On April 19, 2007 I experienced something I never thought I would ever experience. I was on the out door patio of a restaurant. I headed inside and I walked into a closed sliding glass door. I hit very hard. I was sort of stepping up so my face took all of the extra force of my momentum. I experienced incredible pain as my face hit the glass. I knew I was hurt badly so I turned around so I would slide down the glass instead of just falling down. My friend and a lady who I don't know put me in a chair. I knew I was in a chair and that I was in pain but I kept going in and out of consciousness and don't remember much. I started to vomit and sweat. Then I have no memory at all.

As a 12 year old experienced Junior Olympic swimmer I was playing "Uncle" with a high school senior in our practice pool at the YMCA, Miami, Florida. I evidently lost by passing out, then drowning while I was trying to pull a friend under the surface and propelling myself out of the water to take a breath of fresh air. I did not experience fear or a shortness of breath nor did I feel I was suffocating.

I'm afraid I had no spiritual awakenings or feelings of the profound. I'll just tell it as it was. On the night of 16th March 2007 I was attacked by my stepson (who is schizophrenic) while asleep in bed with my wife. He entered the room, awoke us with a shout and approached with speed and purpose. He pinned me down and began hitting me and then my wife as she tired to make her escape. It was not until he hit my wife that I realised that he was in fact stabbing us with a carving knife.

I had overdosed on prescribed medications (MS Cotin and Ativan). I was told I stopped breathing for seven minutes. A week later I woke up in ICU and spent another week and a half there.