I was home from school sick and lying on the couch sleeping. I awoke to the ceiling falling. I remember saying that we were having an earthquake. My mother and aunt were in the kitchen sitting and talking. I remember that I lost my vision and at some point was in my own bed and they were with me. In the beginning, it was just black. Soon, shapes of all colors and sizes were flying past me and I was just looking at them. Then, I began to see a very, very bright light ahead of me. I must have been talking out loud because I heard my mother say go toward the light. I continued on the way that I was going and at some point I could see clouds or a thick mist above. The light was everywhere. The closer I came to where I was going I saw a ladder, which went up into the mist/clouds. I began to climb the ladder and saw a hand reaching down to me. I could not see a face. I heard my mother say grab the hand. I don’t know if I said it out loud or not but I knew it was the hand of Jesus. This is the first and the last memory of earth.

I was 23 and going through a very late in life rebellious phase. Looking back, I don't know why I did the things I did. I had a friend that introduced me to drugs. One evening, we were at her apartment did drugs and ate some mushrooms. Everything was okay. I was feeling fine, and then I passed out while I was standing in her kitchen. My head hit the refrigerator on the way down, and I was out cold for a while. It was so strange, I saw myself floating away...down a tunnel with a bright light at the end. Once I hit the bright light, I looked around and I was in a large beautiful field. I saw my childhood dog running in the grass beside me, and I tried to stop, but I was floating too fast. Then parts of my life started flashing by me it was like a huge movie screen of my life surrounding this field.

While bicycling in Manhattan in May of 1999 I was run down by a car running a "pink" light. I was rushed to the hospital where I was diagnosed with a broken ulna and, more significantly, a broken ball joint to my left leg, in the hip socket. I had emergency surgery about five hours after the accident. I was already out of the anesthesia by 11 p.m. (I was run down around 3:15). I was moved quickly through the procedure. The first night in the hospital I was pretty much totally drugged up and out of it.

I have always had a strong faith in God; however, I wouldn't consider myself to be "religious." Recently, I underwent a two and half to three hour operation of on my spine. Before the surgery, I prayed and asked God to guide the surgeon's hands and to give me a sense of calm. I went into the surgery with a total confidence that the outcome would be positive. The only "hitch" during the procedure was that the medical staff had difficulty in bringing me out unconsciousness, the anesthesia. As a result, it took two and a half hours rather than thirty minutes to an hour to rouse me into consciousness.