Transcript
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From the time that they pronounced me deaf was a good 45 minutes.
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They cut my clothes and then they paddled my heart, my heart had stopped.
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And I could see people screaming and crying, but I didn't realize that was actually my
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physical body because I was somewhere else.
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The only thing that I could feel, if you could imagine, absolute love and peace, there wasn't
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anything else to be felt.
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I was greeted by people I'd known in the past.
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I'm back home again.
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Incredibly safe and felt at home.
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Welcome, welcome to Round Trip Death, everybody, and a warm welcome to our very special guests
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from Texas.
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And this is Deanna and Jeff Ray.
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How are you guys?
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Doing great today.
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We're here.
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Gonna ask for much more.
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What part of Texas are you in?
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We're in Denton, just outside of Dallas.
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Gotcha.
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Well, we're going to be talking about Deanna's near-death experience in just a second.
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And I know it's going to be hard.
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You have not shared this publicly in a forum like this before.
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And it's hard because Jeff, and this is why I wanted Jeff on the show too, actually witnessed
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the accident that happened to his lovely wife Deanna.
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And we'll be talking about that.
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Before we get into it, I'm going to give you 60 seconds to tell our listeners just a little
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bit about you.
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We are two retired, stay-at-home people.
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And we're involved in our church.
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And we have some great friends.
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And we just are grateful to be here.
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We've been through a lot in the past few years.
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I learned so much about God's grace and deserve favor that we all received.
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I have received it in abundance.
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We both have.
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How long have you two been married?
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This will be seven years coming in June.
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And the accident that we're going to talk about was how many years ago?
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It's been almost four years.
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Okay.
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So you were relatively newly married when this happened.
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Yes.
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Still madly in love, which is awesome.
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We still are.
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We're honeymoon until we die.
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Love it.
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That's awesome.
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All right, Deanna, take us back four years.
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Tell us what was going on that led up to your accident.
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Well, it was just as the pandemic was clearing up, we didn't have to wear masks anymore.
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We'd received stimulus checks.
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And we decided to stimulate the economy by buying a couple of electric.
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Well, I got an electric scooter and just got an electric bike.
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And we rode all over the place on them all around town.
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And yeah, I mean, we just had so much fun getting out and doing that and exploring neighborhoods.
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And the day of my accident, we had decided to ride up to the convenience store about
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a half mile away.
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We had become very comfortable on the scooter and on the bike.
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We were just zipping around, going to go get some soft drink and have a bath home.
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We were familiar with the streets, but we were going a little fast, probably about 25
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miles an hour.
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Did you have helmets on?
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I was not wearing helmet.
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Jeff was not wearing helmet either.
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And I had good intentions of the type of thing.
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I need to get a helmet.
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I need to get a helmet.
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I'm not 14 anymore.
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It's hindsight though.
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Yeah.
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It's just a PSA for everybody to remember to get their helmets and wear them.
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We had taken a corner and we were going pretty fast.
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And I hit a rock or a pothole and I got the speed wall.
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And I remember locking eyes with my husband, like, oh no, this is not going to end well.
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Literally flipped over the handle rails of the scooter.
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I did about one good army roll because I know how to fall.
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But I was going so fast that on the second roll, I ragged dog.
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I was slipping everywhere.
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And I very distinctly remember hearing the sound of my head as it hit the pavement.
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And that was the last thing that I remembered at that point was just the horrible sound.
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I mean, Jeff hurt it as well.
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It's traumatizing.
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I relive it constantly.
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Jeff, let's hear your point of view on what happened right there.
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Like she said, we had those vehicles, electric bikes.
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She was on the stand up when you've seen those things.
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They weren't just the cheap ones.
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They were nice.
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Like we said, we'd gotten those stimulus checks and they weren't something we'd normally
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afford because we're on disability both of us.
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So we got something nice for ourselves.
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And to stimulate the economy a little bit, you should see this girl.
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She was, you know, it's like we were teenagers again, but we weren't wearing helmets.
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We were raised in a different time.
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We didn't wear helmets.
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Looking back, we definitely will, but we'd just come around a corner and we were doing
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about 25, that's faster than a school zone.
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And you're totally in the open.
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She hit, I guess, like carved into a little pothole or something, but we were about five
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feet apart side by side cruising.
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And you know, we blocked the eyes when she hit this pothole or handlebars started like
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that.
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She just went over the handlebars and she did do a tuck and roll.
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I give her five out of five stars on that first roll.
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But she, you know, inertia took over and she just like she said ragdoll out and just boom
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like that, her head hit the pavement and it did.
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It sounded like a watermelon hitting it.
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And I mean, I'm sitting there like it went into like matrix slow motion, you know, and
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there was absolutely nothing I could do to help because I was going just as fast as she
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was.
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And so by the time I had time to react to slow down, she had already hit and was tumbling
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and her head hit and it was, it was, if you can imagine the sound it made, that's exactly
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what it looked like.
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And that's my beautiful wife that I waited 43 years by.
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I can't even imagine.
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Deanna, what do you remember next?
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Well, I sat up and remember seeing, I was in the beautiful, there was ambient light.
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It was very warm.
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It was very inviting.
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I felt no panic or fear.
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And my two grandmothers were standing before me.
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They were, I've seen pictures of them when they were younger and they surpassed their,
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their beauty surpassed that more than I can explain.
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They were ethereal looking.
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They were so beautiful.
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I was, I was speechless.
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My maternal grandmother had reached her hand out to me and she was a smiling and welcoming.
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I mean, I wanted to get up and hug her.
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And I heard my husband's voice calling me, maybe you don't go, please don't leave.
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I literally felt myself pull back and drop almost violently into my body.
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I didn't even realize I was out of my body at that point.
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I mean, I remember hitting hard.
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I came to and my hands were over my face.
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I was spreading gold face down on the concrete.
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Blood was just, I was in a pool of blood and it was just pouring out of my head.
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At that point, Jeff saw me moving or trying to move and told, you know, it's telling me
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don't move, don't move.
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The ambulance is on the way.
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Well, I can tell how hard it is for Jeff to relive this and, and we're going to give
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Jeff just a minute.
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In the meantime, Deanna, I would love more detail on what you saw.
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Now your grandmothers that you saw, had you known them in this life?
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How long had they been gone?
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I was so close with them.
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They were like the two, we were running buddy.
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One was Jewish and Ray's been going to the synagogue and the other was a Christian and
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I went to church with her.
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And I had grown up going to different churches my whole life, you know, just kind of trying
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to find my way.
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I finally found a church I was comfortable in when I met my husband.
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He introduced me to his church and I had been baptized, but I was not really living the
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way I was supposed to be living.
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I was kind to people.
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I had gotten more serious about praying, but, you know, I didn't read my Bible.
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I went to church, but wasn't involved.
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I was lukewarm about it.
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Sure.
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When did your grandmothers pass away?
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One about, I'd say 20 years prior, my maternal grandmother, and then my paternal grandmother
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had passed away about 10 years prior.
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Now some people in their near-death experience talk about feeling like they traveled, whether
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it's through a tunnel or a dark space or anything like that.
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You didn't have that experience?
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I did not have that experience.
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I didn't go through the light.
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I didn't go through a tunnel.
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I was just there in a place.
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And there were people behind my grandmothers too that I recognized, but they were in the
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background.
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I believe that's my father who had passed away about five years before, and my other
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grandfathers, people I didn't know, but I knew I was familiar with them.
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I knew who they were, but I didn't know their names.
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I was comfortable.
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The place was so warm and inviting.
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It felt like belonging.
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Do you remember anything else about what it looked like?
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There was just a warm glow, like an amber ambient light that surrounded everything.
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Everyone had a glow to them.
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So I don't know if that was the ambient light that was being emitted from them or if it
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came from someplace else.
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And what were you feeling as you're seeing this?
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Oh, I was so thrilled to be there.
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I was so happy and calm.
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I mean, there wasn't a joyous moment.
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It was just, hey, you're here.
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I'm here with you.
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It was just very peaceful, very calming.
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I'll be honest, since this has happened, my fear of dying is gone.
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Well, Jeff will explain that I didn't have a pulse when he checked, and for about three
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minutes I was totally unconscious or dead.
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That's a short estimate because I checked her pulse and her breathing multiple times.
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I was in scouts and I was a lifeguard when I was young.
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I kept my head during this time.
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I didn't freak out.
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I'm not a, ah, I kept my head.
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I literally kept her head while this was going on.
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And I checked her breathing and pulse the entire time while the engine was on their
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way.
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She was definitely not, her vitals were not there for at least three minutes, possibly
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as long as five, until the amulets got there.
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Let's go ahead and jump to your part right now, Jeff.
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Watch you said that she was visiting with her great brothers and possibly others.
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When she came to rest, face down, she was not moving at all.
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And I was calling out, don't leave me, don't go.
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I was praying.
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I was begging.
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It got to where I was getting pretty aggressive with it.
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I was angry.
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I got pretty angry about it, as you can probably guess most people would be because we barely
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married a little bit, maybe over two years at this point.
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I had waited so long.
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I was trying to keep her going.
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I didn't want to move her.
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I didn't know what injury she had, but besides what was blatantly obvious with her head,
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I didn't know if she'd injured her spinal cord or whatever.
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So I didn't want to try to flip her over and give her CPR or anything like that.
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I was trying to stop traffic.
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People were driving past and filming with their phones instead of stopping, or at least
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they were hiding their face with her phone.
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I don't know if they're filming or not.
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There's possibly footage of this out there somewhere.
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I don't know.
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I had to aggressively stop a car and some American did stop and call it.
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I don't know what happened.
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I don't know what happened.
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I think the only phone we had with us was on her scooter mount.
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That scooter was destroyed when she rapped.
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When she said she came, I'll call it, please God, don't take her.
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Don't take her from me.
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Why would you wait this long to let me meet this woman and then take her from me?
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But literally when she said she'd hand back to her body, if you've ever seen anybody
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hit with the paddles when they're in cardiac arrest, then they arched like that.
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They arched her back.
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Boom, when they get hit.
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I talk with my hands a lot.
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I apologize.
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It may be a little too much for this.
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It's okay.
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You just be yourself.
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I don't know how else to act.
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I'm not an actor.
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She arched her back from face down like a trout or something.
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Wham!
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Then this is the funniest thing ever.
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When I was like, I started saying, don't move, don't move, don't move.
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Baby, baby.
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I was so excited.
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I was crying and laughing at the same time.
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To this day, I now have an issue.
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I laugh inappropriately when I should be crying.
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I cry when I should be laughing.
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If that happens through this podcast, please explain to your listeners that I'm not being
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an a-hole.
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I laugh when I'm supposed to cry sometimes.
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PTSD, I don't know what the hell else to call it.
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She said, no, babe, I don't want to go to the hospital.
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We just live a block away.
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Let's just go home.
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Because we have a fear of hospitals to stay because of other things.
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She literally was gone for at least five minutes with no oxygen, no breathing, no heart, pulse,
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or nothing.
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I'm not a certified doctor, but I know how to do things.
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If we take care of ourselves here at the house, we've got health issues.
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We know how to take pulse and things like that.
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I can tell you, she was gone.
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She was gone for a while.
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What she said, she saw, even if there is nothing out there, and I'm playing devil's
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advocate here, there's nothing else out there, what kind of miracle is in the brain to entertain
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it like that while you die to make the passage out like that?
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What kind of accidental chemistry in the universe gives us that kind of a passage out when you
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die and then lets it reset itself to bring you back with that kind of a story?
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Deanna, do you think that this was something like that or do you think this was something
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very real?
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I think this was very real.
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I mean, I know I was in a different place, and I know that I was not in my physical body
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here.
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My biggest thing that I would like to share from my experience is that I know that when
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we die, there's someplace else that we go.
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There is something after that.
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It's beautiful.
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It's peaceful.
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It's overwhelmingly calm.
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I felt no anger.
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I felt no pain.
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I felt, I can't think of a better word for the beauty that surrounded me or for the peace
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that I experienced.
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That's when people talk about peace that passes on their feeling, that is what I felt.
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I have never in my life felt anything so close to that calm.
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You described your grandmothers as looking beautiful.
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Can you give us any more insight into what they look like?
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Well, other than, like I said, ethereal, they had this glow about them.
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They were young.
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I've seen pictures of my grandmothers when they were young.
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They not only were young, they were an elaborate, beautiful extension of what I've ever seen
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pictures of.
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That's awesome.
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Let's talk about the medical side for a minute.
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Oh, how badly were you injured?
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You went to the hospital, obviously.
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How bad were your injuries?
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I had an 8-millimeter brain shift midline to the left side of my head.
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I later learned that they had given me a 10% survival rate that first night.
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What about a 10?
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One out of 10 people survived my accident.
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First injury.
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Within those first 24 hours.
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I consider myself a miracle.
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Me too.
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What was the recovery like?
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How long were you in the hospital?
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What did they do?
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Not very long, I had a craniotomy the first night, they had put some tubes in my head.
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I had several brain bleeds that we were very concerned about.
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They had put some tubing in my head to drain the fluid.
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I stayed not very long for that visit.
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Then I had another issue with swelling a few weeks later, went back to another hospital
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that transported me to a specialized hospital that was a neurologist, top neurologist here
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in Texas, neurosurgeon, had another craniotomy.
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I had like sables that go from the middle of my forehead all the way around the back
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of my head to right over my ear in a big horseshoe.
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My head was shaved, I had just half a head spiky hair.
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Then I got all these times I had people praying for me.
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People lifting me up in prayer constantly.
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People from my church visiting.
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I had come home again and I remember somebody bringing me a meal so that I didn't have to
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cook or just didn't have to worry about thinking and I didn't have to worry about eating this
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cooking.
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I might have been dangerous.
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Very dangerous.
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She looked at me and barged in and here's, here I am, half ball, fables in my head.
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I see she looked rock and roll.
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That's just me.
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But she started crying.
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She's like, I'm so sorry.
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I'm so sorry.
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And I, at that moment felt this joy in my heart and I said, you don't need to be sorry.
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I'm okay and I've made it through this far.
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I'm the happiest I've ever been.
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I'm married to this fabulous man and I'm not damn.
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Don't you be damned.
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Just be grateful.
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There's no, there's this grace that we all receive if we just reach out for it.
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Sometimes we don't have to be reaching out and just get showered upon.
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And then I got a post-operative infection.
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MRSA.
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MRSA in my skull.
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Have you ever heard of that?
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MRSA?
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Yeah, MRSA.
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00:20:04,640 --> 00:20:06,600
Yeah, that's super staff.
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00:20:06,600 --> 00:20:08,160
That's what, yeah.
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00:20:08,160 --> 00:20:15,800
And it was in my skull, my face pulled up and I was going to the doctor to see my neurosurgeon.
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The next day my eye had swollen and I had gotten a puppy.
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I literally could not see out of my right eye.
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And I went in to the doctor the next day and they said, you need to go into the ER.
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You need surgery right now.
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So here's my third craning autoimmune.
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Each time I said it felt sorry for myself and there are a couple times I did.
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I'm like, why me on this?
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00:20:42,960 --> 00:20:51,280
Hearing and trying to de-ride, de-cond, and live right praying and follow Christ.
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00:20:51,280 --> 00:20:54,560
So what are you doing this to us?
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That's the urge that you get.
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00:20:56,120 --> 00:20:57,120
Yeah.
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And sometimes I've seen people to shake their boat.
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00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:00,160
Vic, why me?
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Why is God doing this to us?
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00:21:02,840 --> 00:21:10,560
People ask me, you know, don't you feel like you've been through, yeah, I've been through
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00:21:10,560 --> 00:21:13,680
more than what I feel is my fair share.
369
00:21:13,680 --> 00:21:21,960
Yeah, but I think that it's taught me to have faith in something way bigger than me.
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That God answers prayers because each time I came through better and better, my memory
371
00:21:27,600 --> 00:21:28,600
was clearing up.
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00:21:28,600 --> 00:21:33,880
You know, I was a little kind of funky with all these staples, I got a big knot still
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00:21:33,880 --> 00:21:39,360
on the side of my hand that we don't know what it is, but it was cough from the rack.
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And I walked around for about six months with a hole in my skull that they had taken out
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00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:50,920
of the credit card size hole in my skull because it was during COVID and they were saving beds
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for people in case there was a case or another COVID outbreak.
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So I had to walk around with a helmet on and protect this helmet on my head.
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Like they were for the kids on the special needs kids.
379
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They had her, like if she would have bumped her head on anything, she would have died.
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I would have died.
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00:22:09,840 --> 00:22:14,560
And yet they had this entire floor of the hospital with empty beds just in case there was COVID.
382
00:22:14,560 --> 00:22:19,240
It was an elective surgery to have a tartanine flake put in my head.
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They said it was an elective surgery, so they wouldn't give it to her.
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00:22:22,400 --> 00:22:29,640
But I finally had the cranioplasty and I've not had any problems since then.
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My hair's grown back finally.
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00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:36,640
And I don't have the cool Mad Max hairdo anymore.
387
00:22:36,640 --> 00:22:46,000
I feel like I have this story to share with people that regardless of what happened, I
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mean, like I said, do this whole thing.
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I wasn't afraid each time that I was going to die.
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I knew that if I did, that I would be safe and I would be comforted and loved and that
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I have a loving father in heaven.
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He knows what's best for me.
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00:23:03,440 --> 00:23:10,920
I've got a purpose here that he wants me to fulfill or he wouldn't have brought me back.
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00:23:10,920 --> 00:23:20,160
And so now I tried to live my life as righteously as I can, as Christ-like as I can.
395
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And I backslide.
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I'm not saying I'm perfect by any means, but I don't live a day where I don't thank him
397
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and I don't have gratitude for being able to walk and talk and speak and be alive because
398
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I could be so much worse.
399
00:23:43,080 --> 00:23:47,800
The mid-length shift was so bad that I mean, I have seizures.
400
00:23:47,800 --> 00:23:49,200
I do have seizure disorder.
401
00:23:49,200 --> 00:23:52,280
And you have one like two days of epilepsy.
402
00:23:52,280 --> 00:23:57,400
And that kind of is a pain, but I take medication for it.
403
00:23:57,400 --> 00:23:59,960
It seems to be relatively controlled.
404
00:23:59,960 --> 00:24:02,000
I'm not angry about it.
405
00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:03,440
I live with it.
406
00:24:03,440 --> 00:24:10,760
I think it makes me a stronger person and I can be hopefully, I mean, I was going to
407
00:24:10,760 --> 00:24:16,760
share this experience privately amongst friends who was some friends at church and hopefully
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00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:27,880
I can inspire people to live a good life, to be kind to others and to know that there's
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a place to go.
410
00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:32,040
We just don't die and fall into a black hole.
411
00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:37,920
Growing up Jewish, you know, there was never a real definition between heaven and hell
412
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and whether or not we went anywhere.
413
00:24:40,480 --> 00:24:43,000
Jews, funerals are so depressing.
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00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:50,520
And I know that I can leave this world and see my family.
415
00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:58,720
You know, there are people that are there that are waiting for me to hang out, be there
416
00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:00,600
and rejoice.
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00:25:00,600 --> 00:25:10,240
I get overwhelmed by that at times, just knowing, but I'm so grateful for the grace of God that
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00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:17,880
I'm here and that I'm doing everything I can to share this with others.
419
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:26,640
So they know that they too can have a place in the spirit world in heaven whenever you
420
00:25:26,640 --> 00:25:27,640
want to call it.
421
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:28,640
Afterlife.
422
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:36,480
The afterlife that we have our families there waiting for us.
423
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:38,360
There is something to look forward to.
424
00:25:38,360 --> 00:25:40,160
There is something to work towards.
425
00:25:40,160 --> 00:25:42,560
There is a reason for the season.
426
00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:47,000
There's a reason for her story and there's a reason that I want to help her to get it
427
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:51,920
out because you never know when you're going to be riding your bike with your wife one
428
00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:54,520
day and she's gone.
429
00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:56,480
And be nice to people.
430
00:25:56,480 --> 00:25:57,480
Be kind.
431
00:25:57,480 --> 00:25:58,880
Be kind to each other.
432
00:25:58,880 --> 00:26:02,880
I mean, you never know who that you're going to walk past in a grocery store and just a
433
00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:07,280
kind word or a smile can keep that person from hanging your spouse or to your spouse
434
00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:12,920
or to a stranger that is on the street that is walking past or whatever that you don't
435
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:17,240
know what struggles people have that you don't know what people are dealing with in their
436
00:26:17,240 --> 00:26:22,040
life that there are one step away from just ending.
437
00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:26,080
You never know when your number is going to come up what little pothole somebody symbolically
438
00:26:26,080 --> 00:26:29,560
is going to run over in their life and just they're gone.
439
00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:33,560
Sometimes they don't get that chance to come back and tell their story.
440
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:38,320
And there's a lot of darkness in the world that people are dealing with every single
441
00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:39,320
day.
442
00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:40,320
I went through it.
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00:26:40,320 --> 00:26:42,560
She went through it before we found each other.
444
00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:46,520
There I mean the valley of the shadow of death is deep out there and they don't always
445
00:26:46,520 --> 00:26:51,000
know that there's footprints in the sand carrying them.
446
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:56,040
Grandma Ma has that poem hanging on the wall everywhere but not everybody has that grandma
447
00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:58,760
to read that poem to know that they're being carried through that.
448
00:26:58,760 --> 00:26:59,760
Do you know what?
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00:26:59,760 --> 00:27:03,960
Everybody out there know what I'm talking about the poem on Grandma Ma's wall.
450
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:08,120
Yeah I think we know the poem of walking on the sand.
451
00:27:08,120 --> 00:27:12,120
This woman here man I saw her go through it and she went to the hospital.
452
00:27:12,120 --> 00:27:14,440
She had tubes hanging out of her skull.
453
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:18,360
I mean they were telling me that I was going to have to find a place for her.
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00:27:18,360 --> 00:27:23,080
I mean the first two couple of nights she was in there they're like if if she makes
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00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:29,480
it out of here you need to find a hospital to put her in because if she wakes up she's
456
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:34,800
not going to know you probably if she does she may not even be herself.
457
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:36,280
She may have a completely different personality.
458
00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:38,680
She may be angry, hateful, spiteful.
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00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:40,560
She may be extra loud and walk.
460
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:41,560
She might be paralyzed.
461
00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:42,560
She might be paralyzed.
462
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:46,920
You may have to change your diapers and I said you know what all of the above she's
463
00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:50,080
going home with me because I'm going to take care of her.
464
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:56,480
I just want to thank you too so much Deanna thank you for sharing this story and Jeff
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00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:58,680
I want to give you the last word.
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00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:03,560
I know how hard this has been for you and the last word that I'd like you to share
467
00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:07,880
with us is what are you grateful for today?
468
00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:12,600
First of all I'm grateful to have a father in heaven that has given us this chance to
469
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:17,440
be here on this earth to live this life but I'm grateful most of all today for this chance
470
00:28:17,440 --> 00:28:22,200
to get this story out for people to hopefully get something good out of this and I'm grateful
471
00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:24,360
for my wife most of all.
472
00:28:24,360 --> 00:28:26,160
I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her.
473
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:30,200
She cared for me and I'm glad I was there to be able to help her get through this and
474
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:34,160
I'm very grateful for you to help us get this story out on this and I hope somebody just
475
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:36,600
one person can get something good out of it.
476
00:28:36,600 --> 00:28:39,960
Honestly, no there's something good out there for you all.
477
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:43,400
There's something good waiting.
478
00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:46,200
Thanks again for listening and sharing this podcast.
479
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:52,280
Don't forget to hit the follow or subscribe button and sign up for our newsletter at roundtripdeath.com.
480
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:56,560
If you want to share your near-death experience or if you have questions or comments about
481
00:28:56,560 --> 00:29:00,880
the show, send an email to ericatroundtripdeath.com.
482
00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:28,040
Until then, I wish you everything good that you're looking for in this life and the next.