Three nights after an operation, I had a heart attack. There were two nurses in the room at the time. Suddenly my father, who had passed over 30 years previously, was standing at the left of my bed down near my feet. I remember saying, "Oh, hi dad," as if it was perfectly normal to see him! I must have been talking too much, although I cannot remember doing this, because he said to me in a very impatient voice, "Well come on, are you coming or not, you have to make up your mind.” I replied, "ewe, I’d better not," and before I could say anything else he was gone without another word. Then I was looking at 12 nurses/doctors surrounding me. One doctor was yelling my name into my left ear.

During the heart attack, I was in extreme pain. I fought for every breath and I could feel a cold come over my body. The doctor said, "hang with me buddy, hang with me" over and over, but it sounded like he was moving away. The lights went from bright to dimming and as they were dimming the lights quickly went off. All sound stopped and like at hyper speed each and every thing that I had done, said, thought, or not done--but should have--played through. I wasn't a bad person, but it became clear that I wasn't a good one either. I was terrified that I was going to hell.

When I was 13, one night my family and I were returning from watching films at the local drive-in. We rode in our station wagon. My baby brothers slept in the back. My mom sat in the middle row of seats. I was in the passenger seat and my dad drove. A drunk driver came out of nowhere and hit us head on. I remember seeing the drunk's car coming toward us clearly but in slow motion. Everything happened so fast on impact. All I remember clearly is suddenly being enveloped in complete darkness. It was quiet and warm, very comforting, and cozy. I did not feel scared at all. It was comforting. I saw a white light far above me, kind of like what it looks like when you're underwater and you see the sun shine above. It was a warm light, like being in sunshine. Then after that --I don't know how long it took--I just remember waking up covered in blood in the vehicle wreck, but I was not in pain (albeit my injuries were severe). I felt safe. Someone was trying to take me out of the wreck. They put me into someone else's car and drove me to the hospital ER.

It was the morning of June 22, 2008 about 7:30 a.m. When I woke up in bed I started to cough and felt a sharp pain in my chest. I thought that I had pulled a muscle. I went to the bathroom and the pain became sharper and more intense, and it was then that I knew something was wrong. My partner was downstairs making coffee when I called for him to come up as I thought that I was having a heart attack. His Spanish was limited and he could not phone the ambulance. He called a friend who also had limited Spanish so he called another person who could speak Spanish and managed to get an ambulance to the house. I was very scared and thought that I was going to die. The pain was intense and the time lapse was more than it should be to get to the hospital. I was rushed to the town hospital and entered into emergency where doctors and nurses worked on me, injecting needles. I was still in extreme pain. I was then taken to another room. It was in this room that the NDE happened.