In 1999, Dr. Mary Neal, a spinal surgeon and mother of four, drowned while kayaking in Chile. Trapped underwater for nearly 30 minutes, her heart stopped. Yet, instead of panic, she felt peace. “I felt incredibly calm,” she later said.

What followed defied her medical training. Dr. Neal described watching her own rescue from above, surrounded by radiant beings filled with love. They led her through a glowing forest and showed her a “life review,” helping her understand past experiences with deep empathy.

Before she could enter what she believed was Heaven, the beings stopped her. It wasn’t her time — and they gave her a warning: her son Willie would die young. Devastated but changed, she returned to life and eventually recovered.

Years later, on the day she finished writing her memoir To Heaven and Back, she got the call — Willie had been killed at 18. Though shattered, Dr. Neal found strength in the experience she couldn’t explain: “Even in the midst of sorrow, I experienced great joy.” Her belief in a life beyond death never wavered.