I was told that I had given a friend of mine an STD, which was not true, but at the time I was told that I needed to have penicillin. He took me to the hospital where they proceeded to give me shots. A male nurse gave me the shots. I was fine at first but as he gave me more shots, I started feeling weird and told him something was wrong. He tried to assure me that there was nothing wrong, but the room started spinning and I got a death grip on his stomach while saying make me believe it. I was on my stomach and I started having convulsions, which were so strong that my legs were buckling up under me and hitting my chest. Because I had my hand on the nurse's stomach he couldn't get to a call button, but the sound of convulsions got and someone came rushing into the room and said, "Oh my God." By this time I could not see anything in the room, only a tunnel with a really bright light at the end of it. About that time, two other people came into the room. I knew I was hyperventilating and trying to stay calm, but I had a great deal of pain.

I have always had the ability to know things, not always what was happening but that it was, that somebody died, or that I needed to wait to start a trip only to find a big wreck I would have been in the middle of. When my daughter was two years old and I was pregnant with my son, my grandfather died. I had no details about the services and kept hesitating to go, but finally I decided to just go. While I was gone, I left my car in front of my aunt's house and went with my parents. When we returned, there was a wreck with another four-month pregnant woman. She had been hit and knocked into the opposite bank of a sand wall. One of the cars hit my car. I knew something was wrong, but I went anyway. I have always had these abilities, and could tell you a dozen things that have happened mostly before the death experience. I can't consider it a near-death experience because I actually died. I left my body. I was absolutely angry when they brought be back. While out of my body, I had no more pain and the most incredible sense of peace that I have ever known. I was told later that I had a heart seizure during all of this. In the tunnel I saw a picture of my heart beating and a shadow (like a roll top deck being pulled down over the light). Every time I would calm myself the shadow would lift slightly but go down progressively as this proceeded. I was terrified. I continued to see my heart and the shadow going down. They must have been able to tell that I was dying because they kept saying things like oh, my God, while they held me down and gave me adrenelin, I think. They were hitting all my pressure points with it and held me down until the convulsions stopped. As I heard them trying so hard to save me, I started talking. A peace had come over me that I can't explain, and I said, "It's okay. It's not your fault, this was supposed to happen. It's okay." By this time the shadow was almost completely covering the light, and I said, "And the lights went out."

I left my body and went out into what looked like a beautiful star- filled night with the most incredible peace. I had no more pain. I had accepted death; I believe the only way a person can die is to accept it. Suddenly, I was yanked back to my person, and came to gray as a guy I had seen who was dead from a heart attack. I knew it had happened, I knew it was real. They denied anything happened at the time, but I got to know the male nurse on purpose to get him to discuss it with me. I asked him later how long I was gone and he said about three minutes. I said, "I did leave, didn't I?" He responded that I had absolutely gone, died. At that time, I was absolutely terrified to get another shot for any reason. He told me I had given myself a heart murmer because of the heart seizure, and for several years you could hear it. The doctor said that it would heal. However, every once in a while I get a stitch of pain under my left arm along my chest wall where the murmur could be heard shortly after this all happened.

For a while I would start hyperventilating at the thought of anything that scared me, especially shots, drugs, etc., with needles. I had bad dreams and was so terrified. I needed help so I contacted a mental health clinic. I went to see a psychologist. The first thing she said when I started to panic was, "I could help you, but I won't." which made me panic even more. She said that I had to control it because I could die from hyperventilating. She could not help me, only I could help me. So I stopped hyperventilating and started talking to her. We talked a long time and discussed fears from earlier in my life. I discovered that the fear dated back to about age five when my sister had hepititus and got a gamiglobin shot, which I thought had made her worse. This phobia and an experience at the dentist where a needle got twisted in my gums made me unconsiously terrified of needles. Anyway, I went on with her for about four sessions and then joined her group sessions. After a year I was dealing well with all my fears and had begun to handle them proactively.

I will never forget this experience. I will never consider life longer than two minutes long because that's about how long it took me to be dead. From that time on, after relieving the fear, I have valued my life so much more. Shortly after this happened, I met an architect apprentice who had an almost identical experience that we talked about. Since then, I have had an ectopic pregnancy and nearly died, had a direct hit by lightening, and had so many near misses that it is incredible that I am still alive. One thing I have decided is there's reason to be here as I should be dead many times over. I also decided that a person has to choose to let go in order to die.