This is a long answer to a short question. There has been a few of you who have asked me about the bullet in my spine, so I figured that I might as
well tell the whole story. I was incredibly shot and had this NDE at fifteen years old.
My older brother Dan and I were shooting squirrels out of the tops of pine trees in the summer of 1975. We had taken a 32 pistol from my parents
closet for sport. After an hour we had walked back in the house to return it to the closet before our parents got home, but no, Dan sat in the living
room.and started pulling the trigger. He was pointing the gun at the picture on the wall, TV and the clock. CLICK,CLICK,CLICK. I said "If you won't
put it away, I got nothing to do with it." I turned to go downstairs, and he pointed it at me pulling the trigger once again.
I suddenly felt like I was laying on my back on a red hot oven. I fell down and couldn't breath. There were two shattered ribs and two broken on the
other side of me spine. My left lung was collapsed and I couldn't move. Dan was right there and asked if I was OK. I couldn't really breath, nor could
I talk very well. After 30 seconds of freaking out he decided to jump off of dead mans cliff! I suddenly got my voice back. I coaxed him to get the
phone book out and call the hospital that was thirty five miles away. As he waited with me for the forty five minutes it took for the ambulance to get
there, I made him promise not to kill himself and that I would be fine. As I was being loaded into the ambulance, my mom pulled into the driveway, our
eyes met and I passed out.
I woke up minutes before we got to the hospital. They said they were not equipped to help me. Excepting the four quarts of blood they put in the
ambulance. So off to UC Davis in Sacramento I went. It had been an hour and a half since I was shot and UCD was another forty five minuets away. There
they took 20 or 30 X rays and decided not to remove the bullet. However they wanted to do an exploratory stomach surgery to look for internal
bleeding. I protested to no avail. I was in the emergency room within ten minutes. They injected my IV and asked me to count backwards from 100. When
I got to 80 there were even more doctors above me, mumbling something. When I got to 74, I counted eight faces that were all starting to freak out. I
heard "has anyone ever made it to 90?" and "Alex, come take a look at this."
Suddenly I was floating 2 to 3 feet above my body and turning slowly to face the operating table. I saw the eight surgeons working on me as I began to
go through the through the celling of the room.
Everything was pitch dark and my arms were straight out from my sides. I could make out a large tunnel, it looked like an entrance to a castle lined
with large bricks, lining a 40 x 20 foot arch. I was floating towards it very slowly. I could only move my eyes and I saw four or five beings on
either side of the entrance. They were short and dressed in black hooded robes that hid their eyes. I floated into the tunnel and felt truly relaxed
in the darkness. Then a light appeared directly in front of me. I figured it was a mile or two away and approaching. It was smaller than a star and
coming fast. I was conscious of my life at that point and as the light got to become brighter, I heard my own voice say. "I don't want to die" three
times over. Upon the third time, the light began to shrink, I realized I was going back and wanted another look at those hooded beings. I went out
the same as I came in to the tunnel. I was unable to see their faces (as I was 10 feet above them) about 30 feet from the opening of the tunnel, I
woke up in my hospital bed with 52 stitches and two IV things in each arm. Little did I know that an hour and a half routine operation had lasted four
and a half hours. After a few days some of the surgeons came to my room and told me I had flat lined for one minute seventeen seconds. They said it
was because my stomach was so muscular that they couldn't get me back together.
One of them told me "no football ever again, please, because it might move the bullet that is still in your spine, it's a 1/4 inch from paralyzing you
form the neck down." I had played football at 90% of all positions on offense (not quarterback) defense and special teams. Along with my family
visiting, there were least 40 priests came to my hospital room and "prayed" in my room in their own different ways, then all left like they just did
something important. Long about the 35th priest, who threw holly water on me! That was it for me and I was getting pissed. I asked if he did that to
everyone here? This is unfair! He calmly replied "you don't know do you?" You are a miracle, your story has been in the papers and on TV for 2 weeks
now. Then I realized they all came far away just to see me. That really hit me pretty hard. I was released after 2 weeks, my brother was on a bed in
the living room! I turned to my mom and asked why. She said he has been unable to speak for the whole 2 weeks.I went over to him and said "Dan, I'm
OK, it's alright" he pointed at a glass of water and I handed it to him in amazement. Dan started to talk a week later and after another week he was
back to normal. Of course my forgiveness was instant seeing him like that in the living room. Four years later he was in the Navy and had a kidney
operation in Guam- where he got aids through the transfusion- they didn't test the blood supply in back then, and so he died in 1989.
The sheriff department determined that the old rusty revolver misfired every 20 rounds.(the firing pin wouldn't reach the bullet, leaving a live
round)
It's been thirty five years and I haven't taken anything stronger than Advil once a week. I have avoided any serious health issues, namely the lead
poisoning. Although the pain has never subsided, (feels like a hot piano is being pressed into my back) I have been able to fight it one day at a
time. I have physically built houses from the ground up, went snow skiing for years and currently have two beautiful grandchildren. I really do feel
truly blessed to be alive. If you have had a similar story, I would love to read it.
edit on 30-1-2011 by Tribble because: (no reason given)