything like
what he looked when he died. Ah, he looked young. I remember thinking
to myself, wow! [laughs] I had this feeling
of I'm happy to see you. Wow, this is, you
know, it's exciting! He just looked so pure so-- like-- I don't want to use
the word perfect, but very close to perfect, you know? [ambulance sirens] [timer beeping] And I reached my hand out
for my ex-husband to take it. And he wouldn't. He did not take my hand. So it's like a
feeling of rejection. You know? He's like, it's not your time. And then he floated away. The energy proceeded to tell
me that my time wasn't done on Earth. [suspenseful music] Now we were only four or
five miles from their base. I heard the helicopter coming. I looked up and there it was. The helicopter was above us. [timer beeping] I don't know why I
think I started to go back to the physical form. And there was-- the pull started
to come the opposite direction, pulling me back towards
my body, pulling me back towards the boat. It felt like a suction. It felt like a [slurps] [heart rate monitor beeping] And I was back in my body. And the pain was unbelievable. It felt like every part of my
body was being ripped apart. And as I fought with
whoever was working on me, I could hear myself screaming,
no, I don't want to die. I don't want to die. And my spiritual form
saying, I don't want to go. And I remember this conflict. And he was bleeding
pretty good and-- from his mouth. Said he couldn't move. Didn't move. The helicopter must have
been over the top of the boat because I can remember
the sound of this [makes helicopter sound]. They got me in a basket
and then I'm going up. I get to the airplane and
the paramedics working on me. I remember grabbing his
hands and telling him no, no, I don't--
I don't want to do this. I don't want to-- I don't want to go through
this, you know, just let me go. And by the time we
landed at the hospital, I didn't want to fight anymore. Whatever is going to
happen is going to happen. And I'm not going to
be able to change it. And I received a phone call. And the emergency
room doctor said to me that they had David
in the emergency room. And then I said,
how is he doing? And they said, we don't
know, that we don't have a lot of experiences
with diving accidents, and we don't know whether
he's going to live or not. [sad piano music] My body was dead because my
soul wasn't in my body anymore. [heart rate monitor beeping] [timer beeping] When I was out of my body
and I could see it lying there, I knew I was dead. I knew I didn't want
to go back to it. I was giving it up. So I moved into this darkness. And I felt this lush warmth
wrap itself around me and pull me in,
pull me into this-- My grandmother had
had a huge bosom. And she had hugged me
as a child, it was-- [starts crying] --it was
like everything was OK. And my grandmother was
pulling me into her. She was holding me and she was
comforting me like she used to when I was a little girl. [mysterious music] [timer beeping] We relived all 19 years
of our life together. She had died when I was 19. But every single scene
from every single thing happened again. There was one time when
she let me cook with her. I couldn't have been
more than three or four. And she pulled over
this heavy wooden chair, and put it next to the
stove, and stood me up on it. I can still feel her hands
picking me up and putting me on this chair. And she went, she
got her hairbrush, and I had very, very curly hair. And she made Shirley Temple kind
of curls, you know, long curls. And then she lifted me
down, and I remember running into the bedroom,
and looking in her mirror, and feeling just
like Shirley Temple. [timer beeping] She was there to guide me
so that I could understand something of love that
I could relate to. And then, I started
moving away from her. But it was OK. It was like, from her
heart to my heart she let me know that she'd always
be there waiting for me when I came back. [whoosh] I would have loved to
have stayed with her, but I was suddenly
back in my body. [heart rate monitor beeping] And then I was back in my
body, back in the circle bed, back in all that misery. I reached my hand out for
my ex-husband to take it. And he wouldn't. You know? He's like, it's not your time. [dramatic music] [timer beeping] I have no idea of the
minutes that I was there. Minutes and time
is not something that I felt throughout
any of this process. And all of the sudden this
powerful, powerful, powerful energy came over me. And it was my son, and my
daughter, and my granddaughter. It was flashes of
my children's face. [whoosh] [timer beeping] And it just-- every second just
kept repeating their faces-- my son, my daughter, my
granddaughter, my son, my daughter, my granddaughter. And then before I knew
it, I heard somebody say, she's not going to make it. And on the very third shock, I
decided that I was coming back. [timer beeping] So I gave him a little
bit of shock of his own. [laughs] I was flat-lined
for 57 minutes and I was shocked 21 times. I came back. [whoosh] [calming music] She would say to the doctors
so is she going to be OK? Is she going to be OK? And he would say,
the mother that left to go to work that morning
is not going to be the same mom that wakes up in this bed. [calming guitar music] I remember opening my eyes
and consciously realizing that I was back in the circle
bed, back in that room, back with all the monitors,
and bags, and pain. And it was like, ugh, yuck. It was torture. And even if I had never had
a near-death experience, six months in a body cast
would have changed me a lot. You can't run away from
yourself when you're in a body cast for six months. My view of the American dream
is there's absolutely nothing wrong with it,
it's a lot of fun. I mean, I enjoyed all
the material things that we had too, but-- but it-- we miss the point. So superficial. It's all about out there. When, in fact,
what I learned was, it's all about what's in here-- that what we're really
supposed to be here working on is our inner life, is
learning how to love ourselves, learning how
to love everybody else. And that's what we get
to take with us when we die is the love that we've
given away our whole life. And I have nine
grandchildren now. And I know deep in my heart
that I have the same, you know, relationship with them that
I had with my grandmother. And I take care of one of my
little grandchildren four days a week. She's 18 months old now and
she's the love of my life. And she looks at me just the
way I looked at my grandmother. [dramatic music] The doctors were giving
me very little hope and that was very,
very frightening. We don't know if he lives if
he'll be a vegetable or not. When I first saw Cheryl,
I put my arms around her and we were both sobbing. Doctors said it was a good
thing that they did get them-- get him into the hyperbaric
chamber that quickly. Had it been any
longer, he probably would not have made it. They've given me oxygen trying
to get the nitrogen bubbles out of my system. I remember my mom being there,
and people coming in, and just looking at them being so angry. So angry inside that
I didn't get to go. I was so upset that it was-- I had to stay here. And I-- and I remember
thinking to myself, I don't want to be this guy. I don't want to be David Thomas. I want to be that
spiritual form that I was in when I was in the light. [eerie music] I also had some
depression going on. I had this feeling of rejection
from God, or from this light, or from the energy. He died and went
to heaven and he-- and God didn't want him,
and he sent him back. And he felt unworthy. He felt, God doesn't
even love him. I think that I was going to be
like that dude that just didn't get it. You know? I'm going to sit here and
wallow in this self-pity, or I'm going to have
some serious pain to get encouraged to move on. [uplifting music] Now, I've just had a daughter
and watching her birth come in here. It was just like that, it's
like maybe the greatest gift is being right here, right now. That near-death experience
really taught me that life is all that-- is great. He's going to be 40
years old in October and, you know, that's not
young for a new father, but he's incredible. He's loving, and he's warm,
and he's caring, and he's-- he couldn't be happier
and neither could I. And part of our
gifts are to have fear and to walk through it. And on the other side of
experiencing these things, we become whole with ourselves. And now, I wake up every morning
with a newfound enthusiasm of living life. [dramatic music] I was in a coma for three days. When I come out of my
coma, they said it was-- it was a miracle. On my sixth day
I was up walking. And on my eighth day
I asked to go home. It wasn't as if I could just
get up and do everything, but I could function. You know? So on the ninth day, they
did my discharge papers. So the miracle patient
go up and walked out. And nine days in the
hospital and on my way home. [uplifting music] When I met Michelle it was her. I think we both had tears. I have a very close
bond with Michelle. Yes. I love Michelle
for saving my life. That early CPR, that
early diffibulation that made all the difference. I'm sure it's changed her. I mean, it's changed me. I'll never be the same. Death experience has changed
me in probably every aspect of my life. I cherish every moment
that I had in heaven, but I also know that there is a
place and purpose for me here. The important things
in life for me are my children first of all. And they've always
been that way. Taking care of my health, but
also, just enjoying the moments at those moments. I've always had a sense of peace
since this has happened to me. It continues to stay with me. Just go out, and
pass out the message, and live in the moment.
