Ken Ross - Kayaker Dies; Learns That Everything He Was Taught About Heaven Was Wrong (NDE)

Thank you so much for having me here and talk about my experience that happened. My experience happened October 6, 1996 and my name is Ken Ross and I'm here to tell you my story. At the time I was 37 years old and one of the biggest things that I really enjoyed and got a great thrill out of was whitewater kayak and this particular weekend a friend of mine and I we went up I lived in Tallahassee at the time and we went up for the weekend to go paddle this river called the Russell Fort and I had paddled it many times before. It wasn't a very difficult river for me to paddle given my skill set. It was class 4-5 when you paddling a river class 1 is like just a ripple some moving water and then class 6 is like the top end and anything that passed that is unrunnable until somebody runs it. So this was just class 5 and 4 which was in my ability and we went up that weekend and paddle the day before on Saturday and then on Sunday we woke up that morning and the river was running a little higher because it had rained the night day before and we were going down and we get to a drop called triple drop and I have noticed that because of the water that was higher that the middle hole of this drop is like there's three drops and the first drop is like more like a ledge the next drop is a little bit higher you know like 10 feet and the next drop is another little higher so it's three drops in a row but the first drop is like almost like a river ride hole where the water comes over an obstacle and it's like water that's deeper so it creates like a void or depression and then the water wants to go back to fill up that depression and so it creates what we call in the kayak and circle hydraulic and I noticed that the middle hole was looks really sticky like the backwash was at least 12 15 feet from the hole which made it really sticky and dangerous and I opted to go to river left and go down through that way and when I did I got stuck in that hole and I started surfing that hole for quite a while and it was an easy hole to surf it was actually quite fun and I was surfing and doing enders and things like that but I found myself having a difficult time getting out of that hole so after a while I got a little frustrated and there were people there that could have just pulled me right out if they wanted to like it was right up next to the bank and there was a rock there so people could have went down and picked my boat up and or shoved me out if they wanted but you know 37-year-old and kind of cocky and you know full of confidence I refused their offers and somebody else had came in a boat and asked if they wanted help and I said now I'm fine well after a while I decided that I would rock back and forth and I rocked out of that hole and I rocked into the middle hole which was very very sticky and now it's what we call a por over so instead of riding your boat upright now you're riding it on edge now in order to get air you got to twist your body around and scroll with your paddle and lift your head above water in order to get some air and as I was doing that I would get air and then go back down and try to put my paddle as far down as I can down at the bottom of the river try to get the downstream current and see if I could get pulled out and I could feel it pulling me out a little bit it wasn't getting so turbulent I figured I was out of hole I rolled up and then all of a sudden I've start paddling trying to get out and I get stuck back in and then I kept doing that over and over like probably three four maybe five times that I was doing that recirculating going down coming out of the hole trying to get out getting stuck back in and each time I was getting tired and tired I mean you can't do that for very long at all and I realized in order for me to get to save myself if I was going to come out of my boat I needed to have enough strength so then I decided to come out of my boat and this time when I came out of my boat I bowled up and a little ball and tried to get the downstream current and then I pop up and I wasn't quite all of the hole yet and I get recirculated back in and now I'm just going back I'm just popping up barely getting a breath of air and then back in the hole again and get sucked around and I was getting discombobulated and I didn't know which way up or down was and sometimes it got dark and you know in each time I was fighting for my breath and I was starting to panic and then eventually I caught back up with my boat and I'm holding on to my boat in this hole and now people are throwing throw ropes to me from the shore and one rope landed like within a foot of me and I reached out the grab and it disappeared and I could see them keep trying to throw throw ropes and eventually my boat and I left the hole at the same time and it actually made it out of the hole I didn't so now I'm getting recirculating again and after three or four times of doing that I just thought wow if I am going to die today I do not want to die with fear in my heart and as soon as I had that thought all of a sudden I found myself out of my body and now I'm looking at above the hole looks like I'm looking from shore but I could see all the way down the river I could see all the both ways I could just see the whole thing I could see the whole river it was like a 360 view basically you know I was just watching everything I just thought maybe I was on the shore now just sitting on shore like watching things I didn't even know that I was in the hole and I watched this friend of mine that I knew he was coming down and he was in a canoe and he came down and got stuck in that hole rolled up a few times but he was able to get out and I thought oh you look there's blah blah blah oh he's having a tough time and so then the next thing I know all of a sudden I'm not looking at the river but now I'm looking at kind of like a screen that's the best I can describe it and all of a sudden I started reviewing my life from the time I was born to the time at that where I'm now and as I was viewing my life I was viewing every single moment of my life but I was viewing it from a point of view of what I could have done better where I didn't learn to how to love better and it was like every thought every action everything I did I was reviewing and at any moment I could stop and be in that moment exactly in that moment and feel how it felt for me and how it felt for others of what my actions were and I watched it like ripple out like imagine you take an arach and throw it in the middle of the lake and it makes a big boom right but then it starts rippling out so initially it's a big boop but it ripples out you know if the lake is really calm it'll go all the way to the whole lake it'll cover the chiroleic surface and that's what I watched how my actions affected them you know if they had children affect their children or affected their family affected their friends affect it just rippled out and then the next thing I did I went back and this time I reviewed my life but this time from the point of view of what I did well how I loved well and the same thing I watched it how it affected those people around me and how it affected them and how it rippled out it just rippled out over the whole world just in actions and what caught me off guard so to speak was what was important in my life and all the things that up to that point what I thought were important had no importance whatsoever it was like oh I have a great job oh I have money in the bank oh I've climbed Mount Everest I've traveled all over the world several hundred times none of those mattered what mattered was the littlest things things that I didn't even think mattered the most like where I said a kind word where I helped somebody it was pure kindness I wasn't expecting anything in return for the kindness or whatever I did it was just out of the pure love of doing it and those were my precious moments that I realized were the most important thing that I done up to that point and there wasn't any God there wasn't anybody there to judge me I was raised Catholic so for me I always had there's a God you're gonna get judgment day there's gonna be heaven and hell and if you're halfway decent you'll go to purgatory and there was none of that there was no judgment the only judgment was my judgment was how I judged what I did well and what I didn't do well that was it and after I had that I realized wow I really did love well this lifetime and as soon as I had that thought I got zapped back into my body now I'm back in my body but this time it's completely calm I don't feel the water on me I don't feel that I need any air it's completely calm completely at peace there's no fear whatsoever I have no fear and at that point I realized yes it's okay for me to go and I can go peacefully and I put up my hands and I said okay God I'm ready to go and as soon as I said that the next thing to happen I entered a black void it was just completely black and I remember thinking wow this isn't anything like I thought what death would be you know is this heaven is this hell I didn't know where I was I didn't know what was happening and this voice came over and said no this is not heaven this is not hell this is just just a transition for you. You've had an earthly experience, and now it's time for you to let go of those things that you're holding onto. And immediately when that voice said that to me, I flashed back to when I had an out of body experience when I was younger, where they showed me my true essence of who I was, and that what they showed me was that I was light. That was it, that I was a light. But when they showed me that light, I saw that I had like little dark places that didn't have the light shining through. And some areas was a little bit lighter than others. Some had like grainess to it, and some had like little specks of blackness around it. And then there was like almost like a crack going down my chest, like a crack of black light. It wasn't very big, but it was a crack. It looked like a crack. And then I said, my thought to that, whoever said that words to me, I said, oh, do you mean like that, that image I had of me with the light and the blackness and the darkness around me, those little black dots? And the voice said exactly like that, yes, get rid of those. And as I started to get rid of those, I would consider fear, I would consider beliefs, considered things that I was holding onto. As I started to get rid of those things, the peace and the sheer bliss that I felt was incredible. I mean, there's nothing comparing it anything on earth like this feeling that I had. And yet it was complete blackness, but as I get rid of it, I expanded and expanded and expanded and kept expanding to what I felt like I was the universe. There was no limit to who I was, to what I was. I was everything, but yet I was there. I was just like present, completely present in the moment. And I didn't have any thoughts of anything, no past experiences, no thoughts about God. It's hard to describe, but I was just being. And that being was just blissful and peaceful. That blackness was like, imagine like anything was possible, but at this point in that time, I was just experiencing who I was, the true essence of who I was. And at any moment, I could create whatever I wanted. It was like this black void was like my canvas that I got to create whatever I wanted to create and be whatever I wanted to be and to express myself in any way, shape or form. And so I was just floating in that space, being in that space and just soaking it in, just like, and not having any thoughts, just being. And all of a sudden, I felt like there was like a little tiny light, like a little difference. There was like just a little shift in the darkness. And I went, huh, I wonder what that is. (laughs) And I went to it. And when I got there, it was like this white veil. It was like clouds, but it was like steam. It was like white and it was like not that thick, but it was like a veil. And it was made of like white clouds. I guess that's the best way I can describe it. But I could see through it. And on this side, it's black. And on the other side, I could see through it and I could see beans. People were standing there, beans. I don't know if there were people, but the outlines of look like people. And there were a bunch of them standing on the other side. And I could feel their presence. And I knew, I knew them and I knew they knew me. And they were going to welcome me. And I could also see like a hill and I could see like this buildings and like a city, but those ones I didn't focus on too much. I focused on the beans and how I felt. And they were anticipating me to come through the veil. And I thought, oh, I just need to walk through the veil. That's all I need to do. And I was ready to step through the veil and the voice came over and said, no, it's not your time. You have to go back. There are still things you have to do. And that voice was at a complete love, complete wisdom. I sensed that the voice knew more than I knew. For somehow I knew that voice knew that this was the best thing for me to do is to go back. And I didn't question it at all, not at all. I just said, okay. And as soon as I did that, I got zapped. And I wouldn't say zapped. It was more like I got sucked back down into this body. And the image is like, imagine, you know, like when you rub a lantern on your zygene, or whatever, and the genie would disappear and the smoke would go on the bottle. It was like that. Like I was being sucked back into this vessel, this we call the body. But it was so dramatic because here, I felt the expansion of the universe. And now I'm getting sucked down and the whole expansion of this universe is now in this body. And it was so painful. It was so dramatic. All my feelings, all my fears, everything came rushing back at that moment. The first thing I did was I screamed. I screamed, no! I want to go back. (laughs) I mean, I was sitting there screaming in my head that I wanted to go back. And of course I couldn't. Now I'm in my body, my chest hurts. I can hardly breathe. And at this moment, I'm gonna go and tell you what happened while this was happening to me. And so when I got stuck in that hole and they were trying to throw ropes, after while they realized that I wasn't breathing anymore and that I was not making any effort to keep my head above water. And they realized at that point, they had to do a body recovery. And as they were doing the body recovery, two of the guys had these life jackets that had this special harness to it that you can put a rope to, in case they got pinned or whatever, you could hook that up to them and they could pull them out. But we could also use it to go get somebody in case they got stuck. So they were hooking all that up for them. Knowing the two of them were gonna go, if one, it wasn't successful, the other one was gonna go and retrieve the body. And as they were setting that up, there was a fella that I hadn't met, but he was paddling that day with a group of six paddlers. Later I talked to him about it, but he's very deeply religious. And he said that he just felt compelled something kept telling to throw the rope, throw the rope one more time, throw the rope one more time. And he was thinking, this isn't gonna be useless because he's unconscious. There's no way he's gonna grab this rope, but he went ahead and throw the rope and the rope disappeared into the hole. And all of a sudden the rope came out of the water with me holding the rope in my hands. And they all thought, oh my God, he's alive. He's singling that he's okay. And let's start pulling him out. So they start pulling real gingerly, like they're afraid that the rope would pull out of my hands. But as they're pulling me, they're realizing that I'm not making any effort to keep my head above water. And as they got me to shore, my friend that I was with, he jumped in right away and turned me over. And he just lost, he said, "Ken, you were dead. You were the face of a dead man. You were gray. You were lifeless." He lost it. He completely just broke down and started crying. Meanwhile, David and their friends, they had just taken a CPR course, not a month or two before, thinking it might be a good idea that might need it at some point. So those folks immediately went into action, pulled me out. So they immediately started CPR. Well, that day I also happened to be paddling with a friend of mine and his stepdaughter. And he was an ER doctor. And he had gone after my boat. And somebody had asked my friend, if there's a doctor, and my friend said, "Yes, we have a friend." And they said, "We'll go get him." So he ran down the river to go get our friend and come back up. And so, ER doctor came up. I had a dry top. And back then, the water was very cold. It was in October. And it was cold. So I had a dry top and it has gaskets over the neck and around your wrist. And Richard cut the gaskets because it was probably impairing the flow for them to breathe. And then he checked for a pulse. And he said he could find just barely a pulse. It was barely there. But enough that he figured it was probably not good to continue doing the chest compressions. So they stopped the chest compressions. And then they were just doing mouth to mouth for me and making sure that my airway was cleared out. And after a while, it was probably, they say about eight to 10 minutes of them doing breathing on me, you know, mouth to mouth. That David was actually, when persons are doing the mouth to mouth, he said he felt that he couldn't watch me die. And so he stepped aside and he said a prayer. He said, "The God, please don't let this man die today." And he said, "As soon as he ended that prayer, he said, I want, like that. I just had a jerk reaction like, and then I started breathing on my own." So that's bringing up to the point now that I'm back in my body. And when I finally opened my eyes, what I see is everybody is like a blob of light. The blob of light that I saw that I was shown back years ago. I saw that in everybody. I couldn't see your faces. I could hear you speak, but everybody was a blob of light. And I could see, oh, that one has a little different color. You know, that one's, but they are all bright white, basically lights. And I also noticed that the trees look different. They had like a golden U to them, like an incredible gold to them. It was not flashy, not dull. but just the depth to the gold was just incredible. And around that gold was a white light. And I was just like, "Where am I? What is happening?" I didn't know what was happening. I was having a hard time breathing. And I was just looking at the white lights. And I knew these blobs of lights were people. And I also could sense that these blobs of lights there was people coming around me. And I could sense that they were in panic mode. Like something was panicking. And I didn't know what it was. At that point, I didn't know what was happening. I didn't know anything had happened to me. I thought I was just dreaming. I thought I was just, you know, woke up from a dream on the side. I'd taken a nap and now I'm waking up. So I didn't know what was happening. And I kept asking the people what happened, what happened. But there was a lady that I had taken a course with years ago. And she had a very distinct voice, very southern distinct voice. At that time, she was holding me up, keeping me propped up so I could breathe easier. And she was also holding me because I was cold. But she had a very, very calming voice. And so all the people around me were, I could sense their panicking. But she was calm. And I said, oh, I'm just going to focus on her voice. I'm not going to focus on these other folks because these folks are something's going on. And I'm not sure what it is. And so I concentrate on the voice. And she said, oh, it's OK, Ken. You've had an accident. But you'll be OK. Help's on the way. Well, meanwhile, a rafting company came by. And this is before cell phones. They happen to have a walkie-talkie back to their base. And so they stopped to see if they could help. And Richard told them that he was a doctor. So they radioed back to base. And they radioed to a hospital or whatever. The nearest one at that point. And Richard told them what was needed. And if they could possibly come and help. And they said they would. So the paramedics met the rafting company at the river. And they ferried them across the river. And then those guys ran like two or three miles down the gorge, down rarer tracks. They had to go through a half a mile tunnel, which is kind of spooky. And one of them knew where Triple Drop was. And so about 45 minutes later, they arrived. And I know something happened because all of a sudden, I felt somebody jabbed something into my arm. And then they put a thing over my mask. And as soon as they did that, those visions of the blight, light started to go away. And things started to be more clear. Like I could see people now. And at that point, I noticed that there was a helicopter happening above. And I was wondering why that was. And the next thing I know, this helicopter came landing down right in front of me. And Triple Drop, there's this big rock that kind of juts out into the river. But it's slanted. And this helicopter comes down this gorge. And it lands like within maybe 12 feet from me. And all I could think about was what the heck is this guy doing? I mean, debris is flying everywhere. If he hits one of those trees, he's taking out all of us. But they jumped out, strapped me to gurney, stuck me into the helicopter. And he flew me to like about 100 or so miles away to a town called Bristol to the hospital. And there I stayed in the hospital for about a week. I was completely weak. I couldn't even lift the pen up. I couldn't even walk. They said that when they got there, my oxygen saturation level was like 55, which if you know anything, that's pretty dang low. And during that week that I was there, my wife at the time and my mother got there the next day that evening to help me. But during when I was in the hospital, the room kept like opening up. Like it would disappear. And I'd be in like a tropical jungle or the forward open up. And I'd be looking at this canyon. I was seeing other worlds. And it was opening up. And I was telling my wife, don't you see this? Don't you see it right there? It's, look, it's right there. And she was freaking out. She thought that I was not quite back here. And I was heading back to be dead again. And my mom, I could tell my mom, she was like dears and headlights. You know, she did not want to lose her son. I could feel their fear. I could feel it. And you know, the doctor asked me if I remembered anything. And I was telling him some of my experience. And he was just saying, oh, you know, your lack of oxygen. It was, you know, a good dream. And just in that, don't think too much about it. It's okay. And I'm like, thinking, no, this is real. It felt more real than this after I got out of the hospital. It just felt like I didn't know what to do. I didn't know if this was real or not real. But it felt real. It felt so real. And even though when people are telling me it wasn't back then in '96, there wasn't that much about NDE's at all. And then I eventually getting ready to leave my wife at that time anyway. And so about a month later, I left, I moved out of the house, and I moved in. And I was planning to leave to go out west and start a new life. But at this time, I worked for myself in construction. And at that time, I had put myself, I told everybody that I was going to be leaving. I was going to get divorced. I was going to move away. So I pretty much turned down a lot of jobs for that. And I was just finishing up what jobs I had. But now here I was. I had all this debt because I didn't have insurance. And I was feeling really bad because now I wasn't with my wife anymore. And I didn't know what I was doing. I felt so alone. I just felt really, really depressed. And I knew from other near death experience, people always talked about, oh, I changed my life. Everything was better. I didn't feel that. And it wasn't till about six months later, maybe. I had an out-of-body experience again. And this time, I left and I had another life review. And I did this. And when I was having that life, where it goes, oh, great. I know what this is. So I was like rushing through it to get through it, knowing that this was, I could make that choice now. I could leave. And that's what I wanted to do. And so I made the choice. I'm like, yeah, I did it. I'm out of here. I'm ready to go. And as soon as I had that thought, I turned around and I headed towards the light. And as I was heading towards it, I've noticed all these other spirits, other beings coming from Earth. And we were all leaving at the same time. And we were all converging into the light. And I was telepathic with every one of them. I could feel what they were feeling. I could sense what they were thinking, but mainly the feeling. And the feeling was like pure joy and getting this. And we were all like little kids laughing and just complete joy. And the closer you got to that light, the more love you felt. And I was just about to enter the light when that voice came over again, said, no, it's not your time. You have to go back. But this time, instead of me just saying, yeah, OK, this time I said, no, wait a minute. I don't want to go back. I want to be here. And the voice said, don't worry. You'll make this journey again. And then once I realize, OK, I'm going to make the journey again. I zap back in my body. And at that point, I felt even worse, actually. I was like, why are they not letting me go? Why do I have to be here? What is so important that I have to do here when that is there? I mean, when you enter that going that realm, that's where you want to be. You feel that's who you truly are. You feel that essence. You feel that love. You feel that joy, that peace. It is so profound. There's nothing like it here. And so the next two years or so, I was basically depressed. I felt like all alone. I felt like there was nobody out there I could talk to. At this time, I started dating a woman. And she later became my wife, a married turn now. And she just loved the story. And for her, it gave her great comfort to know that there is life after death. And anyway, Raymond Moody happened to become into Tallahassee, Florida, is where I lived. And she said, you need to go see him. And I said, well, I don't really want to, but I'll go. So I went and we were there. And she kept poking me in that saying, you need to raise your hands, say, and their death experience. And said, no, no way. It wasn't towards the end. And everybody left. I went up to Raymond and talked to him privately and told him about my experience. And he was the first person that I met that actually confirmed and validated what happened to me was real. And it was like this great weight lifted off of me. It was like, whoa, great. This is unbelievable. Finally, somebody is here can tell me that this is real. Even though I knew Israel was just validating it. For the next 29 years, I just lived my life the best I could, the being kind and passionate and loving and being present is best I could with people. But what I realized also that I wasn't doing that I just realized within the last year, that I wasn't being kind and authentic about me. I was not really showing my true self. I was hiding how I truly felt because I know this information I got and seeing and experiencing that. I knew it was real. And I felt like everybody here didn't know. Everybody was like asleep and I was awake and I felt alone and I just buried that. I didn't want to show how I truly felt about it because I was afraid. I was afraid for people to say you're just quack, you're crazy. That fear of feeling like people think you're crazy. And it was really the only time during that time that I felt I was anywhere authentic at all is when I was playing with children. And if anybody knows me, they know that if there's a group of people and there's children in that group and there's a bunch of adults on the one playing with the children the whole time, you know, because it was where I really could be myself. And it's not until this last year I realized how important it is to be authentic, how important it is to not have fear dictate your life and make decisions based upon fear and how important It is to base your decisions on love. and how you get to take that with you where you go. When you leave here, you take that with you. That love that you got, you get to take that with you. There's more to this than you can possibly imagine. You know, you go on, you don't die, you go on. There is life after death. And that life is fulfilling, joyful, loving, I mean, complete, unconditional. You get to express yourself in whatever shape form you want. And people love you for it, beans love you for it, God loves you for it. And that's what's important. I hope you find this story for some comfort that you might find in it. And I just really appreciate everyone for listening. And thank you so much.