I loved the outdoors and so we were I was great fun up in the Adirondacks we were fishing we were water skiing but we also had what's called a lake toy and so my brother-in-law was spinning us around we were laughing fell off into the water we'd get back on the boat you'd go back out so everything was normal until we hear my brother-in-law yell get off the bullet the boat is sinking I looked down and the tow ropes wrapped around my leg my brother-in-law can't see me because the bullets in the way I hear
the engines start and I go oh this is gonna hurt next thing I know I'm being drug underwater so I'm swallowing water this whole time I knew I was gonna die well as I'm thinking that I separate from my body [Music] and I immediately go through this Saran Wrap kind of veil it was like oh my God I knew I was in eternity [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] I grew up in Western New York I'm one of seven children and lived a pretty normal Suburban life didn't have a lot of close friends until I started playing
sports in high school and realized oh this social thing can be kind of fun I realized that I could be part of a team and so I had some athletic abilities and I went down to Texas to play basketball at Wayland Baptist but I also wanted to make sure that I would be employed because I saw the discrimination against women in lots of different Arenas so I thought well I'm gonna have to be have a double major you know have maybe two masters to die you know I didn't know what I was going to need
to be employed so that's what I started doing after college is I started working and going to school on my Master's and I have a master's degree in physical education and I have a master's degree in Oriental medicine and acupuncture ended up down in Phoenix got hired in the community college system so I was a professor for the last 30 years I retired in 2015. I loved the outdoors we we grew up in Ontario and so my brother-in-law his company had cabins up in the Adirondacks you know you'd pick two weeks during the summer and
your family got to have the cabin so it was our week to have the cabin and so we were always great fun up in the Adirondacks we were fishing we were water skiing but we also had what's called a lake toy it's an inflatable raft with pontoons and that could be drug around the lake if you wanted if you didn't want to go water skiing so we've been doing that for you know several years and this was a regular normal year it was 1998. we've been out early morning fishing and we wanted to get out
on the lake toy before lunch so the people that got on the boat was my brother-in-law his nephew his nephew's baby and my older sister and I were going to get on the inflatable Lake toy the lake toy is being towed by a tow rope and so my brother-in-law was spinning us around we were laughing fell off into the water we'd get back on the boat you'd go back out so everything was normal my life was normal what I was doing was normal until it wasn't and his boat there's a a device that they torque
wrench into the bottom so you the boat can never have water come on board it's like impossible so we had just dumped off and so we got back on the boat and my sister was behind me on the raft and I'm on the raft you're kind of being pulled out my sister was letting out the Rope so here was the boat and we got let out to about here when we hear my brother-in-law yell get off the bullet the boat is sinking [Music] the boat sinking that's impossible but I looked behind me and my sister
threw the tow rope to the left now you know tow ropes they're nylon they're not they don't sink they float on the water so we had our life jackets on and I looked over as we're going in the water to the right so this is like boom boom we're in the water the inflatable toys in front of me my sister's behind me and I looked down and the tow ropes wrapped around my leg and I said that's impossible that there's no way this rope can be I wonder if it's an optical illusion is it around
my leg and my brother-in-law can't see me because the bullet's in the way I hear the engine start now it's twin powered engine a lot of power in that boat and I go oh this is gonna hurt and he takes off next thing I know I can I know that their toe rope is just heading out with the boat and it strangled my leg to the Bone and when it did that there was an explosion of pain in my head you know I was like oh my God this is really hurting next thing I know
I'm being drug underwater so it's the boat the bullet myself my sister's back there and she says I was watching my husband kill my sister because she knew his they were turned toward the shore and that's their focus to get the boat in before it sinks and there's a baby on board so I'm being drowned the power of the force of that the water was hitting my chest and I and my air bubbles were going out and here's how I was thinking I really could use the air I really could use that oh my God
the next thing because I'm I'm being told like this is all that college education and I can't get out of this I immediately started taking in water because the power of the boat so I'm swallowing water this whole time I knew I was going to die there was a I wouldn't say a piece in it but there was no sense in being angry it just was I I knew there was a knowing that there's nothing I can do so since I was hanging out I thought well where are they going to have the funeral they
have it in Arizona where they have it in New York how are they going to do this well as I'm thinking that I separate from my body [Music] and I immediately go through this Saran Wrap kind of veil it was very thin but it was something there as I pop through I go oh I'm dead oh I brought my Consciousness with me wow that's pretty cool then it was like oh my God there's a difference between time in no time I knew I was in eternity foreign [Music] started vibrating and it's like each cell trillions
of cells that look like a happy face like they're like and they start giggling they're just everything's funny you know when I look down and go what are you guys doing and I hear them say I hear the cells in my body going he's coming he's coming he's coming I'm like who's coming and as I'm slow motion looking up if this was the earth I could feel something coming up and as it's coming up I'm going oh my God it's the creator of the universe oh my God and I'm going to my cells and I
know why you were excited this is so exciting and so boom face to face with the creator of the universe and he doesn't have a face he doesn't have a pro it's no pronoun it's not a he it's not a she it's not an it it is the creator of the universe and all I can describe what it seemed to be was like the Aurora Borealis it was this wavy different colors electric being foreign I don't know if you know about telepathy you know most people I don't know how they experience telepathy but this is
my first time experiencing telepathy and it was if you know when you go to the bank you go to a driving bank that teller and you put your money in that little tube and it proof it goes out it's like that it's like a tube of knowledge that is being sent into your brain this way and when it gets into your brain it unpacks and so this I was like oh my God this is really kind of cool and as I'm having a thought the creator of the universe is having the exact same thought it
goes like this at the creator of the universe and I hear back I am the creator of the universe and I'm like oh my God you know everything as I hear I know everything so it was this beautiful um talk conversation that I knew I was in front of the creator of the universe and it was like I started seeing the expanse of what this really means to be Eternal and you know when people talk about multi-dimensional and it was like oh my God this is just so amazing I started looking back to Earth going
oh I hope they're gonna be okay with me you know being dead and drowned and as I was starting to look back I hear this telepathic being not God say don't worry as soon as I heard that and I turned back everything on Earth disappeared all 3D people I know um just it's existence no longer occurred to me because I was so focused in the present moment of what was happening here and I was like you you know everything you know I know everything then God said to me I even know the number of grains
of sand on a beach in New Zealand now why would why would God say that of all the things he could have picked but next thing you know I'm being rocketed down to New Zealand on a beach and I my eye was right up against the grain and I knew immediately how many grains of sand were on that beach and then I rock it back up in front of God and I'm just amazed at this and he says that even though the number of hairs on your head and I was getting information through this telepathy
through my head it felt like this way then all of a sudden love what you the concept of Love became palatable and was shooting through my body this way so I don't have a body but it's like I had a body and I'm sitting there going oh now I know Bliss love and Bliss and the creator of the universe called me by my name my name is not Donna it's a name that God knew me as through the Millennium millennial however long that is and I was like and I was in this space that I
never wanted to leave [Music] I was moving through the universe and I'm getting knowledge about this is how this works this is how this works and I'm like this is so cool and we kind of came to a stop it felt like and I hear God say this so Donna what would you like to do here I never thought I would say this in a million years so you can say well when I die I'm going to ask God this that did not happen so I look at God and I said well God since you
made me I give the choice to you as soon as that happened immediately realized what I had just done I gave away my choice and some people go well no that was your choice your choice was that no I said I gave away knowing what was going to happen next okay Gotta Give the choice to you as soon as I realized what I had done and I can't undo it I did this oh then I said oh I just swore in front of God and look he's gotta go oh no I'm sorry as I'm waiting
for God to answer me I heard this and I don't know what being so I have no idea but it was like when you go back you will tell people how important choice is in their lives here's what choice means it doesn't mean what am I going to have for dinner it means every moment of your life you are making choices in your thinking how you think about people how you think about the story someone tells you something that goes against your belief system and you go I don't I don't really believe that even if
you don't say that's a choice and how precious choice is to human beings you know we talk about free will but this was like more than that this is like every moment of choice a lot of times people think if they're sitting in a coffee shop or something and they're they look over and they see someone and they have thoughts about that oh look at that person their coat doesn't match their shoes or whatever it is you're thinking you think just because you don't say it that it doesn't have an impact but that's not true
there's an energy associated with that I don't know how to explain that energy looks so different to me now so I'm getting this lesson in surrender and choice while I'm waiting and I kind of feel like I'm like this and also I become unhinged I feel like I'm falling back to Earth and I hear this I swear I hear this he says good answer because I'm falling back and I hear good answer and I land inside my body you know I snap back in my body and I realized my lungs are full of water what's
gonna happen here what just happened what happened was my brother-in-law's driving the boat and he feels a hand on his shoulder no one's there he turns around he's like what but it made him stop the boat and he saw the bullet kind of acting funny while it was me on the end so I go oh I'm alive and I start swimming to the surface so I put my hands like this I felt human hands under my armpits I thought it was my sister and I looked down I'm looking at the Rope going there's no way
they're getting this rope out of my leg as soon as I said that the Rope comes undone I get up to the top no one's there and I feel like pounding on my back like I just started gallons of water and my sister's she must have looked like superwoman swimming across the lake to get to me and I looked down at my leg and I went oh my God it's it's in half so I'm kind of holding on to my leg as my sister's swimming up and I'm yelling don't look at my leg don't look
at my leg what does she do she looks at my leg and she starts screaming and I started telling her I first date you know like okay Cindy I'm gonna go into shock so here's what you do make sure my legs are up here but grab onto my leg and you know do all this so my brother-in-law gets another bulb but he was not in a hurry because he doesn't know what happened out on the lake but when he comes out with the other boat I do the same thing don't look at my leg and
he looks at my leg and he's going to try to get in the water and get me on the boat and I said no if you get me on the boat my leg won't fall off so just drag me back in that's all I want you guys to do so that's what we did we got back on the dock the ambulance came even in the ambulance they started giving me electrolytes and treating it now the lake was full of giardia so I had swallowed all of that so when I got to the hospital they were
concerned about the swelling in my leg and they were concerned about the amount of water that I took in so antibiotics and leg antibiotics you know and pain pills so um I was only in the emergency room not they didn't take me overnight they just basically said go back to your cabin so my brother-in-law we drove back to the cabin and just iced it antibiotics that's all they told me so the whole thing is miraculous you know the fact that the the boat was sinking when water can't get on it that the tow rope that
can't sink isn't supposed to float didn't and how it ripped on my leg how it got out of my leg um that that was a series of impossible things you know how did that happen so I spent a lot of time going how did that happen how did how did I get there [Music] the first year I only told my circle of friends I didn't even tell my family members I didn't know what really happened I didn't know there was such a thing as a near-death I didn't know what nde meant I didn't know there
were nde groups I didn't know there was anybody I could talk to about it so I just kept talking to the other side you know I would have an intention before I went to bed or sleep I'd say you know I have some questions about what's going down here so the first you know six months was just dealing with the wound itself and then I had no feeling in my calf I'd have no feeling in my toes I would kind of drag my leg around which is not really a good thing a teacher I'm used
to walking around my classroom and I had to just sit there because I didn't want my students to see me drag my leg from the classroom so I have a I have an acupuncture clinic so after I teach school I go to my acupuncture clinic there's a bank right there I'm now going to make my days deposit and I've written out how I want it taken care of in my business so I go in the bank the bank's quiet there's a line behind me but I have a piece of paper and I shove it to
the teller as my nerves when they start to regenerate it's an explosion of pain you can't not yell no matter you know what you do so I'm as I'm putting the you know how I want my take care of the cash I go ah and the teller thinks I'm robbing the bank so she goes ah because the two of us said ah everyone in the bank down on the ground or just got their cell phone they're calling the police I'm going no no no it's just my leg it's just I'm trying to put my pants
up to show them the bandages and the teller no I'm not robbing the bank so I have to tell the police about that so that was kind of a new normal of you know being careful of where I am went and I you can't predict when you're going to have nerve pain so that was a that was a year uh you know six months of the wound and another trying to figure out how how am I dealing with my life yeah there's been lots of physical things I've had to deal with since the nde and
it was years later that someone told me about you know there's something called ions the international near death Association and that about the Monroe Institute you can go there and talk to people when they ask me what was it like they want to know I said well here's how I feel about it it was a designer death we each get a designer death because God knows you so well to the nth degree you know and it blew up my whole belief system of what I was taught what I grew up with and what I saw
it took me years to try to assimilate that spirituality you know it was like if if someone said well you know this is how God works that's not how I that's not what I saw that's not what I heard it changed my life it changed everything I think about everything so different every moment [Music] so I've Loved deeply here I know what that love is and it's the most powerful force on Earth um the love over there is a pure love and it doesn't mean that you can't have pure love here like I said it's
very difficult some of the concepts the love of a husband or a wife or a child or seeing the birth of your child and you think that it's such Bliss or it's not going to get better it's a hundred times better it's I think a love that I can't explain but you would have to experience it and I didn't expect that so all you people that are watching that think it's the product of your brain how do you explain that how do you explain to me because I know love here and I know love there
every cell every part of you that makes you who you are is bathed in this pure Bliss of safety and security and love and that you never want to leave this is why when some people are given the choice they say I'm not coming back if you listen to near death stories I was given a choice and there's no way I'm going back there [Music] is hard this isn't heaven it's a working planet so you have to come to a belief system how that fits or assimilates how do you assimilate suffering in this some people
call it a school a hospital a working plan or whatever you call this this is not that and what you bring there is what you're able to work through and work out in your own heart you bring your heart there you bring the essence of your heart and love there if I had advice it would be aware of every moment if you can I don't think for most people that's possible most people are thinking I would tell my students you have an eight-track brain you know eight things are going on I got a grocery list
I have trying to resolve this issue I have these things to do I have these decisions to make so I see that they're living an eight-track life and it's very difficult to get that down to the present moment so it becomes first awareness you have to be aware of where you are in your spiritual in your life I saw that with my students where are you in your belief system where are you in your life where are you and your goals so the second thing would be a search you know I want to search for
what I think is the truth so some people go on this great search of no the truth is in Catholicism the Jews in Christianity the truth in Hindu the true is you know the truth is wherever you land and over time does it serve you because you begin to assimilate other information so we're on this education Journey we're on this life Journey we're on this work journey and try not to get caught up in doing so much I tell people you're a human being not a human doing so take a deep breath work through this
can you look at a different way is there anything that I can say to change your perspective one degree that's what I'm here for can I change your perspective one degree and let that Bubble Up Inside you I mean be aware of the possibilities are you aware the possibilities you could have Angels no no no are you aware of the possibility that there's an afterlife no no there's no afterlife you guys are making it up but if I can come and say can you set aside your belief for a moment could you do that just
set it aside listen to what I have to say be open to these possibilities then you can pick up you can pick up your old belief system or begin to assimilate that there's nothing I'm going to say to you to convince you of an afterlife this was my experience of afterlife this was my designer death but it wasn't what I thought it was going to be and it radically changed my entire life [Music] I wanted to make sure that I was living a full life so I brought laptops to Chiapas to the Mayan students I
brought humanitarian Aid to the war-torn areas of Croatia so I was in China studying during the 2008 earthquake and was able to do some work there so I've been a humanitarian a poet a writer and it wasn't so much human doing as much as I was experiencing the planet I'd have people ask me questions about that and every single person said I'm waiting waiting till I retired I waited until the kids come out of the house I'm waiting for this check to come in don't wait whatever circumstances you're in I get that that you can't
just drop everything and do stuff I understand that but you should never say to yourself I'm gonna wait I have a podcast I'm learning how to metal Smith I'm making jewelry because I want to experience this none of that's on the other side you know none of that so that's here so let me you know set up my house so that I have rooms so I can go to my podcast room and I can go to my music room and I can you know go to these different rooms and just enjoy this foreign foreign
