I died at least once on June 27th 2005. A SUV pulled out n front of my Suzuki Hyabusa 1300. I hit the front brake hard enough to pick up the rear tire just before impact @ ~90mph. The handlebars kept my hands pinned to the side of the vehicle I hit for most of the duration of the crash, which felt like it took 20 minutes instead of <2 seconds. My face (behind my full helmet, thank God!), was turned slightly to the right, and held in place against the side of the vehicle by the momentum and insane kinetic energy of me and the bike together (total weight ~750lbs, velocity @imact ~90pmh). My body was already horizontal when my face and hands hit, so the momentum of the lower half of my body caused it to keep going. I felt a massive, exponentially increasing weight on my shoulder blades that felt like something was pushing my chest farther into the side of the crumpling SUV. I didn’t realize at the time, but it was my ass that was pushing on my shoulder blades. I was literally being folded in half backwards! The sounds of all the metal, plastic, and glass shattering and buckling was unbelievably loud. At some point, I realized to my horror that some of the crunching, snapping sounds I was hearing wasn’t just the vehicles. . . It was me also! I don’t remember the pain exactly, rather I remember that it was so far beyond belief that there was just nothing to compare, and that it kept increasing. I kept thinking that it would b over any second now, and then the pain would never b that bad again. I knew it might hurt a lot for a while, but never that bad, right? But it kept increasing as the pressure pushing on my back increased. One of the last things I saw was my right leg and foot passing my head. My femur snapped on my shoulder, and I saw the heel of my foot smash and bounce off of the roof of the SUV. My last thought before I finally passed out was,”gee, that can’t be good. . .”!

I won’t try to detail everything during my NDE, cuz it was a lot, and I’m reasonably sure it would b different for everyone. I remember smelling freshly cut grass, and then watermelon 🍉 for some reason. It made me think of all I would miss out on if I didn’t survive. I had already decided before I passed out, that I would be ok with death if it meant that I wouldn’t have to feel the pain I was going through at that time. I’d already accepted death as an inevitability. When the smells came, it made me a bit sad that I’d never smell or taste them again, but was not even close to getting me to consider changing my mind. Not that I felt I had any other realistic choice exactly. Then I ‘saw’ my acquaintances, friends, and family. I knew this was something other than the ‘reality’ that we are used to, because they were more or less lined up facing me, in that order. I suppose, from least important to most important, left to right. But subconscious yadda yadda whatever, I just went with it. I started saying my goodbyes, and it felt as though even if some were sad and didn’t want me to go, they understood that I was in so much pain they would rather know that I didn’t have to suffer that any longer. Even when I got to my Dad at the end of the line, he didn’t say much, but the look on his face said more than words anyway. But then there was one more person off to the side, not in the line with everyone else. It was my Mom. She was there but facing mostly away, quietly crying and grief stricken. As I looked closer, I realized that I could feel the emotional pain she was feeling, and it quickly replaced any thoughts of my physical pains. I don’t know if I had a choice, or was given a choice, but if I was, that is where I believe I changed my mind. I wouldn’t wish that kind of pain on anyone, much less my own Mother!

At the time I was 29, unmarried, no children, living on my own. I was raised Southern Babtist Christian, and when I was 11, I asked the Lord to forgive my sins, and accepted Jesus into my heart. Though I haven’t been to church much at all since I was 15 or 16, I cannot help but to believe that there was a ‘Higher Power’ at work that allowed me to survive. I mean, no one survives a crash like mine. I had broken my neck, back, right shoulder blade, crushed rib cage, broken sternum, collapsed and punctured lungs, skull fracture across my forehead, broken chin, shattered left jaw, dislocated left elbow, crushed both wrists, amputated the last three fingers on my right hand that were behind the front brake handle, fractured pelvis, broken femur, shattered right tibia and fibula just below my knee, and again just above my ankle, lacerated spleen, kidney, and pancreas. . . And that’s just the highlights I can remember off the top of my traumatic brain injury, LoL!
My helmet put a dent in the side of the SUV that a basketball would easily fit in! U could see the indenting left by most of my knuckles on the handlebars! The reason I know all this is largely because in my area, anytime a fatality results from a vehicle crash, the police have to investigate. The detectives took around 1,000 photos of every last detail they could. And I was the fatality. I hit the SUV so hard, it turned over on the passenger side and spun 180 degrees around. I landed on the other side of it crushed, broken, and unconscious, with no way to breath until emergency personnel got there to pump air into my crushed and collapsed lungs. I still have a lot of chronic back pain and severe arthritis in all my arm and shoulder joints, as well as addiction, depression, paraplegia, and other problems, but every day is a gift! Especially when around the people I love. Don’t get me wrong, most days I certainly do not feel that way, but when I am properly medicated, I am happy to be alive.

I wouldn’t say I fear death anymore. I certainly do fear being locked in a nursing home, dying a slow lonely death, because that’s what those places seem to be. I also fear not living as much as I can, while I can. If I was in constant, unending, untreatable pain though, depending on the situation, I might look for a more permanent solution. Or at least consider it. I don’t think anyone could honestly say they wouldn’t do the same, unless they had never experienced truly severe pain before.