this is beyond with Heather Tash where we examine near-death experiences and life itself hopefully making this life a little better hello thank you to all of you listening I really appreciate you joining us and thank you so much Jeff Olson for being my guest today oh it's my it's my pleasure thank you heather for having me I read your book at least 10 years ago and it really stuck with me you have probably the most heartbreaking story I've ever heard but also really one of the most beautiful experiences as well so can you take us
back to your life just before you had the accident and then take us right on into your near-death experiences oh beautiful yeah and I can talk about it now I mean quite honestly I could not even speak of this for almost a decade and I didn't write the first book until 11 years after the accident the near death experience is like it was yesterday I'll never forget that I had to do research on the details and know how long was I in the hospital how many surgeries did I have but my life before the accident
um very happily married we had two beautiful boys um I was and still am a creative director in the advertising Realm my wife was a high school teacher she taught High School and we had gone on a family vacation it was a road trip we had gone down to Southern Utah to see all the beautiful red rocks and formations there we lived in the northern part of Utah and it was on the way back from that family trip [Music] that we my life changed drastically um we had been visiting family there we'd had a beautiful
visit and you know I'll never forget this there's parts of this like I said or like yesterday I'll never forget and this was not part of the near death or out of body experience but we had said goodbye to her parents we had hugged everyone and we were just getting ready to drive away we were on the car I buckled up the kids in their car seats and as I was pulling away from the curb my wife stopped me she said stop wait I I thought she'd forgotten something I thought you know she's left something
in the house I put the car in park and she said I just want to go say goodbye to Mom and Dad one more time now I'll admit in that moment I thought oh women you know we've hugged we got to get on the road we gotta get out of here but I noticed and watched and her mom and dad were on the porch you know waiting like Grandma and Grandpa do and and she jumped out of the car and she ran up to them and I noticed how not only did she hug them both
but she kissed them I I watched her hug and kiss her mom and dad and then she came running back to the car and jumped in and uh you know joyfully we were on our way I put the car in drive I hit the interstate I cranked the cruise control up to about 75 miles an hour which is as fast as I could legally go I was in a hurry to get back home and get back to work and I had missed a day of work and you know we're so silly that way the stress
of the things we believe are so important and they're really not but I was hurrying yeah I was hurrying to get back but in hindsight of that day um her her knowing that that whisper that said go say goodbye to Mom and Dad one more time I've really learned to honor that because as the day rolled out that was the last goodbye um we were probably oh I don't know an hour an hour and a half into the drive there was reports of cross winds there was reports of a pickup truck that was driving erratically
on the interstate perhaps Heather one of the most difficult parts of the story is I may have dozed off at the wheel I I may have just nodded off for for a second not like I fell asleep but nodded off but what happened is I I swerved to the right I over corrected to the left I lost control of the car and the car began to roll not off the street but down the street down the interstate on that hard concrete at 75 miles an hour and it was a horrible automobile accident um you know
it only takes seconds but as the car rolled I blacked out but when the car came to a stop I was completely conscious the first thing I heard was my seven-year-old my oldest son crying hysterically in the back seat and I thought I've got to get to my boy I've got to get to my son and that's when I realized I couldn't move I I was pinned either to the floorboard or the seat I couldn't tell there was the rancid smell of gasoline and the broken glass and I was unaware of my injuries I was
in pain I was struggling to breathe I knew I was losing Consciousness I didn't realize what had happened both of my legs had been crushed the left leg was eventually amputated above the knee my back had been broken in two places just cracked the vertebrae it didn't it didn't damage the spinal column but my right arm had nearly been torn off the whole rotator cuff and everything was torn out my rib cage had been damaged my lungs were collapsing and the uh the seat belt had cut through and ruptured all my insides I I had
no idea I just knew my son was crying I had to get to my son and that's when that's when the realization hit that no one else was crying and I realized I was very much aware at the scene of the accident that Tamara my my beloved wife and my baby boy were gone that they had been killed instantly in the accident and there really aren't words to explain the gosh the hell you know that that was I mean here I was pinned I was losing Consciousness I had a hysterical child I couldn't get to
I Knew half the family was gone and I was driving the car I mean the guilt the regret it's like can't how do I you know how do I roll back those three seconds what happened and it was in that Darkness it was in that moment and I talk a lot about moments I think life is like a String of Pearls it's moments moments moments moments we'd gone from this beautiful moment where she's hugging her mom and dad and now it's a different moment and I was so distraught and then I I lost Consciousness or
things went black but in that moment Light Came and and it's difficult to describe but it felt as if light came to me like light came and encircled me it was it was comforting me in this hysteria you know this horrible trauma of what had happened it felt as if I was Rising above the accident scene and suddenly I was okay it's like oh I can breathe I I'm not in pain I and I was confused I'm like how am I okay and is that as I was coming to terms of wow I'm I'm really
okay Tamara my wife who I knew was deceased at the scene suddenly she was there in this light with me and she was gorgeous um she was radiant I I always hesitate to talk about the details of the accident but what I was aware of and what had happened is she had actually laid her seat back and was nappy and because she'd laid her seat back back the seat belt had not you know restrained her properly and she had suffered um some pretty severe head trauma and that's what took her life and I was aware
of that and yet here in this light she was gorgeous she was beautiful there was no injuries she was very much alive and she was communicating with me is she and I mean she was emphatic Jeff Jeff Jeff you can't stay you you got to go back you got to go back you can't be here and we literally had a conversation the conversation around my oldest son Spencer who was only seven at the time and the conversation was you got to go back we can't orphan our boy you got to go back and raise our
child and we literally we we made a deal um she couldn't come back I could and and I chose to come back we we I gave her my word I'll go back I'll go raise our boy and um I became so aware of choice in that moment it's like wow here I was looking at the woman I loved more than life but I knew I had a little boy in the back of that car who was going to be okay and I made the choice to come back I said the most profound goodbye I'll ever
say and then I literally found myself moving about a hospital now I'm saying myself I you know I have no concept of time in this accident what I found out is people arrived at the scene Spencer my seven-year-old was a bit banged up Griffin my baby um he had his car seat had broken up he had been ejected from the car and I I it's been 26 years I still have trouble talking about that um I had to be extricated from the car and airlifted or life flighted to the nearest level one Trauma Center I
I was unaware of any of that what I was aware of is I'd crashed the car half the family was gone I left my body I had said the most profound goodbye I'll ever say and now here I found myself moving about this Hospital and I was me and I was my Consciousness and I was seeing the doctors and the nurses and the patients and the families of the patients but when I say I was seeing them I was truly seeing them I mean I was I was experiencing the essence of everything they were and
uh I call it a Oneness I was experiencing this profound connection to everyone and and you know they were strangers in this realm but out of the body and and in that different consciousness wow I knew them I knew their love their hate their challenges their motivations they're I I mean for instance and this is just this is just one instance but this nurse passed me completely unaware of me but boy was I aware of her and I felt and experienced and knew the abuse that she had received as a child the physical emotional sexual
abuse I I felt it in such a real way and yet in that same moment I thought wow look at that you know here she is healing and serving and and and and her I I I was aware of her magnificence as a soul and that was true of everyone I saw it didn't matter what they had done or what they hadn't done or what had happened I was connected in this Oneness of of humanity if you will and I I grew up in a Conservative Christian home I even had a Biblical verse come up
you know this may have been my conditioning but there was this beautiful verse it's a famous verse in the Bible where Jesus said in as much as you've done it unto the least of one of these you've done it unto me and the reason I bring this up is this was so profound because I had grown up believing that was a nice verse about being nice and it is you're you're kind to each other right but there was this expansion of that and I thought oh wow now I get it they are me I am
them what what Jesus was saying is I I am I am the prisoner you know in jail I am the beggar on the street I Am The Stranger that's simply looking for acceptance and I was experiencing this Oneness in such a profound way and that changed me forever I I see people differently you know judgments and comparisons went out the window until I finally came up on a body or a man or you know that I didn't I didn't feel this from and I thought well that's you know that's strange and so I stepped forward
and that's when I realized oh my goodness that's that's me or that's that's not me I'm I'm having this profound connected experience but there's my body there's the flesh there's the skin suit if you will that I've been wandering about my life in and and there was a profound sadness because the body was such a wreck I was in a really horrible state I also had this deep insight to what a miracle the body is what a miraculous machine I mean I became very aware that I don't have to remind my heart to beat or
tell my lungs to breathe or or teach my eyes how to see I I mean I I became so aware of how beautiful and how miraculous the body is and mine was so broken and I realized I've taken this for granted my whole life you know I mean I had been a division one athlete I was always healthy I I never even thought about it so there was this profound sadness around that and I knew I had to get back in that broken body and um you know in in my in my upbringing I'd always
read and heard uh you know your body as a temple wow I was experiencing that at a whole new expanded level oh and now yeah it truly it's it's a holy thing I mean how how did I not see that and I made the choice again I'm going back in I'm going back in and I I didn't have to figure out how to do so it's the intention you know we have no idea how powerful our thoughts are it's like I'm going back in and then boom I was back in the body back in all
that grief that that trauma the the guilt the regret the the the sadness the the physical pain um I was in a horrible State I mean I I had a you know they had ventilated me so there was big tube you know down my throat doing the breathing for my lungs my legs were immobile my right arm was immobile my torso is all torn open and they eventually tied down my left hand because I kept grabbing at all the medical equipment and I simply um just laid there and wallered in it now there's an interesting
experience that I didn't find out until later when they lifelighted me into the trauma center um as they worked to save my life the attending physician a fellow named Dr Jeff O'Driscoll he's become a very good friend of mine actually at this point he and a nurse had a profound experience in the operating room that they were strangers I didn't know them they didn't know me but as they worked on me both of them experienced my wife's presence my deceased wife's soul in the operating room and she communicated with the doc I call him the
doc Dr O'Driscoll she communicated to him now when he came and shared this with me you know a month or better after the accident and I was in the hospital for almost six months I had 18 surgeries in total piecing me back together and I didn't speak about my experience when he came and shared what he had experienced I'm not sure what inspired him to do so I just wept and I thought okay I'm not crazy and we became very good friends based on that and I asked him what was she communicating what did she
say and he said she simply was sharing her gratitude for all we were doing to save your life and I thought of course she was that that's exact that's who she was but they didn't know I'd made this deal they didn't know we had talked they didn't know that you know she sent me back my friends teased me now and say your own wife kicked you out of heaven and I'm like well I guess she did but you know there's there's a profound connection with Dr O'Driscoll and I because all of a sudden there was
a safe place to talk about this I mean he was a clinician if I was crazy he could put me in the psych ward and get me the treatment that was necessary but he said no no no we experienced something profound as well and what's neat about that is so many people when they hear a near-death experience they want evidence and there you have two other people that pretty much back up your story right yeah the doctor has gone very public the nurse and bless her she's a kind soul she's she's still practicing she said
I don't want people to think I'm that nurse that sees dead people you know I mean um so you know I've I've very much respected that and honored that Dr O'Driscoll didn't speak of it publicly until he took a sabbatical from practice and um that's a funny story I mean suddenly on my Facebook page way back in the day um you know he'd written this big long thing on my page and I I had all these followers and he had talked about his experience in the operating room which he'd kept very private and I called
him I said doc you realize that that's not to me like everybody can see it he said oh yeah yeah I know how social media works I realized that he said I just felt it was time for me to speak about it and he's um he's a he's an incredible gentleman um he's still a dear friend and uh and he's he's assisting a lot of people um in fact he said I think I'll assist a lot more people spiritually than I ever did physically as an eer doc just being willing to say hey I've had
these experiences and mine wasn't the first experience he'd had in the ER and he wrote a book yeah he wrote a book called not yet and um it's about his experiences as an ER doc when he would feel and communicate and sometimes even see not necessarily with physical eyes but he would see Souls leave the body he would he's he he's a very um I suppose gifted might be the the word but he's he's a very good physician who is very open to the spiritual things to me he's that guy that brings science and spirituality
onto common ground in a very profound way and yet he had to wait really until he was done practicing it sounds like before he really let the public know yeah oh yeah I don't know I mean I know a few doctors and I'm not a medical professional at all but it may not have been that well expected maybe that wouldn't have been good for his career if he was talking openly about what he saw in the ER sometimes now as you continue to stay in the hospital toward the end of your hospital stay when you
were in Rehabilitation you had what I think is the most beautiful experience can you fill us in on that oh yeah and it is it's profound it's probably worth pointing out the two most incredible out of body or near-death experiences were at the scene of the accident before any narcotics had been administered and boy in the hospital I was on morphine and you know all kinds of opiates it you know there was I it was a long rough rough stay I kept throwing pulmonary emboli the blood clots that Lodge in your lungs I had horrible
infections anyway I was through all that I was out of ICU I was out of surgical recovery I was actually in the rehability rehabilitation Wing as you pointed out and I had another profound Out of Body Experience and I can't I can't even articulate the grief you know I mean there was so much physical trauma but the emotional trauma was worse and uh I was finally able to sleep on my side they had stabilized my intestines and abdominal I mean I had a colostomy and there's so many things that went on but I was able
to sleep on my side in the rehabilitation Wing which is how I naturally sleep and I fell into a deep sleep and it was strange it's like I was aware oh I'm actually sleeping there was so much trauma I've been unconscious but I don't know that I had slept peacefully but it was a peaceful sleep and I felt that light come again that familiar light that came and embraced me in my grief and it felt as if I was Rising above the hospital bed but this time the the the light if you will it dispensed
it it lifted and I I found myself in the most beautiful place um people say heaven you know they say the spirit world there's all kinds of words the only word that comes close to what I experienced is I was home I was home I I I was so welcomed I was so it was so familiar I was so familiar I was home and and I was so joyful I began to run now this is interesting because I don't run in this realm with the conditions of you know my left leg is amputated my right
leg had six pins and a plate holding it together my back is messed up my hips are messed up in this realm I was running and the odd thing is how physical it felt I mean I could feel the energy of the ground under my feet I I could feel the intelligence in my toes and my calves and my thighs like I I it was so invigorating it's like my senses were just multiplied and I was running thinking I'm home I'm home and again I was delivered from the grief and the trauma but I also
got the message you're not here to stay you know and I had made that deal I was going to go raise our son and he had seen me in the hospital and he'd been in and out of there but my heart just broke for my son who had passed and when I got this message or this knowing that I wasn't there to stay immediately there was like this Corridor off to my left and I knew intuitively I'm to go that way I just knew I and so I did I began working my way down this
corridor and as I did at the end of the corridor was a crib now my my youngest son was only 14 months he was just learning to walk and talk and he was still sleeping in a crib and so I rushed to that crib and I looked in it and that was my little boy and he was perfect he was beautiful and I I you know I swept him up and held him in my arms and I don't know if you've ever picked up a sleeping child oh yes um but there's a weight and a
heat you know about them and I I held him close to me and again it was so physical he was solid I could feel his breathing I could feel his breath on my neck I I leaned over and I smelled his hair um it always it always triggers emotion because it's like I don't know if you've ever smelled the hair of a loved one but it's like that's my boy and he's here and he's okay and I begin to weep and as I was experiencing this there was this profound presence behind me this this powerful
Cosmic overwhelming presence and it kept moving closer and closer as I'm weeping holding my little boy and again perhaps my upbringing I thought wow that's that's God it was so powerful I thought that's God and the guilt began to Bubble up my little boy's here because I crashed the car you know I I lost control and cut his life short and I'm weeping holding my little boy and I'm thinking I'm in so much trouble and I'm feeling this presence come closer and closer and I became fearful and I had the thought I hope there's some
way I can be forgiven and it was it was with that thought that this presence came so close and this this felt physical too I'm holding my little boy crying in this trauma of guilt and I felt these Divine arms just wrap around and hold me and my little boy and that's when the the lid just came off if you will that was this download of love and peace and comprehension I I you know it was this it's almost as if we became one like my little boy became me and we became all there is
and the first thing that was communicated to me and it wasn't necessarily with words it was just flooding into me is there's nothing to forgive everything is in pure divine order now I you know I I still had my thoughts I'm like yeah but how can that be you know my little boy's here and then I was shown my life I I've learned it's called The Life review I saw my life I saw my parents divorce I saw the insecurities that created in me I saw that even my aptitude in athletics was just a little
boy insecure trying to prove that he was good enough or okay or whatever I saw my brothers I saw the accident I saw so many things even things that I was like well that was a mistake that was a mistake I didn't mean to do that and this beautiful being that held me said there are no mistakes what did you learn and I was seeing my life in a complete different context in fact I saw things and I thought well that was wrong and I know that was wrong and I knew it was wrong then
and I did it anyway and the being that held me said that's your judgment of it not ours we love you you are as beloved as the little boy you hold and and that was the interesting thing of this experience I mean here I was holding my own son in the arms of God and God saying that's how we feel about you I mean you are you are as profound and beloved and perfect and and and that was a very personal experience but I also realized it rippled out to everyone to every living soul and
I began to make some sense of what I was experiencing in the hospital and there was so many things shared and communicated and it was all very personal one of the biggest things communicated again was choice um you know and and and life I mean I I had grown up believing that life was a test and that God was going to judge me and I was probably in trouble because I was failing the test but in those arms and watching my life suddenly the realization came that life is a gift it's a profound beautiful gift
and there was so much love and our choices I mean and this sounds very strange but as I was held it was communicated to me I want you to exercise your will and I was like what I I mean it's it's your will be done I've been caught that since I was a child and and God said to me my will is your will that's how much we love you my will has always been that you have free will that is that is my will and I want you to make a choice and it was
communicated to me that I could be angry at God my whole life because of what happened that the car crashed and half the family went I was also told I could be angry with myself I could beat myself up in guilt for the rest of my life and all of this was in love it was all like look you get to make the choice but I was given a third choice I was told you can give your son to me you can you can hand him over and trust and exercise your will and that will
be honored in the entire universe I feel I felt so I I don't know I felt so important I felt so beloved it's like the whole universe was watching my silly life and my choice but there was so much love and no judgment and in all that beauty and all that peace I I was able to kiss my little boy and hand him over I get him back and then I woke up back in the hospital bed to the amputation the colostomy the shoulder I mean it was a I was a mess but yeah that
was maybe the most profound out of body near-death experience um and it sounds I I even now I realize it sounds crazy there I was holding my child in the arms of God and and yet it was communicated in such a powerful way that we're all children we're all that beloved we're all that precious we're all that glorious in the eyes of the Divine and yeah it changed me thank you so much for sharing that story it's a very difficult story but as I mentioned it's also a very beautiful story I have a lot of
questions but let's take that into part two thanks so much for joining me on Beyond with Heather Tash that was part one make sure to listen to part two and if you liked what you heard please hit the Thumbs Up Button And subscribe for more episodes
