90 Minutes in Heaven (5 page)

They had called for the Jaws of Life
¹
to get me out of the smashed car. Because I was dead, there seemed to be no need for speed. Their concern focused on clearing the bridge for traffic to flow again.

When the truck came in at an angle and went right over the top of me, the truck smashed the car’s ceiling, and the dashboard came down across my legs, crushing my right leg. My left leg was shattered in two places between the car seat and the dashboard. My left arm went over the top of my head, was dislocated, and swung backward over the seat. It was still attached—barely.

That left arm had been lying on the driver’s side door, because I had been driving with my right hand. As I would learn later, the major bones were now missing, so my lower left arm was just a piece of flesh that held the hand to the rest of the arm. It was the same with the left leg. There was some tissue just above my knee that still fed blood to the calf and foot below. Four and a half inches of femur were missing and never found. The doctors have no medical explanation why I didn’t lose all the blood in my body.

Glass and blood had sprayed everywhere. I had all kinds of small holes in my face from embedded glass. The steering wheel had pounded into my chest. Blood seeped out of my eyes, ears, and nose.

Just from seeing the results of the crash, the EMTs knew I had to have sustained massive head injuries and that my insides were completely rearranged. When he first felt no pulse, one of the EMTs covered me with a waterproof tarp that also blocked off the top of the car. They made no attempt to move me or try to get me out immediately—they couldn’t have anyway, because it would have been impossible for them to drag or lift me out of the vehicle without the Jaws of Life.

One thing that sped help to the scene was that the two prison guards in the pickup truck immediately called for emergency assistance from the prison. Otherwise, we would have been too far away for any emergency vehicle to get to us quickly.

They examined the drivers of the other two cars; both of them were uninjured and refused medical attention. The prisoner who drove the truck sustained no injuries. As soon as the EMTs determined he was all right, they transported him back to the prison. Police halted all traffic on the bridge and waited for the ambulance to arrive. While they waited, traffic backed up for miles in both directions, especially the direction I had come from. It was only a narrow two-lane bridge, not wide enough for a car to turn around. Even if the waiting traffic could have turned around, they would have had to drive an extra forty or fifty miles around the lake to reach another road leading to their destination.

From the backed-up traffic, Dick and Anita Onerecker walked at least half a mile to the scene of the accident. Dick and Anita had started a church in Klein, which is north of Houston. Both had spoken at the conference I’d just attended. I’m not positive we actually met at Trinity Pines, although we may have. For years I had heard of Dick Onerecker, but that conference was the first time I had ever seen him.

On Wednesday morning, the Onereckers left Trinity Pines a few minutes before I did. By Houston standards, that January morning was extremely cold. As they sped along, Anita said, “I’m really chilled. Could we stop for coffee? I think that would warm me up.”

Dick spotted a bait shop right on Lake Livingston, so they pulled over. Apparently, while they were buying coffee, I drove past them.

Many times afterward, Dick would bury his face in his hands and say, “You know that could easily have been us. It should have been us, but because we stopped and you drove past us, you got hit.”

Before the Onereckers reached the bridge, the accident had occurred and traffic had started to back up. People got out of their cars and milled around, asking questions and sharing their limited information.

After Dick and Anita got out of their car, they asked fellow drivers, “What’s going on up there?”

The word had passed down that there had been a serious auto accident. “A truck crashed into a car” was about all anyone knew.

Dick and Anita stood around a few minutes, but nothing happened, and more cars lined up behind them. Sometime between 12:30 and 12:45, they decided to walk to the accident site. When they saw a police officer, Dick said, “I’m a minister. Is there anybody here I can help? Is there anyone I can pray for?”

The police officer shook his head. “The people in those two cars,” he said and pointed, “are shaken up a little bit but they’re fine. Talk to them if you’d like.”

“What about the other vehicle? The one with the tarp over it?”

“The man in the red car is deceased.”

While Dick talked to the officer, Anita went over to the other vehicles. She gave her barely touched coffee to the old man.

Dick would later tell it this way: “God spoke to me and said, ‘You need to pray for the man in the red car.’” Dick was an outstanding Baptist preacher. Praying for a dead man certainly ran counter to his theology.
I can’t do that,
he thought.
How can I go over there and pray? The man is dead.

The rain had become a light drizzle, but Dick was oblivious to his surroundings. Dick stared at the officer, knowing that what he would say wouldn’t make sense. Yet God spoke to him so clearly that he had no doubt about what he was to do. God had told him to pray for a dead man. As bizarre as that seemed to him, Dick also had no doubt that the Holy Spirit was prompting him to act.

“I’d like to pray for the man in the red car,” Dick finally said to the officer.

“Like I said, he’s dead.”

“I know this sounds strange, but I want to pray for him anyway.”

The officer stared at him a long time before he finally said, “Well, you know, if that’s what you want to do, go ahead, but I’ve got to tell you it’s an awful sight. He’s dead, and it’s really a mess under the tarp. Blood and glass are everywhere, and the body’s all mangled.”

Dick, then in his forties, said, “I was a medic in Vietnam, so the idea of blood doesn’t bother me.”

“I have to warn you—” The man stopped, shrugged, and said, “Do what you want, but I’ll tell you that you haven’t seen anybody this bad.”

“Thanks,” Dick said and walked to the tarp-covered car.

From the pictures of that smashed-down car, it’s almost impossible to believe, but somehow Dick actually crawled into the trunk of my Ford. It had been a hatchback, but that part of the car had been severed. I was still covered by the tarp, which he didn’t remove, so it was extremely dark inside the car. Dick crept in behind me, leaned over the backseat, and put his hand on my right shoulder.

He began praying for me. As he said later, “I felt compelled to pray. I didn’t know who the man was or whether he was a believer. I knew only that God told me I had to pray for him.”

As Dick prayed, he became quite emotional and broke down and cried several times. Then he sang. Dick had an excellent voice and often sang publicly. He paused several times to sing a hymn and then went back to prayer.

Not only did Dick believe God had called him to pray for me but he prayed quite specifically that I would be delivered from unseen injuries, meaning brain and internal injuries.

This sounds strange, because Dick knew I was dead. Not only had the police officer told him but he also had checked for a pulse. He had no idea why he prayed as he did, except God told him to. He didn’t pray for the injuries he could see, only for the healing of internal damage. He said he prayed the most passionate, fervent, emotional prayer of his life. As I would later learn, Dick was a highly emotional man anyway.

Then he began to sing again. “O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer!”
²
The only thing I personally know for certain about the entire event is that as he sang the blessed old hymn “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” I began to sing with him.

In that first moment of consciousness, I was aware of two things. First, I was singing—a different kind of singing than the tones of heaven—I heard my own voice and then became aware of someone else singing.

The second thing I was aware of was that someone clutched my hand. It was a strong, powerful touch and the first physical sensation I experienced with my return to earthly life.

More than a year would lapse before I understood the significance of that hand clasping mine.

5
EARTH TO
HOSPITAL

But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a heavenly city for them.

H
EBREWS 11:16

I
’m not certain what the world record is for exiting a wrecked car, but Dick Onerecker must have surely broken it that Wednesday afternoon. When a dead man began to sing with him, Dick scrambled out of that smashed car and raced over to the nearest EMT.

“The man’s alive! He’s not dead! He’s alive!”

Who would have believed him? A preacher had started to pray for a man who had been dead for an hour and a half. Then he dashed across the road shouting, “That man has come back to life!”

The EMT stared.

“He’s alive! The dead man started singing with me.”

The words didn’t make sense as Dick thought of them later, but he could only keep yelling, “He’s singing! He’s alive!”

“Oh really?” a paramedic asked.

“I’m serious, this man’s alive.”

“We’re medical professionals. We know a dead guy when we see him. That guy is
dead
.”

“I’m telling you, that man just sang with me. He’s alive.”

“The justice of the peace is on his way here.” He explained that although they knew I was dead, they couldn’t move my body until someone in authority actually declared me dead. “But I can tell you this much: He is dead.” The man turned away from Dick and refused to go over to my car.

Several ambulances had already arrived and departed.

Dick walked up in front of the remaining ambulance and said to the driver, “That man is alive. Go look at him.”

The EMT began to act as if he handled feebleminded people all the time. “Please, we know our business. That man is—”

“Listen to me! I’m going to lie down on this bridge, and if you don’t come over here, you’re going to have to run over me.”

“He’s dead.”

“Then humor me. Just feel his pulse,” Dick pleaded.

“Okay, we’ll check on him for you,” the man said, mumbling under his breath. He walked over to the car, raised the tarp, reached inside, and found my right arm. He felt my pulse.

Everyone leaped into action. They began trying to figure out how to get me out. They could have taken me out on one side, but it would have been without my left leg. There was no clearance from the dashboard between my left leg and the seat, so they would have had to amputate. My leg was barely hanging on to my body anyway. I’m not sure they could have gotten my right leg out either. The point is that even though they could have gotten me out without the equipment, they would have left some of me in the car. They decided to wait on the proper equipment. They got on the phone and ordered the Jaws of Life to hurry from Huntsville, which was at least thirty miles away. I’m sure they did whatever they could for me, but I remember nothing. I remained vaguely conscious of people moving around me, touching me, and talking. I heard voices, but I couldn’t make sense of anything they said. Dick refused to leave me. He got back inside the car, where he was able to kneel behind me, and he continued to pray until the Jaws of Life arrived. Only after they lifted me into the ambulance did he leave my side. When the EMTs lifted me out of the car, I remember that it involved a number of men—at least six or seven. As they moved me, I heard them talking about my leg. One of them said something about being careful so that my left leg didn’t come off.

My system was in shock, so I felt no pain—not then, anyway.

That came later.

They laid me on a gurney and started to roll me toward the ambulance. A light mist sprayed my face, and I saw nothing except the superstructure of the bridge above me. I was unable to move my head. I heard people walking around and glass crunching under their feet. They kept their voices low, so I had trouble following what they were saying.

I remember thinking,
Something terrible has happened here, and I think it’s happened to me.
Even when I knew they were moving me into the ambulance, I felt weightless.

I don’t remember anything about the ambulance ride, but later I learned that we went to two hospitals, both of which were little more than rural clinics.

“There’s nothing we can do for him,” I heard one doctor say as he examined me. “He’s not going to make it. You may have gotten him out of the car alive, but it won’t do any good. He’s past hope.”

They put me back inside the ambulance and drove away. I vaguely remember when they pulled up at the Huntsville Hospital, a fairly large regional medical center. It was about 2:30 p.m.

By then the authorities had notified my wife, Eva. She teaches school, and someone had called the school to tell her about the accident. Someone else called the schools where our three children attended. Church members picked up our children and took them to their homes to keep them until they heard from Eva.

No one knew then that I had died hours earlier. For the first hours after I returned to earth, they had no idea how extensive my injuries were. Even though they knew nothing specific, church people began to pray for my recovery. They called others to join with them.

Eva found out I had died from Dick Onerecker almost two weeks after the accident on one of Dick’s visits to see me in the hospital. It was only then that she understood just how bad it had been. Also, by that time our insurance agent, Ann Dillman, a member of South Park, had brought pictures of the wreckage after it had been moved from the bridge. Eva says it was quite some time before she really understood how bad it was. She says she probably didn’t pay attention to the bad news on purpose because she was trying to focus on immediate matters at hand.