Randy's NDE: "Proof Of The Afterlife" (Part 1)

0:00 From the time that they pronounced me deaf was a good 45 minutes. They cut my clothes and then they paddled my heart, my heart had stopped. And I could see people screaming and crying, but I didn't realize that was actually my physical body because I was somewhere else. The only thing that I could feel, if you could imagine, absolute love and peace, there wasn't anything else to be felt. I was greeted by people I'd known in the past. I'm back home again. Incredibly safe and felt at home. Welcome, welcome to Round Trip Death, everybody, and welcome to our special guest today, Randy Schieffer.

0:45 Good morning, Randy. Good morning. How are you today, sir? I'm great. How's Florida today? Florida is absolutely beautiful. It's a beautiful spring day. It's bright and sunny, about 70 degrees, low humidity. So just one of those days you want to get outside. Perfect. Well, I want to let our listeners know just a little bit of where we're going today up front. Sure. We're going to be talking about your awesome NDE, but also the fact that you needed for your own self-proof of things. We're going to talk about how that worked for you. And some things related to your NDE that came after that are really awesome and interesting.

1:25 But first, let's get to know you just a little bit. Okay. I already mentioned you live in Florida. What do you do there? Who's Randy? I am retired. I've been retired for, well, I've tried to retire three times now, and my wife keeps finding things for me to do. But we officially retired in 2017 and we're down here in Northern Florida, Northwest Florida, about nine years now. We live down here. We moved down from Ohio, raised our kids in Ohio. I got three girls. Going back a little bit, I grew up in South Florida. Parents moved down there when I was six years old.

2:05 So all my life is really down in the kind of Bocca Raton Del Rey Beach area. So were you a big beach bum kid? I was. Yes. I probably spent more time on the beach than I did sitting in a high school class. But I managed to graduate, long story short, ended up getting my master's degree in forensic science. We were going back a little bit in time for you. We were on a vacation in 1969. Our family went up to New Jersey and my father died. He passed away in my arms. And I didn't realize until after my near death experience how that affected me for the rest of my life.

2:53 I became really intrigued at that time with death. And then of course my sister passed at a younger sister. And she passed at a very young age of stomach cancer. And then of course my mother passed away. So I always have been interested in death. I joined the military in 1972 on a dare by three other guys that I was going to college with. Great friends. Yeah. Yeah. Sitting in an English class of all things one day. And he said, oh, I'm going down to the recruiter. And I said, no, no one had anything to do with it.

3:34 No, come on, one, one. One of them stayed for four years, another one stayed for 10 and I stayed for 20. So I retired from the Air Force in 1992. And I had gotten my master's degree while I was in the Air Force. And I was in security police at the time. And when I got my master's degree, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations recruited me. And they kept me in to be an investigator. OSI is a federally recognized criminal investigation branch in the Air Force who specialized in all major crime. There were a lot of intelligence work, a lot of espionage work.

4:19 And then there was a branch that I was in, which was the criminology side. And I was investigator for them for about nine and a half years. So is this kind of like NCIS? Very much like NCIS. Just not as much drama. OK, not as much. Yeah, a lot of showmanship. Well, it is a TV show. True. NCIS would be our equivalent. They're federally recognized. I did a lot of work with NCIS and the Army as CID, Criminal Investigative Division. So we worked hand in hand with all of them. But because my specialty was in forensics, I did specialize in investigation of violent crime, homicide, suicides, child abuse, things of that nature was my specialty.

5:09 They sent me on to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology here in Washington, D.C. for some advanced training in forensics. Before I ended up in Germany, we stayed about four years in Germany, and we moved out to Southern California. And I did forensics work and ran a district. So tell me how that background that you had in forensic science, et cetera, made it so that you were someone that really needed proof of things. You didn't just take people's word for stuff. And then we're going to tie this in later on in this interview as well. Sure. That could say it started with my dad's death. And I'll get to your point here.

5:50 But his death really intrigued me. It hurt. I was 16 years old when he died, massive heart attack. I tried to save him and couldn't. Of course, in 1969, CPR was just brand new. I had read a book a little bit about what to do and how to do it, but never was real proficient. But I tried it and couldn't save him. And that guilt lived with me. So I became very fascinated with death and what happens at death. Now, the body decomposes. So when I was offered the opportunity for the Master's degree in forensic science, I jumped on it because death scared me.

6:34 I was afraid of my own death. My vision was basically when you turn out the light, electricity goes off and we're done. Nothing else. We're gone. And because I lost my dad and my mom and my sister, that frightened me because I loved my family to death. And I didn't want to lose that. I didn't want to lose my family. I love life. I didn't want to lose that feeling of life. So I became very scared of my own death. I could investigate death and I'd investigated hundreds. And one of the things I got into after I retired from the state of Ohio is consulting.

7:18 I did a lot of consulting work on death investigations and again related shootings and all kinds of things. I could investigate a death. I could help the family through and process a family member's death. But boy, when I came to my own, I'd have absolutely panic attacks, full blown panic attacks, screaming, waving my arms, just total loss of control. I was that afraid. And I felt that I was the only person that felt that way. And I couldn't understand why nobody else felt that way. I couldn't talk about it. Not until after my near death experience that my wife even knew that I even experienced any of those traumatic panic attacks that I went through.

8:07 She didn't know anything about it. After men are tougher than that, especially military. Yeah. Yeah. I just don't talk to it. You just don't address it. So talk about the proof thing. Why did you need proof of things? Yeah. Well, my world evolved around evidence. As a criminal investigator, evidence was everything to me. I had to prove beyond a doubt that an individual committed a crime. I had to have the fingerprints. I had to have the DNA. I had to connect you back as a suspect. I had to connect you back somehow to that crime scene. So evidence was everything.

8:48 Proof was everything to me. And my wife is Catholic. My three girls were raised Catholic, went to Catholic school, attended Catholic church every Sunday. I grew up as a loom friend. When my dad died, we kind of drifted away from the church. When I got remarried, I found my way back, but there was something about being a criminal investigator needing that proof, positive proof of evidence that I didn't hear in church. I didn't hear any proof. I heard words like, in hopes of rising again, in hope, just have faith.

9:29 Yeah. Have faith. Now, we have faith in a lot of things. When I pull up to a traffic light and it turns green, I have faith everybody else is going to stop because I can see that. I can see that people come up and stop at that red light to allow me to pass through. So there's so many other things that I had proof. I had evidence of faith, but the church didn't give that to me. I know there are stories in the Bible that people rely on to prove that God is real and he died on the cross for us.

10:11 But again, to me, those are stories. Because of all the investigations and all the interrogations that I have been through, I know people can make up stories. I didn't think they were lies, but none of those stories gave me the proof that I needed that heaven was real, that there was life after death, and to my end, so yeah, I needed that proof. I needed that visible proof that life existed after death. Well, let's jump forward now to 2020. It didn't. COVID is everywhere, and that's what hit you, isn't it?

10:51 It did. I know about, oh, I'd say two weeks before I got sick with COVID, they came out with a mask mandate. And I remember, and my family, my three girls and their husbands, were all really close yet family. Matter of fact, two of my daughters live right here in Northwest Florida with us, and I have another daughter in Tennessee. But I remember making fun of COVID. When I got a paper bag, I cut two eyes, a nose, and a mouth in the paper bag, and I put the words, COVID mask, www.buyyourmasknow50.

11:34 And took a picture and posted it on our family page as a joke. Here's my COVID mask. I'm going to make a fortune selling paper bags, take a paper bag over your head. So we had a good laugh at that. But about a week later, I have no idea where I caught it, but I started not feeling well. My youngest daughter, Gerni and I were up at her property up here, about one of her properties that she owns about 40 minutes away. And she just had her tenant move out. We were up just doing some painting and getting it ready to put back up on the market. And I told her, I said, I'm not feeling real well.

12:16 And she had mentioned the same thing. She goes, yeah, either am I. We had gone up for Greek food for lunch. So it was like, maybe we ate something that just didn't sit with us. But as the afternoon progressed, we just started to get really tired and not feeling well, feeling nauseous, lightheaded. So we packed things up and came home. By the time we got back to the house, I was just absolutely exhausted, went straight to bed, got up the next morning, didn't feel well well again, kind of laid around. It was like a Friday afternoon. And then my wife started hounding me, you know, go to the doctor, go to the doctor, get checked out.

13:00 And I said, no, I bet you I just have the flu. You know, I'm not feeling good because of the flu. I'm sure that it will, it will pass and will be okay. So she made me promise Monday was, was March 23rd. And she made me promise if I didn't feel better by Monday, that I'd go to the doctor. So I did. I wasn't feeling any better. Made an appointment, went down to see my primary care. And he said, oh, you have the flu. It's going around, you know, and I told him, he said, doctor, I'm tired, don't feel good, I'm nauseous, I got a headache, you know, no, no, it's the flu. And I said, this doesn't feel like the flu.

13:42 I said, could I get tested for this COVID? You don't have COVID. He said, have you traveled? No. You know, there's five questions they ask him, you've been around somebody. Yeah, this was so, March was so early on. Yeah. Did they even have a regular test that early? They did, but they were using them very sparingly. They wouldn't. It wasn't a common thing. No. Unless you met certain criteria, you know, they wouldn't test you. So he says, you have the flu, go home, come back in a week if you don't feel better. So Wednesday the 25th, yeah, it would have been the 25th.

14:23 I was really sick. And I went back to the doctor and I saw a physician assistant and I came in and he says, you were just here on Monday. I said, yeah, I said, I'm sick. I said, I don't know what I have. You have the flu. I said, I don't have the flu. We went through that whole gambit again. Okay. You have the flu, go home, rest. Can I get tested for COVID? Nope. We're not going to test you for COVID. So I went home. I came home and I called the wife and the family. They tell me I have the flu just to rest. That Thursday the 26th, my wife went up with my daughter to their house because they had a tenant that wanted to see the house.

15:09 So she went up there and my oldest daughter came by the house to check on me just to see how I was doing. Now my youngest daughter is a nurse and my oldest called her and said, dad looks bad. He looks gray. He is really sick. So she said, well, get him to the emergency room. Of course, I refused to go. Now I'm not going to emergency room. Wow. I'm going to. She says, nope. She says, dad, you're going. She's either will call 911. You go by ambulance so you can get in the car and we'll go. I agreed and she took me down. She dropped me off at the entrance and said, look, I'm going to go park the car.

15:50 I'll come in and meet up with you. So I went in and I remember walking up to the receptionist that I just could barely, I mean, I was barely able to get in there. And I said, I'm sick. You've got to help me. And they took me back very, very quickly. They took me into the back and immediately into an isolation room. They did have those set up at the time. I remember before they took me back, my daughter came to the door of the hospital and he wouldn't allow her in. They stopped her right at the door and said, no, I just, you know, we can't let you in the hospital because of COVID.

16:30 And she yelled at me. She says, dad, text me when you're done. She says, I'll be waiting for you in the car. And I said, okay, hon, I love you. I'll see you in a little bit. And that would be the last family member I saw for six weeks. Wow. I've had some other people on the show that had COVID back around that same time. And your story is kind of typical. This was like something that happened to other people. Are you traveled internationally or from China or something like that? But I'm glad they took you in that quickly. One other person that I can think of that I interviewed said he walked in, did the same thing and then was like, and they were like, oh, well, yeah, just go wait over there.

17:18 You know, we'll go wait for a few hours. He passed out right on the floor just out. So that's how he got back in quickly. Yeah. Anyway, they were more sensitive to it where you were, I guess. So that's good. Yeah. Well, maybe it was a smaller hospital. Maybe because of the way I looked, I don't know. But my blood oxygen level was down in the very low 80s, even the high 70s was that low. And they were very quickly to tell me that I had bilaterals, I took X-rays, I had bilateral pneumonia and that they're going to admit me right away into the hospital.

18:03 And the doctor couldn't tell me for sure. He says, but I'm almost positive. He said that you do have COVID. He said because your lungs are full of the glass, you know, that glass crystallization that hit the lungs and he says, you have that. He says, so we're really sure that you have COVID. So they took me up onto the ward isolation room again. I was by myself. Everybody wore the big masks and gowns and hats and everything, you know. And that was on the 26th of March. Within 48 hours, I remember a doctor coming in and saying, Mr. Schieffer, you're not breathing real well.

18:49 We need a stick of tube down your throat to help you breathe. And I remember saying, okay, back of my mind, and he said, we have to sedate you to do it. So in the back of my mind, I've had surgeries before, they're going to sedate me and, you know, I'll be away. I didn't wake up for more weeks later. So they put me in a medically induced coma, put me on the ventilator, and I maxed out the ventilator pretty quick. I couldn't go any higher on the ventilator. That was on the 29th of March. On the 30th of March, the air lifted me from our local hospital over to a much larger hospital in Pensacola, and I went from the helicopter right into surgery, and they put me on to an ECMO machine.

19:42 ECMO is basically a heart-long bypass machine. Extra corporal membrane oxygenation is the big term for it. But basically, they have the ability to allow it to breathe for you or just pump your heart or it can do both. And eventually, I needed both. So I was in total life support. Yeah. You were very, very, very ill. Yeah. They had told my family that I had about a 3% chance of living and that they should probably prepare for my demise.

20:22 That's how bad that I was. They didn't expect me to make it at all. And I went to kidney failure. So I went on dialysis. One of my lungs collapsed. I was bleeding internally. So I was receiving units of blood. I was throwing blood clots. My liver enlarged and was throwing blood clots. So practically, every organ that I had was failing. That's what COVA did. Everything would eventually shut down. At what point during all of this, you had a four-week coma and another couple of weeks in the hospital. At what point did you feel like you faced some kind of death or out-of-body experience?

21:03 Tell us about that now. Yeah. Well, it had to be between March 29th and April the 10th. I can't tell you, obviously, exactly when. But that's the time period that I was the sickest, that I was the worst. So I have a feeling it was during that time. Because on April the 10th, I was the first person in Northwest Florida to receive convalescent plasma. And I started to get better after that point. So it was that time frame that I vividly remember. And I had dreams. And I had hallucinations.

21:44 And I can tell the difference between the three experiences that I had. Because I remember my consciousness awoke. And it was just like I'm talking to you right now. And I remember being in a tunnel. Well, I didn't know it was a tunnel at the time. When I first came out of the hospital, I was explaining it to people like an airplane fuselage. That was the only reference that I had at the time. But I remember, and I remember that I said to myself, you're dead. You died. But where are you? Where am I going? I remember moving through this tunnel, moving away, moving down this tunnel.

22:29 And it was dark. But yet I just knew I could feel a tremendous light that encompassed that tunnel. As I passed through, it was almost like these little windows that I would pass that I could see this light outside. And I could feel it was warm. I felt very warm. And I was for a person that feared death as badly as I did, I was in such peace. No panic, no stress, no freaking out. But yet I knew I died. And I came to the end of the tunnel.

23:13 Now I cannot tell you what sequence of events this was either. I don't know which story that I'm about to go into came first, second, or third. But when I came out of the tunnel, I was in this beautiful room, absolutely gorgeous hall. And I was standing on a mezzanine overlooking this hall. And the tall was very tall. And it had the rib-vaulted ceilings. I remember like three, three or four vaults that I could see up on the ceilings. And there was water fixtures. And the walls were lined with beautiful stained glass windows.

23:57 And down on the floor, I remember seeing at least three archways. Now archways were just covered with gold and the walls were, was just a glowing gold. There's a huge chandelier hanging down from the ceiling. And I'm sitting there and I'm very calm, very peaceful, just admiring the beauty of this room. And I felt the presence of someone. Someone was with me. Could not see them. I couldn't tell you what they looked like, but I knew somebody was standing next to me. And almost telepathically, it was like turn around.

24:42 And I turned and there was an individual walking toward us. Middle-aged man, dark hair, long. I believe he had a beard and he had like a dark robe on. And I don't remember any legs or anything, but I remember a dark robe with a dark colored sash. And he came up to me and I remember talking with him. And I said, this room is absolutely magnificent. It's beautiful. And he goes, yes. He said, this is one of our most popular rooms. And he says, it's very busy. I felt the commotion on the floor. Like I said, I was on a mezzanine looking down.

25:23 And I could feel the commotion that was going on on the floor. But I had no idea what people were doing. And there were some beautiful gold tables down there. But I had no idea what they're doing. But eventually he said to me, he said, but you don't belong here. You have to leave. And he pointed to some big, beautiful oak doors that was some feet away. And this presence of mine walked with me to these oak doors, beautiful hand carved, tall, magnificent oak doors. And I remember pushing them open.

26:04 And I was probably about three or four steps down to a sidewalk. But when they opened up, I was in a grand city, absolutely beautiful city. Can I just interject a couple of questions at this point? Yeah. So if this were something that happened here in this world, and you're in this beautiful place and somebody comes up to you and says, you don't belong here. You have to go. You'd feel pretty dejected. Is that how you felt there? Or was it different? No, it was just different. I didn't, at that time, I really didn't, I didn't have emotions. That makes sense. Yes.

26:44 But you said you were feeling peace and calm. I didn't feel like, why do I have to go? Okay. But I didn't feel, well, why do I have to leave? I didn't question. There was no negative resentment or anything like that towards the direction. It was very matter of fact, it sounds like. Like, okay. Yeah. I think it was the authority figure that I probably perceived him as. You have to go. My guide took me that way. So I just followed. Okay. So you go through the big oak doors and then tell me what you see. Magnificent city, beautiful. The skyscrapers were just as high as you could see them.

27:27 No traffic, no cars, no buses, nothing. And I started to walk the roads, if you will, were an opaque, well, yeah, opaque in color. They were like a beautiful pearl color roads. These skyscrapers were just so tall and they were gold. They were golden skyscrapers that just reached in the sky as far as you could see. Their windows were the same in color as the street. I remember passing parks, beautiful green, well-manicured parks with trees and flowers. And often the distance, there were some children playing in this park.

28:13 And I kept walking through these streets just in awe of this beautiful city. And I got to a point where I felt scared because I suddenly realized that I was lost. So the guide wasn't with you anymore? He left. Yes, I'm sorry, he left. I felt alone at that time. I know he wasn't with me. And I knew I was lost. And I remember thinking, you died, but how do I get back? I don't know how to get back. And I got scared. And I got very emotional. I remember crying. I remember yelling out to people to help me.

28:56 I couldn't see anyone. But again, I felt people. And I couldn't understand why they weren't stopping to help me. I sat down on what I believed to be was like a curb. And I sat down and I remember crying. And I was still looking wet, I guess from crying. I was just absolutely soaking wet. And I became very cold. And screaming out, I'm lost. Someone, please help me. I'm lost. And I remember looking over my shoulder. For some reason I turned and I looked over my shoulder, my right shoulder. And all the way up, as far as you could see into the skies, was this beautiful white staircase.

29:44 It just went up into the clouds. I remember saying, if I can get to that staircase, maybe someone can find me. So I remember moving over to the staircase. And I can't tell you if I was walking. I can't tell you if I was crawling. But I remember moving up the staircase. I have no clue how high I got. But suddenly I heard a voice and he said, there's Randy. Get him. And it was like, here I go, somebody grabbed me by my shirt collar and whisked me off of those steps. And I just remember everything going dark.

30:26 I was out of that situation. That area that I was in no longer existed. Everything went black. No consciousness, I was gone until my consciousness awoke. So would you assume that you were back in your body at that point? You just weren't away from the coma? You know, I have to, yeah, from the coma. Because it was just, I was just, that ended. It was just gone. But when my consciousness awoke again, I was back in that city. But I was in a different section of the city. Different beautiful buildings. Did you still feel lost and scared or was it more comfortable this time?

31:08 It was more comfortable because I said, I know where those steps are. Now, if I can make my way back to those steps, I can be found. So I did just that. I moved through the city and I made it back to those steps. And I started to go up the steps again. And I heard the same voice. There's Randy. I turned, I turned this time because one of the things that I was moving through the city, I remember, who grabbed me? Who was that to grab me? Why did they grab me? So I turned and there was a older gentleman, white hair, a white beard, beautiful white gown on with a, with a, I remember the sash was white.

31:57 Oh, it was just so brilliant. It really stood out. He used the man that grabbed me because he grabbed me again and pulled me off those steps and everything went black. I was gone. Okay. What do you make of that? Were you not allowed to go up the steps for some reason? I think they knew I wasn't supposed to be there. They knew I wasn't going to die. It wasn't my time. Evidently, I have a pretty per-sincent soul who just wanted to go back. Well, I'm going to say one other thing and I have never said this phrase before.

32:37 I think your escort was really slack in that day. I think. I hope he didn't get fired, but reported at least. Yeah. I did. You know, the second time I was in that city, I didn't feel him or whoever it was. Again. I was alone. Yeah. Slack it a little bit. He came back a third time. Okay. I better let you keep going. Yeah. He came back another time, but I was gone. I was out of the city and I went blank again. Like I said, I've had a lot of people who said, well, how can you tell the difference between what I experienced there and my dreams or a hallucination?

33:25 And I said, my hallucinations were silly. I remember opening my eyes knowing that I had died because I said to myself, okay, you're dead. And if I died, I must be in hell because I saw flashing bolts of light. And then when I would open my eyes, there were nine dancing panda bears on the ceiling of my room. And they were dancing to this God awful music. I couldn't even tell you what it was. But when I would close my eyes, I would see these flash of lightning bolts again.

34:06 Wow. And I, yeah, that sounds a little drug induced or something. Yeah. Yeah. And I didn't know he was a doctor of mine until afterwards, but one of my doctors or this man that I got very angry with, playing with my dogs across the hallway in a birthing pool. And he was playing with my dogs in this birthing pool. And I was pissed that he had my dogs and he was playing with them in this birthing pool that I could not get to. So everything, they were just silly hallucinations like that. And my dreams were not as vivid. They didn't seem as real.

34:46 They were very broken into different segments, little bits and pieces that just didn't make sense. So I knew I was, and path towards, I just knew that these were dreams. But then I had this other area that was so real and so vivid and so colorful that I wouldn't sure exactly what I experienced. Well I appreciate your explanation because I often ask people, how do you know this wasn't a dream or some other kind of hallucination? And most people, the only thing, the way they can explain it to me is it was more real than real or something like that.

35:27 So I appreciate you having a little more detail on that. Yeah. Okay. So you've been to this city twice now. You did correct. Just a second ago, mention the guide having another opportunity. You know, I wonder if he earned his wings, you know, and I wonder if he ever earned his wings. I don't know. I didn't hear any bells going off. But let me tell you, before I get into my guide returning, I remember my consciousness awaking and I was on a pathway, dirt pathway, and a log side made was the most beautiful area that I have ever seen in my life.

36:10 The trees and the flowers were of colors that you can't even describe. And they were so vivid, it was almost like they were alive. And the meadows that lied past the trees was just a magnificent green. And I've been to the highlands of Scotland and I've been to Ireland and I've seen some magnificent, beautiful green grass, but it didn't hold anything to what I saw up in heaven. It was absolutely beautiful. And I've been walking down this path again knowing that I died and suddenly this little boy appears.

36:54 Maybe 10 years old, very animated. He had dark hair, the bull haircut, remember the old bull haircut, no shirt on, olive skin, no shoes, he was barefoot. And he had a three-quarter length shorts on. And he was very animated. Follow me, follow me, follow me, his other arms are just a-waiving. So I followed him. We go down the path and he takes me, suddenly we come across this beautiful building and we go inside and he says, you wait in here. And he put me into this room and the room had this beautiful artwork on it.

37:40 The pedestal chairs were in the center of the room and a big picture window was on the side and remember looking out the picture window. And the river that I saw previously ran underneath this room and this river meandered off into the distance through that grass meadow. And remember seeing people in the water, not playing or frolicking, but they were on the sides very peacefully talking on the sides and the banks of this river. I have no idea how long I was there or how long I waited. But eventually this little boy comes back into the room and he says to me, I'm sorry, you have to leave.

38:29 And I remember looking and saying, but I don't want to leave. I said, I feel so at home and so at peace and felt, feel so loved. I said, I don't want to leave. He goes, no, you have to leave. Your room isn't ready. And with that, I was gone back in my dark sedated world and so that was the third experience. Okay, keep going. And it suddenly, yeah, when my consciousness awoke, I was back in that tunnel, but I was at the very end of the tunnel. And I remember coming out and I was in a void, a dark void.

39:11 My guide showed up. He's making a comeback. He was there. He was there. He was with me. And I remember standing in this void and he indicates, I need you to follow him. So I started to follow him deeper into the void and you've been to the theater and you're sitting in the audience and there's a dark stage in front of you. And then suddenly a little light comes on and the light gets brighter and brighter and brighter. And you see the actress or actor standing there, you know, underneath this bright light.

39:53 And that's what happened. We started to walk through this void, this light started to come on and it got brighter and brighter and we got closer and closer. Suddenly my mother-in-law, my deceased mother-in-law was right next to me, standing right next to me. And I described her to my wife in detail. Younger lady, I would say in her 30s. She had beautiful long hair in life. Her hair was all pulled up with beautiful ribbon around the top of her hair. She had this beautiful white gown on and she was sitting in a chair and she was sitting very royally, I say, very upright, you know, very proud.

40:41 She had her hand out on the armrest and she only looked at me very briefly. Because I was crying out to her, Dolores, Dolores, it's me, Randy, Randy, I'm here, I'm here, here. And she looked away and she wouldn't acknowledge my presence. And my guide said, we need to move on. We moved deeper and as we moved deeper into this void, the light that shined over my mother-in-law just got weaker and weaker until she completely disappeared. And as that would turn off, there was another light that turned on in the distance, very far away.

41:29 But as that light got brighter, I knew, I knew in a second that it was my dad, my mom, and my sister knew it. That is awesome. How did that feel? Oh my God, I was screaming at the top of my lungs. My dad and I were very close, something I didn't go into earlier, but he and I were really close. I used my Little League Baseball coach on Saturdays, I'd go to work with him, you know, so it was a tremendous loss when he did die. And I was so excited. I was screaming out, dad, mom, Gina, it's me, I'm here, I'm here.

42:11 When I felt there was some type of barrier, invisible barrier between me and them, by this time we had stopped moving. And there was some type of barrier that I had come up on. And I felt its presence and I felt that I just couldn't go through that barrier. And they didn't acknowledge me because I don't think they wanted me to move past that barrier. And I remember yelling at them and just so happy to see them. Something up in heaven as well is that you have the presence of what's going on around you for 360 degrees.

42:54 And at that time there was orbs of light that was passing by me. Off the distance, back behind me, off to my right, whatever reason this one orb of light got my attention. And he was moving up very quickly. And this light got closer and closer and you know, it's the size of maybe of a bowling ball. And it came up and it stopped right in front of me. And a face materialized for just an instant. His face tells me, says to me, tell Madison at the salon, your grandfather's okay.

43:36 Now I'm a veteran and the word veteran resonated with me. I felt the word. I felt it penetrate me. I heard it being repeated veteran, veteran, veteran. This orb of light moved on to a white porch and he was making or he showed me red, white and blue ribbons in American flags. And suddenly my guide says you have to leave. And I was gone. That was the end up. That was the last time.

44:17 That was the last time that you went off into this realm. Again, I don't know the sequencing. But that's the end of my, yeah, the four times that I... If there's not time there, then the sequence, there's not really a sequence anyway. So that's okay. True. We're going to tie a bunch of this stuff back in in a minute. But tell us quickly, how did you get better? How long did that take? You mentioned you had started getting the plasma. Yes, April the 10th, which happened to be a good Friday that year. And that made all the difference in your recovery. Yeah. The hospital wasn't going to initially give it to me because it was...

44:58 Oh, it was experimental back then. Experimental, exactly. And the hospital I was not a teaching hospital. They weren't an experimental hospital. They just didn't do things like that. But my daughter is a nurse. Excuse me. She became my advocate. And she did advocate with them, all the way up to the CEO of the hospital. And they... The family, because my wife designated her as a family spokesperson. I had one daughter who did the medical. I had another daughter who did a lot on social media to get... Find me a donor. That's a whole nother, separate story.

45:40 And my third daughter, my oldest daughter was in charge of prayer. She formed a prayer chain from around the world. I had people praying for me. So I do believe in the power of prayer now as well. So yeah, they gave me the converalist plasma on Good Friday. By Easter morning, my lungs had cleared and started functioning again. That they actually could turn off the ECMO machine. My heart returned to normal. It started pumping adequately. And they were able to actually turn off the ECMO machine. By that Tuesday of that week, my kidneys were functioning and I came off dialysis.

46:22 I had stopped bleeding internally. And by later in that week, I think it was like that Thursday or Friday, they started to wake me up. They started to bring me out of the coma. They took the breathing tube out at some point. Yeah, they took the breathing tube out. Although I had to get re-inturbated because I did have a relapse. They re-inturbated me and I was on that for another week and then I came off of it. Yeah, they discharged me from the hospital on May, May the 8th. That was from the end of March till the 8th of May. I remember coming fully awake and processing everything going through my mind because somehow my daughter, my youngest daughter, the nurse was allowed in to see me that last week that I was in the hospital.

47:17 And before she got there, I was kind of processing what had happened to me. I wasn't really sure what I experienced. Obviously, I didn't know right away all their near-death experiences and the meaning of all of this. And I had mentioned to one of the nurses that I had this message. I said, I had to, where does this experience? I said, some guy gave me a message for his granddaughter and she kind of looked at me and she says, what? So you didn't know Madison anywhere, right? No, I didn't know Madison. No, I didn't know who Madison was. And she kind of gave me a funny look.

47:59 I said, yeah, I was in this dark area and this guy comes up and he gives me a message and she turned around and walks out of the room. I don't know when, but I remember one of the doctors coming in. And he examined me and I said, Doc, I had some strange things. I said, I had dainting panda bears. And I said, I remember, I said I was somewhere in a beautiful city and this little boy tells me it wasn't my time that I had to come back. And I mentioned Madison a little bit and he says, well, yeah, you are on some pretty heavy drugs around the world. Which makes sense for the dancing pandas. Yeah, but not the rest.

48:41 For the rest now. So when my daughter got there, I learned, I learned from there, I learned from the nurses and the doctors that something that they didn't want to discuss, that they weren't interested. I just knew I didn't need to talk to them about it. So I didn't mention anything more to them about it until my daughter came in. Because that's you, somebody that I really trusted and I knew that would understand. And I told her, I said, Lisa, I said something happened to me. I said, I'm not sure what happened. She goes, what are you talking about? I said, Lisa, I said, I traveled. I said, I would, she said, dad, you were in a coma for four weeks.

49:22 What do you mean you traveled? I said, I was in some big, beautiful city. I said, Paris, London, but it was beautiful. I said, it was so clean and vibrant. And she says, you weren't in London or Paris if it was that clean and vibrant and beautiful, you know. And I said, I don't know where I was. So I told her about Madison. And she said, well, who's Madison? I said, I don't know of Madison. I have no idea. And she said, well, who is the man that gave you, I said, again, I have no clue what this man is. I don't, I didn't know. And she tell you, you talk to her, she'll tell you that she was a bit sceptic, that she really thought it was just the drugs that I was on.

50:07 Sure. And she was a bit sceptic. So I was released. I had to learn to walk again. I had to learn to swallow. I have a damaged vocal cord still, but I had to learn to swallow. I was very, very weak. So I came home in a wheelchair. They wanted to send me to a rehabilitation center because I was still on some pretty heavy blood centers. And they wanted to send me to a rehabilitation center. And I just said, no, I'm going home. And they said, well, the only way to go home is if you have nursing care. I looked at my daughter and I said, she'll take care of me. So she moved home. She was up in Mississippi at the time. So she moved back here to take care of me.

50:49 Well, I'm happy you had such a beautiful experience. Last question. I love to ask this one, especially of someone who was very, very, very afraid of death. On a scale of one to 10, I'm guessing you were a 10 fearful of death prior to this. Where are you on the scale now? Zero. Bring it on. All right. Not at all. Not at all. Because there's such, you know, if there's anything that I bring, I bring a message of hope, how are you going to accept my experience and how you're going to translate it? You know, that's up to you. You know, I can't, everybody has their own experiences and they're going to listen and they're going to make their own decisions, but I can just tell you that on that scale, I was at 11 before.

51:41 I mean, I did not want to die end of story. I didn't want to do it. Didn't talk about it. If you used to talk about it, my family would bring it up. I'd walk away. I couldn't talk about it. And now I can talk about it all day long because it's a beautiful place. It's a beautiful experience, a beautiful feelings. I don't fear it at all. And if you have a chance to be a guide, I think you're going to be the best one there. You think I'll get my wings? I'm going to ring the bell and I'll get my wings. Randy, thanks so much for being with me today. I enjoyed it. Thank you, sir. I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you so much. We are out of time for this episode, but Randy had a whole bunch more to say, especially on the topic of the proof that he was looking for.

52:30 Because in spite of having his experience, he needed more than just that. So our episode coming out later this week, the bonus episode will be all about that. And I'll give you a hint. It has something to do with Madison and the face that he saw briefly in the orb of light. This part is really cool. I hope you'll join us then. If you want to be notified when the bonus episode comes out with the rest of Randy's interview, go on over to roundtriptest.com, sign up for our newsletter, and you'll be one of the first to know. In the meantime, I wish you everything good that you're looking for in this life and the next.