As a youth I was a skateboarder. When my son started to skateboard I decided to ride a skateboard again. At that time I was 30. We rode our skateboards together most days for 4 years. In January of 2011 I was riding my skateboard on some ramps.

I rode up a ramp, called a quarter pipe, named after its shape. This ramp was six feet tall. I rode off the top and into the air. My body was horizontal at about 7 feet. As I came back down, the skateboard caught at the top of the ramp and stayed. My body fell to the concrete floor below. I was not wearing a helmet. I hit my temple just in front of and above my right ear. I experienced a realm in which there was only an empty darkness. It was a peaceful experience. I was conscious, as I am right now, but I no longer inhabited a physical body. There was no perception of time or space just dark empty nothingness.

I remember thinking "I'm not done fulfilling my purpose on Earth." I awoke on the floor right after that, gasping for breath as if it were the first time my lungs had been used. It felt kind of like I was being rushed through a tunnel back into my body. My vision was blurred and distorted with rainbows, much like the picture on an old tv with poor reception. I had multiple broken ribs and heavy bruising on my entire right side. I do not remember the few seconds leading up to the fall, but was fully conscious otherwise. Others who were with me say I was on the ground only a few seconds.