Near-death Experience: 1988 Introduction
In 1988, I was living in Hawaii working as a residential Manager at a group home for the homeless. I stumbled onto the position and felt there were spiritual reasons for my stay there. I managed two homes which had the capacity to hold 16 residents. I became friends with many of the young residents who ranged in age from 18 to 25. I was 28 years old at the time and this made me the senior of the group with more experience in the world than the rest.
My seventh major 'near death experience' happened in the summer of 1988 during a 4th of July celebration. My childhood injuries were hidden away within. I later asked a Doctor what exactly happened to cause the trip to the hospital. He told me it was a relapse of childhood injuries. I asked him what I had done to cause. He asked what I had been doing prior to the fall that led to the hospital. I told him I had been laughing. He said that is what did it. I had laughed too hard and caused one of my lungs to collapse. I had laughed myself to death.
Unlike the 1978 'near death experience' that happened while I was alone on a dirt road outside of town, the 1988 'near death experience' happened in front of 10 eyewitnesses. There were 8 residents of the homeless shelter and two paramedics. There were indirect witnesses because the confusion in the shuffle had been caused by a altercation between myself and one of the residents. They thought there had been a fight involved and it was being investigated as an assault. When the paramedics arrived on the scene - I was assumed 'DOA.' The paramedics didn't have the authority to pronounce death and had called in the medical examiner as well as Honolulu Homicide. They felt my death had came about due to an assault, therefore it was going to be investigated as a case of foul play.
According to the testimony of the 8 eyewitnesses and the paramedics on the scene - I had been without vital signs between 31 to 46 minutes. The 8 eyewitnesses all claimed it was 46 minutes. The paramedics didn't arrive on the scene for another 15 minutes so they witnessed my body without vital signs for 31 of those 46 minutes.
It took an 'after-death communication' between the paramedic and my spirit before oxygen was applied to my corpse laying on the ground before I coughed back to life. I was rushed to the hospital which was only 2 minutes away. (The paramedics stated they got lost in the search for the home due to confusion about the address.) When the medical examiner and homicide detectives arrived on the scene, they were shocked to hear that the 'victim' in the homicide investigation was at the hospital struggling to live.
I was rushed to the ER and emergency surgery was performed to repair the damaged lung. When I awoke in recovery, there were many professionals wanting to ask me questions about what took place.
I had been talking about my trip to the afterlife in the ER. A Doctor and a nurse had heard me give a testimonial account of some of the struggle I had to go through to get back into my body.
Something happened in the ER with an altercation between myself and a 300 pound Police Officer. Apparently from the testimony of the Police Officer involved, I had picked him up and thrown him across a home as if he had been light as a feather. He later told me,
"Brother, you told me you had been out fighting demons in an effort to get yourself back into your body and brought some of that strength back with you. We were trying to turn you over to get an X-ray and you said that it was killing you and you didn't want to be thrown out of your body again to have to fight those demons so you was going to set an example by tossing me around the room like a rag doll. When you threw me across a room - we started believing you."
When I woke up in the recovery room - I had buried the memories of the incident. I didn't want to be haunted by visions of the negative side of the 'near-death experience.' I buried all the memories after a few months and they didn't return for another decade.
It was one of the few 'near death experiences' where I had so many people I was able to talk to in the aftermath while the memories of the 'afterlife' realm was fresh on my mind. In this section I write down and share memories of the conversations I had with the various eyewitnesses: the direct as well as indirect.