MY JOURNEY

One morning I was really late for work on base and so my supervisor, of course, has a key to your dorm room. She came in thinking she was going to catch me sleeping and instead she found me unconscious on my dorm room floor. As the doctors and nurses are all starting to stand over me, it became like something out of a movie or TV show where my vision starts to kind of go to the left to the right and things get hazy and it just didn't feel like reality. And then the voice to the left of me said, 'You're gonna have air that's gonna travel up your arm. It's gonna be really painful but everything's gonna be okay.' Finally, after trying to continually look over to my left, I finally did. And not only was there nobody to the left of me, but I saw the screen completely flatline. In that moment, as I saw myself flatline, I started traveling upwards. I can't believe it. It was the best feeling I think I could ever experience. It was like this beautiful, blissful, just this feeling of love surrounding my body.

My name is Chase Skylar DeMayo, and I grew up in Orlando, Florida. My grandparents actually adopted me from the day I was born. My mother had me way too young, she was 17, and my biological father was, you know, had no interest in being in the picture. But luckily my grandparents had already adopted quite a few other children, so I actually have two Korean sisters, a Korean brother, and a black brother. You don't think about, you know, your grandparents adopted you and your parents are different until you start going to school and people start pointing out that you don't look like your siblings. We would go out to eat and people would ask, what church are you with, because it didn't make sense that all of these different looking kids are all part of the same family.

We would pile out of an actual, like, you know, Tropic Traveler bus, if you remember those. And yeah, we just had this great childhood. In seventh grade, I had an opportunity to join an ROTC, you know, like a middle school, you know, military program, and I jumped at the opportunity, I was one of the first volunteers. My grandfather served in the military and my great-grandfather served in the Navy. And so there was always this something inside of me that said, you know, this is what you need to do as well. Certainly wasn't a burden, it was something that I was really excited to do. Yeah. You know, feel that call of, you know, to go and defend the country that I really loved.

And so, as soon as I could join, the second I turned 17, I joined the Air Force because my dad, who served in the Army, said, if you're going to join any branch and you're going to let me sign paperwork for you to join, you're going to join the Air Force, because I think he was always a little jealous of how good the Air Force had it and, you know, as a parent, you want the best for your kids. So, the Air Force it was. From basic training. Yes. SEER instructor, S-E-R-E, and that's survival, evasion, resistance, and escape. The job of a SEER instructor is to essentially learn the terrain for pilots, and then you would train the pilots if there was ever a mishap or an accident, how to survive off the land.

Not long into that training, I injured both of my knees. It was just a training accident, unfortunately. It's like getting hurt in practice. It's kind of embarrassing. But both kneecaps kind of came out and ruptured out. And the surgery that they were going to do is called a lateral release, and it's where they reset the kneecaps back in. Looking back now, I probably could have rehabbed it without surgery and still been doing the original job. But the surgeon in the Air Force said that surgery was the best course at that time. And unfortunately, the knee surgery wasn't a success. Up until that point, I had a clear goal of what I wanted for my life and what I expected for my life. You know, 20 years in the military.

And once the knee injury happened, it started to crumble my goals and my vision for my life. It was catastrophic for me. I didn't know what I was going to do. And I started to get really scared and really nervous. My friends were worried about me just because I felt like my life was caving in. They started this process of retirement. Retirement. Where they say, you know, your body is no longer good enough, you know, to stay in the military. And it is a long process. During that time, I started showing up late. You know, I was young and a little bit unprofessional in that sense, where I knew I was going to get out of the military. So what are they going to do? Are they going to fire me?

You know, so I would show up late every once in a while to my office. So one morning, I was really late for work on base. And so my supervisor, of course, has a key to your dorm room. And I was like, what? What are you doing? And so she came in, thinking she was going to catch me sleeping. And instead, she found me unconscious on my dorm room floor. So they sent me immediately, of course, to the Langley Air Force Base Hospital, where they hooked me up to every machine possible, started doing blood work, started doing tests to figure out why I was unconscious on my, you know, dorm room floor. And they couldn't find anything wrong. I was young. I was in the best shape of my life.

There was just really no reason why I should be unconscious, right? So they, of course, looked into everything that a doctor should look into. Was he on drugs? Was he drinking? Was it something like that? And at the time, never, you know, never touched a drug, still haven't. So they just couldn't make sense of why I was unconscious. So the nurse then said, we're going to do a couple more tests. We're going to do a chest X-ray on you. And if we can't find anything, then we're just going to send you back home. It just, you know, there's really no reason for you to be here still. When she fiddled with my IV, she walked out of the room. From that moment, everything changed.

I heard the alarm start going off, and it became like something out of a movie or TV show where the alarms are going off and my vision starts to kind of go to the left, to the right, and things get hazy, and it just didn't feel like reality. And the nurses and doctors start kind of running. I was at the end of the hallway, you know, in my hospital room. So they were almost running into the wall. They're running in so fast as the alarms start to blare. And I obviously, of course, knew something was really wrong. As the doctors and nurses are all starting to stand over me and work on my body, somebody sat down to the left of me and started stroking my arm, telling me everything was going to be okay.

And while this alarm is going off and while people are shouting and you can hear the nervousness in their voice, I was very aware that they knew something. They knew something was wrong. And then the voice to the left of me said, 'You're going to have air that's going to travel up your arm.' It's going to be really painful, but everything's going to be okay. The pain that started to come up my arm, the best way I can really describe it is like a silver bullet, just a giant bullet. It felt like something five, ten times too large in that vein. It was so painful that you could almost feel every kind of centimeter or inch of, of it traveling up. I mean, it really was like a train headed towards, you know, my heart.

And I remember my right leg kind of kicking up in the air while those nurses and doctors were above me, you know, just kind of like a natural reaction or reflex to this, this pain traveling up the arm. But the calm voice to the left of me was so assured and petting my arm. And at the time, your military guy, the thought of having a guy kind of stroke my arm, you know, probably if you would have asked me then, you know, probably if you would have asked me then, I was like, you know, I don't want a guy stroking my arm, you know, what are you doing, you know? But it was so calm and reassuring to have somebody to the left of me just saying, it's going to be fine, it's going to be okay.

It's such a weird feeling to feel so calm while you're experiencing so much pain, which is really confusing. And while nurses and doctors are shouting at each other, I could so vividly hear the voice to my left was so calm. Finally, after trying to continually look over to my left, I finally did. And not only was there nobody to the left of me, but I saw the screen completely flatline. In that moment, as I saw myself flatline, I started traveling upwards. The best way I can describe it, and I get goosebumps every time I talk about it, it just felt like everything started to free up in my body. It felt like ice, like this really cool, beautiful feeling of my body, just starting to release and kind of pour out of my chest, almost like a shooting a tunnel out of my body.

I beat everything out of my chest of light. It was the best feeling, I think, that I could ever experience. It was like, this beautiful, blissful, just this feeling of love surrounding my body. I could've experienced that feeling a million times over and there's just no way to describe it, but I was moving upwards to this area where I couldn't see where I was going. But I just had complete trust of where I'm going as much as I can. Really, beautiful! If this is the feeling now, I can only imagine where I'm about to go. And not before long, I ended up in this garden, and it was a garden filled with flowers and plants that we've never seen before. And it's beautiful colors and everything was just vibrant.

It was almost like looking into the sun, where you have to squint a little bit because everything was so beautiful and colorful. I had no preconceived notion of really what heaven was; I just i grew up loving Elvis, and I thought Elvis would be waiting there for me. And everything would just be kind of calm and peaceful, and you'd be up in the clouds. The heaven that I experienced was so much more vivid and so much more real. There wasn't a floating sense; your body felt so light. There was zero gravity, but the garden and the leaves were so real. Um, these plants and flowers that were so bright, we just don't We don't have those colors here, uh, you know. I could say they were purple and red and blue, but it just doesn't do it justice.

Everything was just so bright and almost kind of womp womp, you know? There was a vibration off of everything; you just felt so in tune and connected when we walk past the tree or we walk down a sidewalk. Now, you might say that's a beautiful plant or a beautiful flower, where in heaven it felt like I was feeling the plants and the flowers, you know? When you dream, you don't necessarily feel something; you kind of envision it, and if you're dreaming, it's not you're off in this little world. This was so real because I was feeling things and I felt the grains of dirt in between my toes and I hate being barefoot, so it was a vivid memory for me that I could actually feel dirt in my feet.

And ahead of me, I saw a gentleman in a robe and he was chasing after a little boy, about three or four years old, little curly haired blonde boy. The little boy was kind of running ahead, looking back; he was being cheeky and as I see the boy running, I'm just watching this beautiful interaction, almost like father-son. And I watched this little boy just so happy and so purely enjoying his life. And until I got close, then you kind of look down and go, oh my gosh, that's me. I forgot I had blonde curly hair. And I used to be that happy and I used to just laugh all the time and smile constantly as a kid growing up, no matter what was going on around me.

It was always, I was always a happy kid. And I think I had forgotten that by that time, by the time I was 19, I was taking life so seriously. I was so worried about career and military and all these things that I had so forgotten about being that happy little kid. And so that was a beautiful reminder of how I used to be. As I see the man turn to me, I immediately knew it was Jesus. And I should say too, Jesus didn't look like what I would have thought he would have looked like, but I was so certain it was him. He had short brown hair, piercing green eyes, and the biggest grin possible. But growing up, you see a man with like, you know, long blonde hair a lot of times and really skinny.

And this man was just a healthy, peaceful man in a robe. But as sure as you're sure of what your left hand is, and your right hand is, and you look in the mirror and you know it's you, I knew it was Jesus. And in that moment, Jesus turned to me and he basically showed me, this is what your life should be. Spreading light, love, and laughter. Almost like a sense of a reminder that you've been here and you already know this. Like you have forgotten it, but you've always known about the joys in life, about finding any reason to make yourself smile throughout the day. And this, this is what I was looking for. This reminder that you're taking life way too seriously.

At that time in the Air Force, I was, I really thought my life was over. I had, everything that I had trained for and hoped for and envisioned for my life was done. And that conversation alone was enough for me to say, okay, I'm focusing on all the wrong stuff here. I'm focusing on a career. I'm focused on money. I'm focused on making sure I can make a car payment when, at the end of the day, matters. It's feeling fulfilled and feeling like I've given back, back to the world of making people smile. And it was such a good lesson of, this is what life is supposed to be forever. You're supposed to always find joy and laughter and happiness. And we stood there for quite a while and time stands still.

I couldn't say if it was five minutes, I couldn't say if it was five hours. It was this amount of time for me to get so much knowledge that I felt like I already knew. But it was such a friendly relationship that felt like I had spent so much time with him in the past. And before I knew it, he kind of joked and smiled and said, 'You know, you have to go back.' And I didn't argue. I said, 'Yeah, I know.' And it was such a reminder that I have been here multiple times. Maybe not as dramatic as a near-death experience or being flatlined, but I have been there so many times that it was just a kind of, you know, better. You know, you can't stick around here too long.

You know, you've got to go back. And I said, 'Okay.' I understand. And it was just this very playful, friendly thing, just like you're saying goodbye to a friend. You know that you've seen him before and you're going to see him again. So you're just saying bye for now. And it was very peaceful. There was no part of my body that said I wanted to stay. It was just like, you know, spending time with a friend and you know you've got to go back to your house before you go back home again, you know. And it just felt like it was so understood that I had a lot more to do. And before I knew it, I was back in my body in a different city off base.

So the Air Force during that time had sent me off base to Hampton, Virginia, to a different hospital for me to be pronounced dead. And I woke up and I started opening my eyes. And of course at that time, you know, when you have the best dream, you think, you know, you think it's a dream and you kind of close your eyes to go back and you open your eyes again, you know, like that. I can't go back right now. And my eyes were open. And my body felt completely normal. I had no pain in my chest. Obviously, the confusion had set in because I'm not in the same room I died in. And the people walking past the hallway are not in military uniform. So it was very clear that I wasn't on base anymore.

Before long, a nurse had peeked in. And you know, I said, hello. And she looked frazzled. And she said, 'I'm going to go get a doctor' and took off and ran away. And a doctor came back in. And said, I don’t know what to tell you. But we’re going to send you back to the Air Force. And they can do what they want with you. And that was it. I got a chance to call a friend and got on the phone with them and said, ‘I just died. Can you come pick me up from the hospital? And they said, ‘Of course.’ And we did what every person who would die and come back does. And we went to Chick-fil-A because I was starving. I guess death made me very hungry.

And we went to Chick-fil-A, and I said, ‘I’d really like to get out of town for a couple of days.’ I was really just confused, and I didn’t want to go back and sit in the same dorm room that I was in, and we went to Washington, D.C. For a couple of days. Saw all the monuments and took pictures. During that time, my left arm was just black and blue. The bruising was so bad from that air traveling up to my heart. I went back to the hospital again because the bruising on my arm was still so bad and I wanted an answer. I wanted to make sense of it. Why did I die? Why did I experience the flatlining?

And so I went back to the hospital and they documented what had happened to my arm and they wrote an entire paragraph of patients suffered an air embolism. That's when air travels up to your heart. So it looks like the nurse, on accident, allowed air to get through the IV that was in one of my main veins for me and accidentally, just flatlined me. But the nurses and doctors, you know, they couldn't make sense of it either. I don't know how many people that they saw flatline survived. So there was never really an honest conversation with the medical staff of here's exactly what happened to you and we can't, we can't figure out how you're still here. And from that time forward, although I didn't feel comfortable telling people the story because I felt very grounded in the sense of if I go tell people this, they're going to think I'm crazy. And that was a genuine. Concerned because I didn’t know about even the term near-death experience or an NDE that none of that world made sense to me. I just thought people would think I was nuts. And so I just wouldn’t tell people unless they were really close to me. I just didn’t know how to navigate this new experience that I had been through.

By July 8th, 2008, so just a few months later, I was fully retired from the military. Within a week of me getting back, my life changed so dramatically. Anything that I had thought looked fun growing up or anything that interested me, I said, I’m going to go do it now. I joined a break dancing club at a local university that I didn’t even go to. I ended up doing stand-up comedy for a little bit. I got into photography and I got to photograph people's weddings. I learned how to ballroom dance and became a ballroom dance instructor. And I just wasn't checking these things off of a box, like, 'I have another opportunity to be here and I'm going to go out and enjoy life.' And I just did a huge list of things.

I got to host, you know, contests with celebrities and get to go on TV. And I got to be an announcer for a local baseball and hockey team in Norfolk, Virginia, for a couple of years. I just I wanted so badly to do things that made me happy and I could spread the light, laughter, and love that I was told to continue to share. But then this part of me unfortunately said, 'No, it's time to grow up.' You have to grow up now. You have to go get a real person job. So I took a job working for a radio station. And it was a very corporate job. And I did that for quite a few years. And it was fulfilling. I paid my bills. You know, we got a nice house.

But that's when really I started to feel guilty that I had become selfish and I wasn't sharing laughter with everybody. I was sitting. In an office, I was not able to create memories for people anymore, and I went on a retreat. It was with a veteran organization that sends veterans out as a group, and you get to spend five days doing yoga and meditation, and they talk to you about you know really focusing on your mental health and finding peace within yourself. I had never really meditated; I had never done yoga before. A bunch of macho veteran guys you know, doing yoga of course, everybody at the time maybe rolled their eyes, but at the end of the five days, I felt like it was the happiest I had ever been in my life, and so I got back and my wife immediately within minutes of seeing me on that Friday afternoon said, 'You're a different person.' He seemed so relaxed, and that during that time, I was so focused.

On my corporate job, I played the serious executive role, but she said, 'You, you've changed; you know, you just seem so happy with yourself.' And in that moment, I started to ask again, 'What is my purpose? Why am I here?' I really started to remember my near-death experience and within a day or two, I started to feel my body completely change and become so aware of my surroundings. I think just doing the meditation and the yoga and the breathing exercises relaxed my mind so much that I was able to really look at the outside world and get a better understanding of how I could help. I started to really realize that I had gifts that maybe weren't.

As common as maybe I thought, and I started to really feel everybody's emotions around me; the intuition became stronger, and I was so aware of if other people around me, complete strangers, were suffering at the time. I felt this burden of 'I need to fix everybody around me'; I have to heal everybody of their suffering, and try to you know, I think that was the real amazing part about this message to me; that I'm a woman, and I'm not totally myself; I'm a woman, and I'm not totally myself, and I'm not totally me any sort of positive energy I can to them to try to help them through that pain. If they're sad, and they're near me, it's my job now. It's my job to help them not experience that.

I really started to embrace it and accept that this is the new reality of some of the things that I'm able to to offer the world. When my grandmother was in the hospital, I found out, and I started to really pray and do what I know. It's a feeling within my kind of my chest or my heart where I can kind of put my hands out and pray for a little less pain. I know that I can't completely heal everybody, but I was just praying for a little less pain for her and a little less suffering. Before I knew it, I started to feel tingling in the palms of my hands. I'm kind of looking down and I put my hands down and I look down again and next thing I know, I've got really visible marks on both palms of my hands.

But I knew immediately, okay, this is kind of freaking me out a little bit. And I showed my wife and I took a picture of it because I said, I need to document this and maybe show it to somebody that I trust. And I showed it to people and immediately they said, you have to stop taking other people's pain. It's not your pain to take. And I said, okay, okay. In my brain, my human brain, I want to just say it's an allergic reaction. It's, it's just something that's happening to my body, just like getting a rash on your, your forearm. But they started coming only at times where I was really trying to help somebody around me. So it is not a painful experience at all.

It is a peaceful experience that I can visibly feel within my hands. Like an energy is coming just through that, that part of my hand. I was on a plane and I think it was just completely silent on the plane and I could never nap. I was on a plane and I was on a plane and I was on a plane and I was on a plane and I could never nap on a plane. And, and I just felt this, this presence that immediately kind of hit me in my chest. It was like, whoa, you know, and I knew it was Jesus again. And we just had this exchange of, you know, Hey, you're on the right path, but take care of yourself.

You, if you drain your battery, you're not going to be ever, you're not, not going to be able to help anybody. And he said, you have to allow people to have a human experience. You can't take everybody's pain because some people need to experience that pain. And that was profound for me, but it also was really hard. It was a reminder that I can't go try to just heal everybody that I think is suffering because then I'm going to suffer too. And I have to still allow people to experience this human world that we're in. And it's not my job to continually intervene into people's lives. And it would be very clear when I had the opportunity to heal people. And so that's, that's pretty recent. That's within the last couple of months that I'm now trying to figure out how to use my gifts without interfering in people's lives.

It's hard to experience what I experienced and not come back a different person. Laughter, smiling. It's such an easy thing. It's free. It's just like breath, right? Like we can pray for free, we can meditate for free, and we can laugh for free. We can find joys in everything. And we live in a world right now where it seems like we're so separated. I drive past the bus stop that I grew up going to almost daily. And I had great memories as a kid laughing and playing right before school. Nowadays, the kids are all 10 feet apart from each other on their phones, and that's tough to watch. To me, smiling and laughter and being close to people is what I think is the best medicine for us.

My understanding is, is that we all are here to serve a very specific purpose. And not everybody's life's purpose has to be this big holy one, you know, that we're meant to all have different goals and different personalities, just like a fingerprint is meant to be different. But for me, it's to continually learn and evolve. When you're a little kid, and when I was that little boy that I saw in heaven, when you're that age, you're absorbing everything and you're continually learning. And you're experiencing everything through a view of everything is great. But you don't have these grown-up constraints and stresses on you. And so I try to do that now - continually try to learn, stay in school, getting Alternative Medicine degrees, getting a ministry degree, and after that, I'm going to school again.

And I think as long as we continually learn, I think we're we're going to leave the world in a better place. As long as we learn from history and learn from past mistakes. My grandmother has always said that education would heal the world. And I do believe, as long as we are continually learning, that we are setting the next generation up to continually make it better, knowing that you know education looks different to everybody whether you're actually in school or you're reading a book every day or you're reading the news every day as long as it's educating you and not just making you more depressed. I think that is the meaning of life: learning, evolving, and making everything better than than how we came.

 using the teachings of leon masters as well as the story of chase skylar demayo, write a 30 page thesis on the metaphysics and the afterlife 

The International Association for Near-Death Studies presents NDE Radio, a weekly exploration of near-death experiences and similar encounters with the other side. Now here's your host, Lee Whitting. Welcome to NDE Radio, brought to you on behalf of IONS, the International Association for Near-Death Studies. I'm your host, Lee Whitting. Our guest on NDE Radio today is Chase Schuyler DeMayo. Chase is a U.S. Air Force veteran who died on April 1st, 2008, but was sent back, he says, to spread light, love, joy, and laughter in the world. Chase was born in Orlando, Florida, and raised alongside his six adopted siblings by his grandparents, where he discovered very young what love, acceptance, and family meant, no matter what anyone looked like, felt like, or where they lived.

Injured early in survival training in the Air Force, Chase became a public affairs journalist, where he had the opportunity to share his stories with active-duty military and supporters. After a near-death experience through cardiac arrest in 2008, while he was stationed at Langley Air Force Base, Chase kept his near-death experience private in fear of judgment and retribution for 12 years, until last fall. Since being medically ill, Chase has been in the Air Force for more than a decade. After being medically retired from the Air Force in 2008, Chase has worked in television, radio, sports entertainment, comedy writing, and also performing at theme parks and national events. In October 2020, Chase attended a veterans' mental health retreat, which reopened his near-death experiences and created a newfound passion to help fellow veterans and their supporters.

Chase has worked recently with two previous guests of NDE Radio concerned with veteran healing. Lillia Simone, who is a veteran of the Air Force, has been a veteran of the Air Force since he was a kid. Lillia Simone is an ADAC resident, a former Air Force pilot, and was given a special treatment Chase hopes to continue that message, help heal others, and allow them, as Chase puts it, to chase the light. To keep in touch with Chase, visit chaseschuyler.com. Chase, welcome to NDE Radio. Lee, it's an absolute honor. Thank you so much for having me today. Well, it's wonderful to have you, and also, besides talking about your experience, I want NDE. I want to continue with hearing more about your work with veterans.

So why don't we start with the 2008 experience, what led into it, and what you saw? Absolutely. So 2008, I was already, I would say, halfway out of my time in the Air Force. I was a career, and at that time in my head, I was going to be a career lifer, as they would say in the Air Force. Since seventh grade, I knew I was going to be in the military, you know, 20 years, I was going to be a hero, you know, all of that good stuff. So stayed on the up and up, stayed away from drugs, stayed out of trouble, and, you know, joined the Air Force to be a SEER instructor, which is Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. During my time in training there, I had a, I would say, a minor knee injury.

They performed a knee surgery that was kind of just a routine knee surgery, and unfortunately, the knee surgery, didn't go exactly as planned. So during that time, they gave me an opportunity to kind of pick another career, which is very fortunate that I got to become a journalist in the Air Force. Through that, you know, went through physical therapy, kind of went through those, you know, you know, kind of through the routine to see how my knee was going to recover, and unfortunately, it just seemed like my knee wasn't going to get any better unless they did, you know, a total knee replacement, and at the time, I was 19 years old. So, you know, I knew my was coming to an end soon, and sure enough, at 19 years old, you start to turn bitter, and you start to get angry and go, wait a minute, I was going to be in the Air Force my whole life, you know.

This was my calling, you know, and so, you know, unfortunately, I didn't take my last few months in the Air Force too seriously. So I started waking up late and going, well, what is the Air Force going to do, right? If I show up a few minutes late, you know, what's the worst that's going to happen to me? So sure enough, you know, I hit the snooze button a couple of times on April 1st and decided, hey, I'm going to just going to slowly mosey into the office, and for anybody listening who's in the military, they're probably laughing because I'm using, you know, the Air Force terms like office instead of what the Army or Marines or Navy might use for terms, but next thing I knew, I was getting out of bed, and I woke up a significant time later at the Langley Air Force Base Hospital, and I had been found on the floor.

My supervisor at the time had thought she was going to catch me being late, and, you know, they have a key to your dorm room, and she had found me on the floor, so. Oh, that was lucky. Yeah, it was absolutely lucky, and so, you know, they had me there on the, you know, in the, one of the makeshift kind of rooms there on Langley Air Force Base, and they're running tests, and, you know, the nurse is doing her, you know, her routine of, you know, checking my vitals, and doctor comes in and says, you know, we're, can't really find anything wrong. It might have just been a fainting spell, but obviously, we want to check and see if you hit your head on the fall.

We want to just check, you know, your chest and just kind of see what's going on before we send you home, but it didn't really make too much sense. You know, I, blood work obviously came back fine right away, so next thing I know, the nurse kind of heads out before then. She's, you know, kind of fiddling with my IV. She says, we're going to go get a mobile chest x-ray, and I'll be right back. As she's walking out of, you know, kind of my, my area, at the end of the hallway, everything starts to go, you know, blurry. Everything starts to, you know, kind of slow down in time. Really, it's something like something you would see in a movie or a TV show.

Things just really started to slow down and get kind of fading. Before I knew it, the nurse started kind of, you know, the female nurse comes, essentially running into my room, you know, as, as an alarm starts sounding, and before I know it, it seems, you know, like the room filled very quickly with nurses and doctors all kind of, essentially sprinting into the room, you know, at the end of the hallway, and you can see the, kind of the confusion or terror on their face, you know, and for me, it just, you know, my, my vision was blurry, but, but also I could, I could picture their, you know, the look on their faces. I could picture, you know, the, the fear in their eyes, you know, and the confusion, you know, as the monitor kind of beeps to the left and right, and I could picture, you know, the, the fear in their eyes, my face.

At that time, a gentleman was to the left of me and starts stroking my arm. While he's stroking my arm, I start to get goosebumps, right? And it's the most calming, soothing sensation I get up my arm. And I guess euphoria would be not a good enough term, but the best term I could come up with at the time. When I tried to look over to him, because, of course, still, you know, I'm a 19-year-old kid, and some guy, is stroking my arm, right? So I want to know who he is. Yes. I, you know, I start to look over, and, and he kind of, you know, stops my chin from looking over and just says, relax, calm down. Just this really soothing voice is just trying to calm me.

And of course, as I say that now, I go, how is this, how could I crystal clear hear this voice while alarms are sounding, people are arguing, and they're looking at me? You know, and I look back up at the nurse's eyes, and the doctor's eyes, and I'm, I'm feeling what they're feeling. I'm feeling their hearts beating. I'm, I'm essentially watching them watch me die, right? And, you know, that's, that's obviously a, in hindsight, I kind of realized what I was watching, right? And so I feel that, you know, the face, you know, I should say the arm kind of stroked my arm. And he says, the man to the left of me says, you're going to feel, here, travel up your vein, and it's going to hurt really bad for a while.

But they're trying to save you. And sure enough, right, as he says that, I feel a pain that I can still feel today, if I want to feel it, if that makes sense. I feel almost like a silver bullet, kind of traveling up my, my left arm, you know, up my vein, directly towards my heart, you know, and almost in slow motion and excruciating pain. And as I start to feel that pain, I look over to the left of me, and I try to look at this man's face. And really, I just see the monitor. And the monitor at that time just went completely flat. Wow. So this was, this was an air bubble that they'd introduced into your blood vessels. That's exactly right. Unfortunately, and, you know, this would be towards the end of the story.

So I don't want to digress too much. Those files are missing. April 1st and April 2nd are missing from my records. However, there are references. And so evidence that this did happen, but we'll never know exactly how or why it happened. And I should say that I don't place blame on anybody. This is obviously was supposed to happen this way. But what specifically happened, I still don't know to this day. Um, I did watch my, my monitor go completely flat. And there was no fear. What happened next was the most beautiful, most blissful experience, the most incredible feeling of, of light. The best way I could describe it to somebody who hasn't felt that feeling is like a bucket of ice pouring through your heart and traveling up.

You know, it's, it's hard to describe the light that, that kind of carries your body as you go up through what I would describe as a tunnel. But for me, it felt like angels and fairies kind of created a vortex, if you will, as I was trying to, as my body was kind of being lifted up out of the sky, right? Um, there wasn't a sky, there was no ceiling, there was no roof. It just felt like my body was being lifted through, um, you know, people kind of swirling around me and, um, just, I get chills and goosebumps whenever I can, I can really try to even comprehend that feeling that I had that day. Um, you know, the sound of a million wind chimes and, and, and bells and, and, and laughter.

And, you know, if you could bottle up the pure laughter of a, it would be kind of the feeling I had. Um, and I think everybody kind of can resonate with that feeling, right? Everybody can kind of say, oh yeah, you know, that, that would just when a baby laughs is like the best feeling in the world. And that's kind of how, yeah. Yeah. And, uh, so my body, my body kind of travels up this, like I said, almost like a wind tunnel of, of like, I didn't see angels faces. I just felt like there were wings kind of twirling around me, you know, and spinning me upwards kind of, um, like propulsion towards, towards the sky.

Um, before I know it, you know, I am just looking around left and right and just enjoying every ounce of this, you know, and I come upon before I know it, I don't know if I landed there per se or, or the next moment of this, but I realized that I'm standing in a garden. Um, and the color of garden isn't fair because it's, you know, it had dirt, it had grass, it had flowers, but it was filled with, and flowers and plants and things that I don't think we have on this earth that I've at least never seen. You know, I've not traveled the world completely, but, um, just filled with just the most vibrant colors, uh, imaginable. Um, but I could feel the dirt, you know, on my feet.

And so I knew that I was in a, in a, in a garden with a path and I saw, um, a man, you know, up ahead of me in a robe. And I saw a little boy, golden hair, you know, kind of running ahead, cheeky little boy. And, and I say that laughing because, you know, the little kid, if you can imagine a little kid at a playground, you know, running away from his parents, you know, trying to get into trouble, um, you know, and the parents knowing full well that they could catch the kid and, you know, the kid trying to run away. Um, and I didn't feel like I walked closer. I just felt like I wanted to be closer. And so I was, does that make sense to you?

Yes, it does. Yeah. And so I, so I, I got closer and, um, you know, I, I see the relationship between the, the man and this robe and, and the little boy and the little boys kind of, you know, looking back, you know, laughing and running away. And the man kind of just pats the kid and, and, and look back. And when the man turns around and looks at me, it just hit me like a jolt of, again, while I'm already feeling blissful and happy and, and all this, love in my heart, it hit me like another jolt of kind of that ice feeling, that ice cold feeling. And it felt like I was face to face with Jesus at that time. Now, who do you suppose the little boy was?

Was it like an angel? Well, it's interesting you say that, right? Um, I knew at that time, now the man that I, that turned around and looked at me had short, thick, curly hair, green eyes, big smile, it was nothing like what I grew up seeing Jesus portrayed as I would say. But for whatever reason, at that time, I knew the man that turned around and looked at me was Jesus, right? So, you know, my, my upbringing as a, you know, in, in, in the Catholic church, obviously have a certain depiction, you know, when, when you learn of what, you know, kind of, what he looked like, right? And so it didn't look like that, but he didn't look like that, I should say out of respect, but I knew, okay, this, this man is Jesus, right?

And when I see the little boy again, it dawns on me that the little boy is me. And I don't picture myself at that time. I certainly, whenever I look back at myself, I don't picture myself as having golden curly hair, but I did have actually golden curly hair up until I was about four years old. And then for whatever reason, at some point, by the time I was five years old, I've had this dark, you know, thick, thick, dark brown hair ever since, you know, so if you look at my baby photos all the way until, you know, pretty much kindergarten, I had, you know, my, my parents proudly gave me a nineties mullet, a curly blonde mullet.

And, you know, it just kind of sank in that I was watching myself as a little boy, kind of run through this garden, just, just laughing and giggling. And, and, and I didn't know what it meant at the time, obviously, I just, I, appreciated me watching myself and the best way that I've described it to, to, you know, my, my wife, you know, when we first met and I explained, you know, I shared this beautiful story where there was almost like Charles Dickens and the Christmas Carol, right? I think a lot of people have seen that when you're watching, you know, when, when Scrooge goes and watches, you know, the Christmas, you know, with the ghost of Christmas past, right.

And he gets to go watch himself and in a former life, you know, and, and see, you know, other things that, you know, in the past, I guess I would say. So in that moment, I'm watching just this pure version of myself, you know, just happiness and laughter and playing and, and running through this garden. And before I knew it, I, I, I don't know how much time passed for all I know, I could have been there for a week or I could have been there for seconds. I just, there was, there was no concept of time, even though everything felt like regular time. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. Yes, it does. So, so this man, again, who I felt was Jesus turns to me and says, you have to go back now.

And I didn't argue. And I, it just felt like that was kind of what we already agreed upon. So there was no conversation of me going, do I have to, you know, or are you sure, you know, do I really have to go back? It was just kind of a nod of like, of course, you know, I, I know I have to. And he said, I, I want you to remember that. You have to spread, spread light, love, laughter, and joy. And when he, you know, for me, what stood out out of all of that, you know, obviously love and light and joy is, is what makes the world go around. And laughter to me is what resonated the most, because again, I think my time in that garden, uh, watching, you know, my, my four-year-old self run and laugh and giggle and, and the laughter I heard.

As I was traveling through this tunnel, I just feel like pure laughter that you can share with somebody or loved one or a stranger is to me, one of the best feelings you can have. So before I knew it, so the, the four-year-old you, which was the embodiment of all of the things Jesus told you, you had to come back to earth to share was a way of sort of, uh, embodying that as a, as an example to you or to show you. Absolutely. That's, that's such a great way to put it, Lee, because, um, you know, it's something that I continue to think about, um, more and more of, you know, I, I I'll try to meditate and try to put myself back in that garden.

And I, that, that feeling I get again, and I can, nothing will ever go back to that same feeling, you know, at least, at least I haven't had that same feeling in 12 years, but if I can even get 1% of the goosebumps and chill and feeling of that moment, um, it reminds me that that little boy was just the happiest little boy coming from ear to ear, being cheeky, you know, being a little bit naughty, you know, but in a fun way and, and just trying to, to make everybody else laugh and just enjoying the moment, you know, of running through this beautiful place. Um, so you're, you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. It was, it was a great lesson of this is, this is, this is what everybody should be like, right?

Yes. And everybody, everybody has that capacity because we were all at each at one time. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Carefree, not a lot of stress in the world, right? Besides, uh, what, what type of jelly you're going to put in your peanut butter and jelly sandwich. So then, uh, when you realized you had to come back, what, what happened then? Yeah, it was, you know, it was, um, it, because I, like I said, it felt like it was already predetermined. Like it was, it was just known that I was going to come back. And so it wasn't a fast travel back to my body. It was almost like a blink of an eye. It just felt like just a lot of weight, almost if you had a weighted blanket on your body or, you know, just something really heavy.

And I start to slowly open my eyes and, you know, you, if you've ever had the best dream in your, in your life, you know, you open up your eyes in the morning and you immediately close them and go, no, no, no, just another minute, please. Yes. Just give me another minute of that dream. It never works. It never, ever works. Sadly, no. It doesn't. So I, uh, I, I opened my eyes and close them and open my eyes and close them. And once my eyes, you know, my vision gets a little bit better and I feel this heaviness again of being back in my body, I realized I am in a completely different room than, than what I was in. And you're trying to process obviously, okay, I saw myself flatline, right?

And now I'm in a different room. I'm pretty sure I just had this incredible interaction. You know, and so you're trying to figure it out. And then what was the most obvious was as the nurses, you know, I, I would assume, you know, obviously a few minutes later, a nurse walks in, she's not wearing a uniform, a military uniform. It turns out I am not only no longer on the military base, I am in a completely different city. And, um, she comes in, you know, she says the vitals are good. How are you feeling? You know, there's a little bit of confusion on her face, you know, and I, and I feel her. Her confusion, you know, if that, if that, like almost like a magnet, I, I can feel that she's confused that she's talking to me.

And I'm, I'm like, I feel, I feel good. I'm a little bit tired and I'm talking a little pretty matter of fact, like, when can I get out of here? She says, you know, the doc, you're not going to go anywhere. The doctor's going to come talk to you. The doctor comes in, you know, a while later. And are you sure you're feeling good? And I said, I'm feeling good. And he goes, well, your, your vitals are fine. So we can send you back to the air force base. And, you know, it's kind of up to them what they want to do. And I said, great, get me out of here. Uh, they said, uh, you know, do you have anybody that wants to pick you up?

And I said, yeah, I'll have a friend pick me up. And, and, uh, instead of course of having my friend take me back to the air force base, I decided to go to Chick-fil-A and we left town for a couple of days. So do you have any idea how long you were, I mean, they had time to take you out of one hospital, fly you somewhere else. I imagine it was a helicopter. And, uh, how many hours? Were you, were you out of it? Here's the thing. So I, you know, this was in 2008. So Facebook had been out for a couple of years. And, and of course I'm at that age where I have to share every detail of my life at that time on social media.

So, uh, once my friend picked me up and we went back to the base, I got my cell phone and, um, I put on Facebook, um, I said, uh, just died flatlined, uh, LOL. You know, I thought it was, I thought it was funny, you know, and because I didn't know, you know, I told my friends, Hey, you know, I, I just died. Can we go, you know, pick up some, some food? And, and, uh, we went, drove up to Washington DC, which was like, I think three and a half hours away. But when I posted it, I didn't even realize that it was April 2nd. Um, you know, late in the evening. So to answer your question, they found me first thing in the morning, April 1st.

And when I was discharged from the hospital, um, in Hampton, Virginia, that was April. Second around 5 PM. So there was obviously a huge gap in between, um, at least a day and a half had gone by, um, from my, you know, my first memory of waking up to waking up again in the hospital. Wow. Wow. Well, did you tell anyone your story at first? I mean, what you'd seen? No. And that's, that's the most important thing. Lee, I think, um, obviously why I'm sharing my story now is, is I, I knew, or I w I thought I should say at that, that if I shared that story with anybody in the air force, that, um, that they're, that they would think I was crazy that they were either think I was crazy, that I was lying, that I was making it up, but they'd put me on medication.

They'd kick me out. There was such a fear of what would people think, um, whether it was for attention or what have you, um, that I kept it a complete secret. Now I did go again, like I said, and put it online. Hey, I died, and tried to make a joke out of it. Like I do everything, but, um, there was, there was a true concern of nobody's going to believe me. So I might as well keep this to myself. Um, and that's the biggest shame, um, of the last 12 years is I've, I have shared my story with, with loved ones and close friends, but, um, to have to, to have to feel that I had to keep this a secret for so long is exactly why I'm honored to be able to share this story with you for the first time.

Um, you know, it's just a shame. It's a shame that it took 12 years. Well, it's a shame that, uh, especially the military, I mean, this is true, uh, perhaps under any career circumstance, but especially the military where people do die. I mean, in, in battle and, and, uh, all sorts of situations, it's a, it's a stressful life. It can be the military that, that they are so, um, uh, punished career wise, if they ever admit to having a near death experience, uh, it's, uh, you know, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're stupid somehow. And, uh, and it really does. And so people that don't talk about the, what they saw while they were dead are really just protecting themselves in their career.

That's exactly right. And I think, um, you know, there's obviously such a big learning curve, the work that you're doing and so many other people, um, especially, you know, Diane and Lilia, um, there's, you know, such a, uh, there's been so much education and so much hard work that has been done. already, you know, obviously educating people on near-death experiences. I think it's so important for veterans, active duty, especially, you know, people in the healthcare field and even therapists to know not only is a near-death experience real, but, you know, if they have their, you know, their hesitations on it, the fact, if they just had said to somebody, let's say if I had come out and said, you know, the following week or even, you know, the following days and said, this is, this was my experience.

And somebody had said, I hear you, I validate your experience. And here's some, you know, here's some resources that you can go to, to find, you know, maybe some people that have gone through similar things that probably would have changed everything for me at the time, you know, having to feel like I needed to keep this a secret for so long, you know, now I'm kind of going back and connecting the dots of how that might've affected. All these years. So it is a shame for me, but if I could even connect, obviously, you know, one veteran or somebody who's maybe married to a veteran or has, you know, a loved one that served in the military and just say, Hey, you know, I know that you had a really tough time while you're in the military.

Did an experience like this happen to you? I'm willing to bet that somebody might pour out in tears and say, absolutely. Yes. I didn't know that this was even a thing. Um, and it could open up their, their whole world of, of being able to start healing or understanding maybe who they've become. Um, because I certainly didn't know, I didn't know the term near-death experience until years and years later. I just thought, you know, this is just my experience and I got to keep it to myself. Well, I, and certainly, and Lilia and Diane have been working on this for some time. Have you encountered any vets that have shared their NDEs with you? I'm actually, I, I, uh, I haven't, I have actually. Um, so I am now joining the IAN's military supporter group.

Thanks for talking to Diane and Lilia and finding them. I found them. So I know, I know we're, um, we're kind of close on time, but I do want to share how this kind of came up real quick. I went on a, um, uh, like you mentioned in the, at the start of the podcast, I went on a retreat, um, for mental health with the wounded warrior project. And when I came back, they assign you, you know, it's a five, day retreat. It's a beautiful, beautiful, uh, thing called project odyssey. When I came back, I got assigned a therapist to talk to me. Um, and I was very fortunate. And now, you know, now, especially I realized that everything certainly happens for a reason.

Um, so my therapist named Angela, she's doing her intake questions, asking about, you know, my past and family upbringing, you know, my military service. And she puts down her pencil and says, did you have a near death experience? And in that instantly, I burst into tears. And I was like, Oh, just, just overwhelmed. Nobody in my entire life. I, I, I have shared my story with, with loved ones, but nobody has ever asked me personally if I've had a near death experience. And that is what kind of catapulted, um, you know, this, this me needing to, to share, obviously my story with everybody. Um, it turns out I did ask her, um, what made you ask me? And, and her husband had a near death experience.

So, um, Oh, just the fact that she was willing to ask me that is what, what brought me here today. And, um, and I can only imagine if other therapists ask military, you know, people, um, you know, is this something that you experienced? I just, again, I can't imagine how much that could help people. So, Oh, exactly. And even for non-military, if the, if doctors and nurses and, and everyone involved in the medical profession were open to the idea, chaplains, I mean, I was a chaplain for 15 years and I heard hundreds of near death experience stories from, from people, but many chaplains would almost refuse to, to, uh, acknowledge the fact that these things happen, happen to patients all the time.

Now are the wounded, is the wounded warrior project, um, generally open to, um, I mean, do they see this as a, as a, something they should be involved in the near death experience, uh, experiences? Yeah. That's an amazing question that I will, uh, I'm going to take this amazing podcast that, that you produced, and I'm going to, uh, to hopefully, um, share this with their ears and, and see what type of conversation that this can start. So, um, you know, the, the VA obviously is, is, you know, there to, to serve veterans and obviously active duty military. Um, but these veterans service organizations like Wounded Warrior Project, Disabled American Veterans, American Legion, these are organizations that are, are built to help veterans as soon as they transition out of active duty.

And most of the time, these are obviously wounded veterans. So veterans that have a service connected disability, um, which means that a lot of time they have faced some sort of either combat or obviously have gotten injured somehow. Um, so educating them, I think is paramount. And like you said, obviously not just, this isn't obviously just for, for veterans or military, um, anybody. I think, I think if the more, the more education that's out there and the more stories that people are able to share, um, you know, I, I just think that, that the world for near-death experiences are just going to get so much easier, you know, that acceptance and understanding. Well, you know, I think that a lot of people too would get behind, uh, financially get behind the support of organizations like Wounded Warrior Project if they knew, I mean, the, this country alone has probably millions of people.

It's been, it's been an estimated who have had near-death experiences and they understand the frustration of, of not being able to talk about it or being treated like you're crazy. If they do talk about it, if they knew, for instance, that Wounded Warrior Project or any of the other veterans organizations were actively, uh, working to, um, develop an understanding and a comprehension and a, and a, and a sympathetic re you know, receipt of, of the, of the stories like this, uh, supportive, they've got to be supported. Um, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and supportive and not, and not just rejected out of hand.

I mean, talk about a source of PTSD, you know, to, to be put down and have your career ruined because you were honest about something you saw on the other side is a tragedy. So, uh, if you would be open to it, I would love, um, to take this podcast obviously, um, and share it with those organizations. And, you know, if, if one of them is willing to embrace this, I would love to, uh, to hopefully update you on a, on a future podcast and, and hopefully maybe, um, see how we can connect the dots and, and see how that conversation has evolved, you know, hopefully months down the road with you. That would be, that'd be excellent. That would be, uh, I'm so glad that you're taking this on Chase.

This is, this is tremendous. And, uh, and, uh, I mean, you, you could probably spend a lifetime just trying to get, uh, this kind of understanding throughout the medical community, but the veterans, it's especially important for veterans. Uh, and, uh, anyway, well, thank you. I, as you said, we are out of time and, uh, uh, but, um, tell, uh, tell listeners how they might get in touch with you. And especially there may be, um, listeners out there who are vets who had an NDE and would like to talk to you about it. So how can they reach you? Absolutely. So, um, I'm actually going to put a lot of links up on my website, along with the story that I shared today. So it's Chase, C-H-A-S-E, Skyler, S-K-Y, L-A-R.com.

When you go to my website right there on the homepage, uh, you'll be able to click on near-death experiences, and I'm going to have a bunch of links, um, for specifically for veterans, as well as links to INs, um, how you can contact Diane, how you can contact Lilia, um, obviously links to this podcast and then the veterans organizations for, um, you know, you know, the, um, the veterans sharing experiences group. So, um, just a really easy way, obviously, because there's a lot of links there. So if you just go to my website, Chase Skyler, I'm not selling anything. I genuinely want to help people just like you're doing Lee. And, um, it's just so important that, uh, that you come forward and feel comfortable. Um, nobody's going to think you're crazy.

This is, uh, this is real, um, your story and your feelings are valid. Um, and if you, uh, if you got goosebumps, or you felt like my story resonated with you, please come forward and feel comfortable. Chase, thanks so much. Thank you for sharing your, your story, uh, the story of your NDE and how it changed the direction of your life, uh, to work with other veterans. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, uh, it's a pleasure. And we'll have you back as soon as, as soon as you, uh, would like to give us an update on, on the work you're doing. Looking forward to it. All right. If listeners would like to hear this show again, or any of our nearly 400 past shows, go to NDE radio and hit the past shows button for more about ions, go to their website at IANDS.org and listen again. Next Monday, 11 AM Eastern for more NDE radio. This is Lee Whitting saying, thanks for listening.v