Being thrown from a horse altered her life

I worked on a horse farm as well as having horses at home and being a lifelong rider. I 'took the rough out' of thoroughbred horses who had started at the track, and this particular day was no different: I was taking a young horse out under saddle for a ride. About a mile from the house and yards he threw me headfirst (by injury and marks on the road, I landed almost directly on top of my head) onto the hardpacked travel and clay road. I seemed to become aware of everything very acutely-- the sun, the wind, the grass blowing in the fields-- from where I was; I was far from the barns and house, but somehow I could see what was going on there. I saw everything that had happened that day from getting up at home several miles away, to starting my day at work feeding and mucking, saddling the horse I'd been riding, all as if I were an observer but I could see up close from above, see even myself, heard the conversations I had with others, everything.

I saw, as if watching from my, nowhere; everywhereness, myself riding out away from the house and getting thrown. I saw myself lying in the road and was curious and calm. I saw the horse make the additional 2 miles around the road back to the barn lot and another worker catch him; mind, this was miles from other houses. I saw my friend and employer look the horse over, look out over the fields for me, and get in the truck to head out on the road looking for me. I was not sure how this was possible but it was not distressing. I was glad that the horse went home. I remember watching myself be found and thinking that I must have died, yet I felt no pain. I saw people at my house miles away get a phone call, I saw the ambulance, and I just moved effortlessly from one place to another. I didn't seem to question why I wasn't in my body at all. I apparently started having difficulties in surgery and went somewhere.

I was on the road where I'd been thrown again, but I was walking and the sky was getting dark. A friend of mine who was deceased was walking with me, talking about my life and I knew that we were going together somewhere. The road became unfamiliar to me and the landscape desolate and cold. A lady of unintelligible age that I did not recognize sat at a crossroads; she told me it wasn't my time and that I had things to do before I could go any further. My friend went past this woman and told me that when it was time, she would be waiting for me. This lady I understood to be some kind of gatekeeper or something. She was not impatient but was firm with me. Suddenly I was seeing myself on a bed, my parents, and medical personnel and I could hear what was said.

My body was 'asleep' but my consciousness was alert. I went into my body and could feel pain and seemed to enter a dream state. I came around at some point and eventually told what I had experienced, which was validated. I had terrible difficulties with my memory for months after the accident but the things I had seen stayed clear as a bell even when I couldn't remember what I had heard in conversation a few minutes before. The emotional aspects of my experience while observing have never left me in the 27 years since. I had a lot of trouble with my vision, memory, headaches, and did a lot of physical therapy , and by the grace of God I wasn't paralyzed as initially suspected that I might be.

I have found that I have the same effect on human patients and for some time after becoming a nurse I chose hospice care to provide whatever comfort the dying seem to sense within me. I haven't talked about that with anyone ever because almost everyone I meet notices something they can't name but some are made uncomfortable by it, and for the first several years I felt like a freak. So much so that I spiraled downward in my late teens and attempted suicide. I was again spoken to by the same entity and assured that I had some purpose to fulfill. I'm not crazy, I don't have brain damage, and I'm not psychotic. I have had psychological tests done for my own peace of mind and understanding. As I have gotten older and experienced life more fully I have accepted that something extraordinary happened to me and it cannot be explained by the rigid narratives of organized religion. I have a deeply held spirituality of the interconnectedness of all life.

https://www.nderf.org/Experiences/1betty_r_nde.html