From the time that they pronounced me dead was
a good 45 minutes. They cut my clothes and then
they paddled my heart, my heart had stopped and
I could see people screaming and crying but I
didn't realize that was actually my physical
body because I was somewhere else. The only thing
that I could feel if you could imagine absolute
love and peace, there wasn't anything else to
be felt. I was greeted by people I'd known in
the past. I'm back home again. Incredibly safe
and felt at home. Welcome, welcome to Round Trip
Death, everybody. And a warm welcome to our special
guest, Krista Gorman, coming to us from Florida.
Good morning. How are you? Good morning. I'm
great. How are you? I'm doing so well. What's
it like in Florida today? It's very windy, sunny,
but very windy. and just a little bit chilly,
which is nice. What does chilly mean? Because
we still have snow around here. Well, with the
wind blowing, it's probably in the low 60s. Oh,
sorry, not making fun. Before we jump into your
NDE, which people are going to love. Great story
coming up, everybody. Tell us just a little bit
about you. Who's Krista? Oh, wow. Wow, that's
a loaded question. Well, Krista is a healthcare
provider. I work as a PA. I've been a PA for
25 years. My near -death experience happened
just three weeks after I graduated PA school.
My entire career has been spent with this sort
of like base knowledge, understanding of the
transition of death and what that sort of entailed
for me anyway. I was able to incorporate that
into my practice to a certain extent. But yeah,
I married. My husband Ainsley Threadgold is also
a near -death experiencer and a police officer.
And we have a, I have a stepdaughter, his daughter,
and I have a daughter through my previous marriage
who was born three weeks after I graduated PA
school. Okay. And that has to do with your NDE.
I'm curious first, You mentioned that you've
somehow involved this in your practice. Yes.
Have you had patients that have had NDEs or tell
me what you meant by that? I have actually met
some patients who have shared with me without
me soliciting that information from them that
they had NDEs. But no, my near -death experience
just transformed me so fundamentally that about
a third of the way into my career, I sort of
came to a point where I was in a sort of desperate
need of healing my life. And I used my near -death
experience as the blueprint for healing. And
in the process of that, found a new sort of state
of being where I could be. far, far, far more
present with my patients and far more open to
receiving information from them. And it just
really, it assisted me, assisted them in my caring
for them. How have other healthcare providers
reacted when you told them about your experience?
I had a physician I worked with in the emergency
room who was Catholic, and I was raised Catholic,
but she came from that point of view. practicing
Catholic, and she sort of stared at me as I was
telling her the story, shaking her head, saying,
you shouldn't be here. She's like, I mean it,
like you really shouldn't be here. I kind of
laugh because the medical emergencies that I
was involved in were significant, and I lived
through them. So that's kind of the point of
view. She was in amazement. And then the experience
itself, she was also in amazement of. I didn't
widely share it with my colleagues because they
come from a scientific, very rigid thinking,
egocentric, which is completely the opposite
of the experience itself, the polarity of who
I am really as a person. In the Western medical
fields and in Western medicine in general, I
sort of didn't share my NDE a lot, but with those
that I did share it with, they were pretty floored.
But in a positive way or did they not believe
you? In a positive way. If they didn't believe
me, they didn't share that with me. And, you
know, I've had just in casual conversations with
others who work in the medical field. Sometimes
there'd be like the nod of, oh, yeah, that's
interesting. And that's even at IAAMS, you know,
participating at IAAMS. Sometimes the scientists
there are not there for the sharing love and
light. They're there for sharing data and facts.
And it's hard for them to see beyond that sometimes.
It almost seems though, like, if they're at IAAMS,
they must at least sort of believe it or what
are they even doing there? Yeah, I feel that
too. I haven't actually gotten into an in -depth
discussion asking questions about that in particular.
It's just been my experience to a point, to an
extent, and it's not all of them. I think that
just points to the deeper aspects of ourselves
that we are. We wear the suit of a scientist,
yet we are this infinite being. that is on some
level, whether it's conscious or unconscious,
in touch with that realm from which we all emanate,
where collectively we all exist still. And I
believe, this is my understanding and my belief
and my experience, is that we here incarnate
in these physical bodies. We are only partially
incarnated in these bodies. There's still a greater
part of ourselves that exists in the collective,
in union with all other beings, creatures. that
source of energy information is that highest
vibration, and we can get in touch with that
if we choose to or are able to allow ourselves
to. And that's part of what you learned during
your NDE? Yes, and what I've concretely experienced
afterwards, and even before, you know, looking
back in my life. But yes, that's something that
was gleaned from my NDE. Let's jump into that
part right now. People are in suspense. Now we're
going back quite a few years and you mentioned
childbirth, which is when this happened. Did
you have any complications leading up to it that
made you think that maybe you were going to have
some big issues during childbirth? No, I didn't,
you know, but I did have a precognition, which
was interesting. So what happened with me was
I was a PA student. I was in my last year of
PA school, the very end of my PA training. I'm
ready to graduate. And I had had a 20 -week ultrasound
where it showed my daughter's kidney. She had
a lot of fluid in her kidney. They were concerned
about it as I approached the end of my pregnancy
and said, we can induce you a week early and
get her evaluated sooner to make sure that that
kidney is OK. So my scientific PA brain said,
oh, absolutely, let's do that. And my higher
self sort of for just a brief moment was like,
no, that's not necessary. It's okay. But I overrode
it with my ego mind and let the fear, the concern
sort of take over and agreed to the induction.
Well, when a mother -to -be is induced, they
give a medication called Pitocin, which causes
very significant abnormally strong uterine contractions.
And I knew that as a student. I completed an
OB -GYN rotation and helped deliver babies. And
I understood the process of induction. And I
also understood that there's complications from
induction, one of which is distress, significant
distress on the baby that would lead to a cesarean
section. And I wanted to avoid that at all costs,
but at the same time, I wanted to make sure that
my baby was okay. I agreed to the induction,
started it after many hours. Overnight, I had
not progressed very far in labor, and my daughter
showed signs of distress, significant enough
to require an emergency C -section. And I knew
that the minute I saw the tracing on the monitor.
They were putting an internal monitor on her
scalp, and she, this is my guess, she reflects,
she kicks so hard at the pain from it, which
they say babies don't feel it, but I believe
that's untrue. She kicked so hard she kicked
the amniotic fluid into my bloodstream. So that
caused my body to mount an allergic reaction
to it because it's not supposed to mix. That's
what the placenta is for. She kicked so hard
that she pushed the amniotic fluid into my system
and right away I started having trouble breathing
and very quickly decompensated, cardiopulmonary
wise, and I coded. They lost my pulse for eight
minutes. During that time, what I recall is being
unable to catch my breath, them turning me on
my left side, and that helps pump the heart pump
blood more efficiently to the baby and to your
body. They put oxygen on my face and started
to wheel me out of the room. By the time they
got me out the door into the hallway between
my room and the delivery room, the operating
room, I remember my vision just sort of closing,
sort of like the tunnel is closing, and this
feeling of. divine peace just come over me, sort
of over my head to the front, and I lost my vision.
I don't know if I closed my eyes or not, but
I was out. And the next point of awareness I
had was of looking down, being far above a body,
looking down and watching black particles come
racing up to where my vision was. And I was sort
of surrounded by this undulating, static cloud.
and I was completely neutral. I didn't have any
concept of the self or of what I was witnessing
below. I didn't have any names for anything,
any identification of what any of it was. I didn't
know that I had been a human in a body. I was
just pure consciousness, but I could see. I watched
another physician come in the room. I watched
them deliver my daughter. Of course, I didn't
know that this was a physician, that that was
my daughter. None of it. These were human beings.
and I saw somebody take her and turn around,
and I couldn't see what was going on. And I was
just curious. I felt this intense curiosity,
like, oh, I want to know more about this. And
so I moved to the other side of the room. I saw
someone to my left shoulder threading something
into my chest, which I found out was they put
a Swans Gantz catheter in my pulmonary circulation
so they could measure for pulmonary hypertension.
I recall feeling more and more curious, like
that feeling was intensifying. And then I felt
something pull to my left and I resisted it because
I wanted to find out what was going on and it
pulled harder. I just knew it wasn't going to
take me unless I wanted to go and it really wanted
me to go. And so I just agreed. I just felt,
okay, I'll go. And then I started to move to
the left super fast. I went through the wall.
There was like this sort of undulating off white
wall with wallpaper border and into this white
space that was just a flash of bright, bright
white. And then I moved through another sort
of opening into this dense particulate matter
that I was. I was sort of like reabsorbed in
this space and I was moving imperceptibly fast.
And again, still just quite neutral and just
like, oh, interested in what was going on, curious
a bit, and I looked to my left and the side looked
like dense particles and then at some points
it would be sort of liquidy, gray, white, black,
and then turned back into the dense particles.
Then I turned and I stopped and there was this
download that I received. It was sort of like
a funnel of information and all came to one point
in front of me. It was as if, and this is the
best way that I can describe it, it was as if
All the questions I'd ever had in my life were
answered in sort of this instant of this information.
And that one point was love. Love was the answer
to everything. At that second, I felt permeated
with this divine, blissful love. It was ecstatic.
It was everything. It was everything I'd ever
need, ever wanted, ever desired. I could exist
there eternally and be completely content. Okay,
let's pause there for a second. I want to ask
some questions about what's happened so far.
So hold your train of thought. We were talking
about love. I don't get that the black particles
that you said as you were looking down were rising.
That's something I don't think I've heard before.
Tell me a little bit more about that. The best
way to describe them were like little tiny black
dots and they were coming from the body below.
The majority of them were from the chest area,
but there were some from the head and some from
the gut. And they all just moved on their own
in sort of like unison up to where my vision
was, where I could see. But I was not anything.
I was not in any physical form. I was just there.
I was just energy. I believe that, well, I'll
sort of say this at this point. My near -death
experience was created by me, by my consciousness,
and by universal consciousness source, God, whatever
you want to call it, in unison, in tandem, in
working with one another, in order for me to
have this experience so that I could come back
here to the body, sort of grow as a human in
this body from it. and then share with the world
what it was that I experienced in the efforts
or the ultimate goal of helping humanity in some
way. You mentioned being pulled from, I think
it was from your left side by it. What's the
it? It was a force. couldn't identify it, didn't
have a desire to identify it, didn't matter what
it was, but it was a force greater than my desire
to stay. It was something that, it felt neutral,
but it felt strong. I call it intuitive feeling,
but I was just pure consciousness. So it was
just my consciousness understood without having
to have a human explanation for all of it that
I needed to go. And I would love to know more
about the download of info. I have a guess, the
question that I'm going to ask, I think I know
the answer already, but do you know everything
that was downloaded to you? Do you remember all
of it? You said the answer is to all your questions.
Yeah. No, I don't. The one thing that I guess
stood out was there's absolutely a higher reason,
purpose for absolutely everything. It doesn't
matter what you're talking about. That's the
one thing I already knew going in. I already
understood that, but that confirmed it for me.
That's just one example. And I feel like in all
the years that I've lived back in this body again,
in this life, in this world, I've come to understand
the things that I know intuitively to be true.
I believe I feel came from that experience that
download. So I mean, that's where for me, intuition
is the highest form of sort of checking to see
if something is right or wrong for me. It's all
about how I feel. I believe my DNA was restructured
during my experience. Wow. Part of that restructuring
was this sort of information that I have and
it's helped guide me in my life and helps me
to not get upset about politics and the state
of the world and all of that because there's
much bigger things at play here. Yeah, it just
doesn't matter as much as we think it does. Okay,
let's get back to where you were. You were talking
about love being the answer to everything. Explain
and keep moving on from there. Okay. Love, love
is it. It doesn't matter again what we're talking
about. Everything is love in its various forms.
For me, I can choose to see that or I don't have
to see it. I can choose to be in my ego and see
things as separate as not love. In that state
I was in, it was just everything all encompassed.
And I felt like when I felt that love, I felt
the eternity of it, the infiniteness of it. It's
timeless, boundless. and it expanded everywhere.
I expanded out with it everywhere, in all directions,
eternally. There was no end to me, or to it.
Quickly after that, there was a light off to
my right, a little dot of a white light. It was
drawing me to it, it wanted me to come to it,
so I started to move in that direction. As I
got closer, the light became bigger and more
of a circle, and it was sort of like a cloudy
opening. And in the opening there were these
shadow beings there. And in the front was a shadow
being of a little boy. And what I could make
out was he had overalls on and a, like a straw
hat with a wide brim and he needed my help. So
I wanted to help him. I started to move into
that space. And as I moved into the opening,
all the shadow beings, the taller ones, like
I call them adults, but the taller shadow beings
sort of fanned out. on my left, like in a line.
And I went to what felt like the center of the
space, and it was still like a misty, cloudy
atmosphere. And I felt all of these shadow beings
needed my help, wanted my help, wanted me to
help them. And I felt, yes, I want to help you
all. And they started to come at me at that point
and dart away, come at me and dart away from
all directions. And what I quickly realized was
that they were actually, they wanted my energy.
They wanted me, not just my help, but they wanted
me. I started to feel like I was diminishing
there. And if I had stayed, I would have just
given, almost given myself away to all of these
entities that needed me, needed my energy and
sacrificed myself. And I chose, no, I want to
leave now. And it wasn't scary. It wasn't frightening
in any way. It was completely neutral. As soon
as I felt I wanted to go, I wanted to leave,
I was pulled out of there, again, to the left.
Pulled out, back in the dense particle space.
That was very brief flash moment. And then I
went through a less distinct opening. It was
more particulate matter, circular again, but
then I merged through it into this gorgeous Eden.
scene with rolling green hills and a rock waterfall
and dense evergreen forest and just beautiful
yellow flowers span out in front of me and it
was just absolutely gorgeous and I merged with
all of it. It was as if I merged with all of
nature. I became the flowers and the trees and
the water and the rocks and the sky, grass. It
was bliss, again, still blissful, blissful feeling,
blissful love. And then I was flanked on both
sides. By these tall beige drapey kind of humanoid
figures. They didn't really have faces They just
I felt them and they were feeling to me and what
they felt to me was you can stay here You can
go to what comes beyond this or you can go back
after I left my body I didn't have any concept
of my human life any memory. No, I didn't have
an identity as Christa. I was still my consciousness
without a name for a moment paused, because I
could have stayed in this Eden, too, eternally.
Didn't know why I was choosing, but I chose to
go back. As soon as I felt that, back to these
beings, I started to move backwards. And they
turned, as I was moving, they turned and communicated
to me, well, if you go back, you need to share
what you learned here. And I agreed. The next
thing I knew, I was waking up in the ICU. Wow,
that's really cool. That's a lot. One thing that
I don't understand, and I'm sure you've thought
about it, so maybe you can explain it to me,
is if you didn't feel an attachment to that body
or even that that was Krista, why did you choose
to go back, do you think? Well, I think it's
not just one thing. It's sort of like a multitude
of things. I believe that I chose to come back
to the life I was in and continue that life as
the Krista. that I was for the most part. And
part of that reason for coming back was that
all of my family wanted me back. I don't know
if Maggie did, my daughter, because, you know,
she was just born, but she probably had, on some
level, had a desire for her mother. All of that
energy pulling me back, I believe, did contribute
to that choice on some, you know, some level.
You know, I'm so grateful. I chose to come back
because this life has had its ups and downs in
the human form, but it's been pretty, pretty
amazing. And I want to hear a lot more about
what you've learned and how you've applied that
since then. But one last thing, what you termed
as the Eden scene. Could you give us any bit
more detail about that? What did it look like,
feel like, smell like? Oh, okay. Well, it felt
completely blissful. It felt completely perfect.
The colors were very bright, brighter than normal,
but not excessive. I didn't have any sense of
smells or sound in my experience. I just felt
in unity with all of nature, all of the elements.
I was it, and it was me. There was no disconnect
there. We were fluidly like a part of one another.
All of the trees and grass and flowers and water
and rocks and sky and sun. Everybody that has
an NDE comes back changed, but not everybody
describes it as having their DNA actually changed.
Describe that a little bit and some of the changes
that you felt after. Okay, so before I... I had
my daughter. I had taken my bores as a PA, graduated,
officially graduated PA school at the end of
June. I had her in July. And I was all about
the science, all about knowing absolutely everything
so that I could best help my patients. I prided
myself on the facts. You know, I knew, I just
knew it all. And I was like really proud of myself
and knew I was going to do a great job and I
couldn't wait to start taking care of people.
After I came back, I didn't remember that I was
a P .A. student. I didn't remember I'd graduated.
I didn't even remember I had had a baby. I didn't
remember my pregnancy. So there was that sort
of lag in recovery of my brain functioning. It
was sort of like I liken it to layers of an onion
being peeled where it reveals more and more each
time you peel a layer. And for me, that tended
to happen after sleeping. I would wake up and
I would feel a little bit more like the old Krista
because I was blissed out. I had zero anxiety.
I was type A personality before. I was completely
the opposite when I woke up. There was not a
care in the world. Everything was wonderful.
Yet, when I got home with my daughter, my mom
was here. And she helped for a few weeks, and
she watched me. She let me do things. She watched
me and made sure I was OK. But she's like, you
just seem to know what to do, is how she phrased
it. I worked out of my intuition. That was my
reference point for doing the next thing that
I did. I just followed my intuition. I didn't
see the need for speaking because I felt everybody
knew what I was feeling. So they would, you know.
pick up on that. And that's how I communicated.
And then I slowly, you know, as time went on,
the weeks went by, and I would wake up and I
would feel more like the old Krista. I realized
like, I need to communicate like this or that,
you know, by speaking it. And they thought maybe
I had like a problem talking from the event,
because it was eight minutes without any, any
intervention. They stopped CPR to deliver my
daughter and control the bleeding I had. So,
you know, they thought maybe it was brain damage.
They weren't sure. They were told I had a 50
-50 chance of requiring 24 -hour care for the
rest of my life. They had no idea what kind of
state I would be in when I came to. But I was
36 hours intubated in the ICU. And then they
started to wean me off of the medication that
they had to sedate me to keep me from pulling
the tube out. And then... they started to assess
my functioning. And I had memory issues. I was
a different personality in terms of my drive,
my ambition to get things done, which I was very,
again, type A. I was completely the opposite.
So I think that was a big part of the restructuring.
Not only that, but I have an ability to understand
things from a perspective where I'm not quite
sure that I would have had otherwise. I used
to, like, you know, get colds and illnesses and
whatnot and get pretty sick before. I don't now.
I'm really quite healthy, with the exception
of a small issue with blood pressure, but that's
from nine years in the emergency room. I feel
like I became someone that was just genetically...
I feel like I had like an upgrade almost, like
a restructuring. I don't feel like a walk -in,
but I do feel like I am, I don't know, structurally
like a more sound human, I guess I can say. I
don't know, it's hard to describe. That is so
interesting. Most people feel like their personality
has changed a lot, but physically, that's very
unusual. That's interesting. I'm going to ask
you a personal question you don't have to answer
if you don't want to. Did all of these changes
have anything to do with your divorce? Because
you mentioned you have a second husband now.
Yes, I mean, but I feel like what if I didn't
have a near -death experience and how would my
first marriage have played out? And I wonder
if we would still be together today, only because
there were so many external factors. my ex -husband
was a touring musician, our entire marriage.
We met when we were 20 and 21 and grew up together.
We were married together for 22 years before
we separated. But I do believe that the acceleration
of my starting to live my truth within myself,
because I had still tried to integrate back into
the world, back into this role, like... into
this role as a PA and Western medicine and all
of that and just getting along in the world.
And I just, it didn't feel like it fit. There
was this like greater sort of calling I had of,
no, pay attention to this. It's like, it's about
the love. It's about the love. And I ignored
that for so many years. And when I finally started
to focus on just loving myself, coming from that
point of view, all of my interactions with my
patients, with my colleagues, with my family,
That's when my ex -husband started to sort of
go through his own transition in his life. We
just came to a point where we looked at each
other. We're like really good friends. And we're
like, you know what? It's probably best if we
live our lives separately. Him and my ex -mother
-in -law come for holidays and we have our daughter
together and we all get along. I love him. He's
a great person, but he wasn't my person as time
went on anymore. I wasn't his so it was just
kind of like okay. Well, let's let's go our separate
ways and still be really good friends What's
it like now being married to someone who also
is an experiencer? Well, it's fabulous because
well, not only is Ainsley like an amazing person
human being but he really gets it and we are
on the same sort of I wouldn't say level of understanding
because it's not like there's higher or lower
levels. It's just the depth of understanding
of who we are and why we're here. It's fabulous
because we can talk about all this stuff. It's
very comfortable, wonderful, expansive. I'm always
growing as a person with him. Yeah, it's been
such a gift. That's awesome. Okay, winding down
here. A couple last questions. Number one, how
much fear of death do you have right now? I'm
not afraid to die at all. I always quote this
Woody Allen line that he gives. I'm not afraid
to die. I just don't want to be there when it
happens. But that's assuming it's going to be
something horrible. And death is a beautiful
transition, my gosh. You know, we talk about
birth, and it's the same for death. And I've
been in the presence of the time when some of
my patients have transitioned. And it gives me
chills just talking about it. I've gone to the
other side and come back. It's like, it's still,
it is a, it is a gorgeous, gorgeous process.
And I, I hope that I am in a place when I do
transition where I am with my family, because
I would love to just have that moment where I
get to say, bye, I'll see you on the other side.
But I've never really gone so, you know, watch
out for me. I'll still be visiting and letting
you know I'm around It'd be great to be in that
much control Yeah, when you transition over to
know here it comes so I can say the very very
last things smile Take a step through that door
Yeah Yeah, how do we bottle that up? That'd be
a good one. Lastly for those that maybe need
a little bit of a Oh, just a message of hope
today. They don't know whether they should believe
in the afterlife or not. What do you have to
say to them? Well, I can just share from my experience
that we don't ever really die. We transition
form. We just move from one state of energy to
another. What we leave behind is this temporal
existence where everything is transitory and
we go to another realm, whatever we choose, and
we get to experience what we experience there.
We have free will. We have the ability to choose.
We do get to experience the things that we imagine
death is like, because our expectations and our
beliefs, they do play a part in our experience.
For me, it was law of attraction in action, my
entire NDE. That was the overarching energy with
love. Krista, thank you a ton for being with
me today. I appreciate it. Thank you. This is
great. Thanks again for listening and sharing
this podcast. Don't forget to hit the follow
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at roundtripdeath .com. If you want to share
your near -death experience, or if you have questions
or comments about the show, send an email to
eric at roundtripdeath .com. Until then, I wish
you everything good that you're looking for in
this life and the next.