After a day of passing large amounts of blood due to a lower GI hemorrhage, I went to the hospital emergency department. While in the waiting area, I began to feel faint. So, I went to the reception desk to tell them I was going to pass out. There, I passed out. I awoke on a gurney while being wheeled into a room. I had been unconscious for less than 2 minutes.

I awoke to see everything was bathed in a light. I can't quite describe this. I was fully aware of my surroundings and my situation. I was as happy as I have ever been. I had no fear or anxiety whatsoever.

I seemed to be finishing a telepathic conversation with someone who I was sure loved me totally, and whom I loved. (It was suggested to me later that this might have been my daughter who was murdered less than 2 months before. This seems possible to me, but that is not what I was thinking at the time of my experience.) I remember saying that I would love to die right now, but my wife and son are both dependent on me for care and would suffer if I died now. The other person in this telepathic conversation assured me that this was not my time and I would return to caring for them for a long time. I felt like this was the end of a much longer conversation, but I couldn't remember what else we talked about. The light persisted for a few minutes, but the profound happiness lasted for an hour or more.

The experience was vivid and seemed very real. From that time, I have been convinced that my personality will survive bodily death. Before that I believed that consciousness would persist but not my individual personality. I no longer have any reservations about death and actually look forward to it.

I was not near death since my blood pressure and oxygen level were very low but never critical. I did pass out, but calling it near-death would be an exaggeration. I could have died if the bleeding had persisted but it resolved by itself. I was admitted to the ICU and given intravenous fluid under pressure and drugs to bring up my blood pressure from the loss of blood. But as far as I know, I was never actually close to death. I saw no tunnel, no visual contact with any entity, no life review, no memory of a heavenly realm and no OBE. But my experience has some of the elements of an NDE.