The pool was located in Canoga Park, California. The outside temperature was reasonably warm, so the pool was a comfortable temperature. After swimming for a while I wanted out of the pool. At this point I realized the water level was too low for me to reach the rim of the pool. There was no ladder mounted on the inside of the pool to get out, just the one outside to get in. If the water level was where it was supposed to be I would have been able to get out, but because it wasn't, I couldn't get out. There were no floatation devices in the pool and the water level was to the top of my head when I stood on the bottom.
I had to constantly swim to get a breath. I yelled and yelled and yelled from every location I could think of and no person heard me. I started conserving energy by standing in the center and coming up for air when needed. Occasionally, when I was up for air I would yell for help. After what seemed like hours of doing this, I remember yelling God any body please help me and I went back under the water. I then heard a very clear voice that said, (while underwater) “take a deep breath.” I jumped above the water level and took the breath and went back under water. The voice then said, “No, take a deep breath under water!” I thought I couldn’t do that the voice responded to my thought and said, “Trust me.” So, I then took a deep breath of the water.
I remember the heaviness of the water entering my lungs. Then I was looking down at the pool, garage, house and yard. I thought, yes I'm out of the pool. Then being turned (I can’t adequately describe this) I was facing one way then I was facing another. I don't remember turning but I know I was facing another way. In front of me was a very, very, very bright white yet highly colored loving light with hundreds of thousands of silhouetted people between the source of the light and me (very similar to the end of the movie Ghost).
As I approached the multitude of silhouettes, 12 people plus one at a wall met me. The wall was (as best as I can explain it) seemed like a wall of fog that was only one droplet/particle thick and each droplet bounced off other droplets and extended off into the darkness. This obviously was a barrier or wall between one place and another. I extended my arms and both hands went thru the wall. At this moment the person I knew as the one who was not the same as the 12 others present at the wall. This one special person pushed them back out and said, “Go back you have something to do.” I knew I could not refuse even though I wanted to stay! The next moment I was looking down at my body (in the ambulance) and there was a man crouched next to me who said, “God please don't let him die” that is the last thing I remember of that day.
To make the story more complicated my mom and dad were divorced at the time. My dad had been given custody of me because he remarried. After this incident the court gave me back to my mom. So, for years I only had my mom’s account of the event. That changed when I contacted my dad (around the age of 12) after several visits I asked him what he remembered. He turned pale the moment I mentioned the drowning incident! Since I had mom’s account before dad’s account I will write what I remember her saying years ago. Today her and my dad’s memory of the event has changed. But my knowledge and memories of the event have remained the same. My mom stated that she came by the house to drop off food and saw the ambulance driving away. The police at the scene told her I was dead. So, they put her in a police car and followed the ambulance to the hospital. Since I was dead the ambulance did not run with lights/sirens and parked near the emergency entrance. By the time they opened the doors my mom had arrived at the back of the ambulance. To their surprise when they opened the door I said, “hi mommy!” Then nothing. (This is what I remember her telling me years ago.)
Now as for my dad, this is the kicker. Dad told me that after the football game (I didn't know what type game he was watching) he went looking for me. He said he looked everywhere. Dad said he was getting frustrated at not being able to find me. It was then as if someone had yelled the word pool and hit him in the head with the word pool. Dad said he could hear, see and feel the word pool! He ran out and found my body on the bottom of the pool (not floating). Dad then laid my body over the edge of the pool and climbed out himself. He carried me by my feet to the porch and called the operator who gave him the number for the fire department. Dad called and waited for help to arrive. He didn’t attempt to revive me in any way.
The paramedics who arrived attempted resuscitation for over 15 minutes, without signs of life they called it. They then put my body in the ambulance and my dad said he climbed in with me. (This was when I found out who the crouched individual was). He said on the way to the hospital I started choking/breathing but he could not figure out how to contact the cab of the ambulance. At the time both attendants were in the front cab. So the first any of them knew (besides my dad) that I was alive was when they opened the back of the ambulance. This was all he remembered; now his memories of the event are different. He stated he does not remember that he had said what I heard “God please don't let him die.”
The biggest change that was noticeable to everyone before the NDE was I would talk all the time. The only understandable words I said after the NDE were “hi mommy” after that I was told I didn't speak for years! It took me until about 8th grade to be able to speak clearly and to this day I have to think to speak clearly.
There were several rules or laws that were imprinted on my mind, some of them include.
- I know suicide is wrong especially now that I know the rule.
- I know that there is a God. When the body dies our energy does not die.
- I know that evil forces are real and should not be ignored.
- I met 12 people and one other at the wall. I did not put the name of Jesus to this “one” until I heard the NDE of Beatty Jean Edie. She said she met 12 plus Jesus. Her story really hit me when I heard this part!
- I still call this individual plus one so my memories of the event are not intentionally changed, besides if this individual wanted me to know his name during the NDE he would have given me this information as well. I assume he knew I would find out later.
- I know that no one alive has seen the face of God. Once you go thru the barrier you're not allowed to return at least in a way you could remember or recount.
- I know people get reincarnated, that they may have been the other sex in the previous life and may be affecting their current existence, along with fears or problems remembered or not learned in their previous life. So I/we don't have the right to honestly judge others except for the way in which they interact with me, my family or my friends.
- I know this is my first life and that I have not lived before. I have to get it right the first time, as there won't be a chance to get it right later.
- I know God is around all the time. That God has helped influenced my decisions.
Recently I saw a program on Einstein's theory of relativity E=Mc2. This program awoke me to the fact that everything we can see or feel is light that has been stored and not just regular light but light squared, wow. I believe this is the same light that I saw on the other side of the wall!
- I also know that God loved us so much that he stepped out of eternity into time in the only way possible. Which was thru his son Jesus, he did this so he could experience time and what it was like to be alive bound by time and be tempted by the evil that he created. Yes, God created everything although the best theologians and I can't answer how, why and when.
- I know I have not done illegal, hurtful or bad stuff that I would have done without the memory of the NDE. Do unto others, as you would have others do to you!
I recently told a suicidal friend about my NDE. H asked me how do I know it was not just my brain starved for oxygen. I explained I heard a voice before my body was at any risk of dying. I told him I feel that I could have continued breathing like this for hours more, but I followed the voice. This difference in my NDE compared to the other NDEs he has or I have heard about convinced him that the other NDEs are more than likely accurate accounts of real events, not just a brain starved of oxygen. My NDE account stopped him from doing it. I looked for and found your site. If this story helps even one other person it is worth my time writing it.