NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES – INTRIGUING ACCOUNTS
In my years of counselling, I came across people who actually had near death experiences.
Ethel Witherspoon shared her written account of her experience with me---
“This was an experience that started while I was still in Primary School, either Grade 6 or 7. This was at Wynnum State High School about 1944 or 1945.
I must have been kept in or stayed behind for some reason, as there was no one else in sight.
I’d just crossed the road when I distinctly heard a voice saying, “You’ll be dead before forty.” I stopped walking and quickly looked around me. There was no one in sight, not even a vehicle.
I couldn’t wait till I turned forty. No one knew about this, as I thought they would say that I was mad if I told them.
In 1972, when I was 39 years old, fell pregnant again. An ultrasound scan told them that there were problems. I wasn’t told what they were.
Approximately about 8 weeks before the due date, I was admitted to hospital. Seven weeks before the due date, I ended up with an emergency hysterectomy and ended up in intensive care.
There I had massive blood transfusions. One day I found myself floating up above the room. I could even see into the corridor that was outside. I seemed to be in a brilliantly lit cloud. It was just so peaceful.
Then I saw sister…(I’ll leave her name out) running along the corridor outside of my room. She raced in, went to a table and came back and injected me with something. By this time there were others around me. I kept on waving my hands at them saying “I’m alright. “I’m alright”.
When I came back down the first thing I said to all of them was, “Why did you bring me back?”
The next day when Sister.. came in, I told her how I’d seen her running along the corridor to get to me.
She said, “Which way did I come?”
I pointed to the direction from where she had run, and added, “You lost your veil back there too.”
She was amazed and replied, “I did too.”
All this happened just 10 days before I turned forty. So, in fact, I did die before I turned forty.
I don’t tell too many people this story. Too many people would think that I’m strange.
But I distinctly heard a strong male voice telling me that day, that I would be dead before I was forty.
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Many years ago, I became fascinated with these accounts and found many people that had similar experiences. One that was outstanding was a female canoeist who went down rapids, her canoe upturned and was wedged between two boulders. When her friends realized this, they managed to free her and get her to land. However, by this time she had died. A medic in the group continued artificial respiration for what seemed a long time. Suddenly she coughed expelling water...she was alive!
I found that there was a group in the UK who all had had near-death experiences. I was fascinated to read the accounts; each one different, but with similar factors. Ninety-nine percent of their experiences were positive. (Marge Stathakis)
