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. We're so happy that you're
here and we're happy to introduce today's guest,
Ned Barnett, coming to us from Henderson, Nevada.
How are you, Ned? Doing fine, thank you. People
are going to be so intrigued with your near -death
experience. I promise it's different than anything
you've ever heard before. We'll jump into that
just momentarily, but before we do, I want everybody
to get to know who Ned is. So you realize he
is a real live human being. So Ned, just tell
me a little bit about you. I have all my professional
life. I have been a writer doing public relations,
advertising and marketing for my clients or employers.
And when I hit 65 and had Social Security coming
in, I said, the market's not as profitable, but
it's where my heart is. So I started working
with authors. I have published 41 books. 19 of
them were ghostwritten for clients who wanted
a book, whether story told, but didn't know how
to do it. So I've been successful at that. And
it's been a real treat. Authors are very interesting
people, not me necessarily, but the ones I work
with are. And just coincidentally, my wife has
her master's in communication and had been a
book editor. So I started working with my clients
through her. So the final books that they published
were professionally edited, high quality. My
wife and I have had a wonderful relationship.
I've been married 50 years, but that took three
marriages to do it. The first one. was a learning
one and I made all the mistakes and you know
if I could go back and do it over again it would
have been a wonderful marriage. My ex -wife is
a wonderful person. We've become friends, kind
of bonded because our son's a little hard to
manage and we commiserate on that. My second
one was well she had suffered a number of tragedies
and eventually wound up taking her own life because
she was We'd lost a son, and she'd lost a son
from an earlier marriage. She couldn't handle
it. While we were together, she was being medically
treated by a surgeon. She was getting eye problems.
And he would put in, literally shooting her eyeball,
a dye that would then, you know, he could look
in and see what was going wrong. She started
showing allergic symptoms and we told him that
and he didn't change it. Then he gave her one
more and she basically went into a near -death
experience. That was my first exposure to near
-death. She became psychic because of that. And
I've not been a big believer in psychic, but
she was able to wear things like she knew two
weeks in advance. what the episode next episode
of star trek next generation would be we're both
star trek fans but she knew it in advance and
told me we realize this we started writing it
down and checking it out she was finally written
up in a very prestigious paranormal magazine
and it was called suddenly psychic because this
near -death experience this is getting bizarre
before we even get going. That's okay. We're
going to have fun today. I want to hear about
your experience. And this was just eight years
ago. And I know you had sepsis. Could you tell
us just briefly what led up to that to you getting
so sick? Well, I had a bladder infection, a chronic
one that kept coming back. It wouldn't respond
to treatment. I had had some radiation treatment
for a medical condition and it burned and scarred
the bladder and that made it prone to these infections.
And I was under treatment for it, but it wasn't
working for a year and a half. And then one day
it got really bad, which led to sepsis, which
is basically a blood infection. So it goes everywhere
and it can be fatal, as I quickly found out.
And it attacks all your organs. So it's not something
you want to have. So anyway, I was on my way
to meet a client at the Starbucks in Barnes and
Noble. because I was dealing with writer clients.
I like to meet in a bookstore, just the right
atmosphere for it. And I fell four times going
from my car into Barnes and Noble. I said, this
isn't right. So I just turned around, drove home,
told my wife what was going on, and called an
ambulance and rushed to the hospital. We barely
got it right because I was in the ER and they
were trying to deal with this when I died on
the table. and they were able to bring me back.
And then I died again, and these two doctors
who were working on me thought they wouldn't
be able to bring me back. I was dead and they
were ready to, you know, call it, you know, code
it, time it, and all this kind of stuff. Coincidentally,
and coincidences play a great role in my life,
these two doctors, they had been my kidney doctor
and my heart doctor for several years. We had
relationships. They knew who I was. And I think
they were really trying because there was that
bond there. They were doing things that made
no sense, but one of them worked and they brought
me back. So I survived both times. Months later,
separately, I talked to each of them separately
at my next appointment with them. And they said,
you know, you died twice on the table. They hadn't
told me this at the time. The second time, we
didn't think we were going to bring it back.
We tried everything and it just wasn't working.
But apparently something worked. And so I was
there. And that helped me to shape the experience
I had because while I was under, while I was
dead, I lived three different lives. And this
would have been the second time because I was
dead for quite a while. And this is the part
that people are going to have a little bit of
a hard time wrapping their minds around. I don't
even know what to say. This is very unusual.
And I want to break it out so that it's clear.
for all of us to understand. Would it make sense,
Ned, if we just start with out of the three lives,
were they happening simultaneously? And let's
start with number one and let's go through it
and then we'll go from there. Does that sound
good? Sure. They were not simultaneous. They
came one after the other and they were very different,
but each one had a focus and a message. that
as I now understand, okay, I was dead when this
happened. That really caught my attention. The
first one, I was creating things from my mind,
not like some science fiction weird thing where
I could beam it in there, but I would come up
with these ideas and I could create them and
share them with other people. I wasn't doing
it for economic gain. I was just sharing things
with other people. I think this was an influencer
on me changing my career path from corporations
to individual writers that I could help one way
or another. What was weird was I existed in this
plane, but it was kind of a gray area. There
was no ground, there was no ceiling, no walls,
just floated around. Other people floated around
too. And we were able to connect one with the
other. in this realm and this is where I got
ideas that I could then create and then bring
them into physical existence and then share them
with other people. Most part of it was it was
creative, very creative, really excited me in
this space and time and floating around was like
being in outer space with no gravity except there
was not even the appearance of like stars and
blackness which is all light gray. That motivated
me to want to be creative and to help other people
benefit from that creativity. And so I started
working with authors, either ghost writing their
books or helping them write it or marketing it
so it would sell well so other people would get
it. And I got personal validation doing that.
I made a living. It wasn't a fantastic living,
but it was enough. So that was the first one.
Can I ask you a couple questions before you move
on to the next one? Was there anything else you
wanted to clarify in that first one first? Well,
it seemed like I lived a long life. I was very
comfortable where I was. It wasn't like, wow,
this is strange. I felt like it was really, I
was really there. It was really happening on
another plane. I lived in it. I don't know how
long it went on, but it felt like I lived that
way for years. It wasn't like a brief moment.
And so I had experience with a lot of ideas and
a lot of people coming to me. They bring their
ideas to me that I can manifest into the world
or they came to me and wanted one of the ideas
that I had developed. It was a blissful, positive
place and I was being able to work with people
and help people and go forward with it. Have
you tried to put any name on this place? Some
people, where they go, they'll call heaven, or
they'll call a void, or they'll call it something
else. Have you done that? It would be a void
more than heaven. I'm a believer. I'm not an
evangelist, but I am a believer, and I was then.
It didn't have religious overtones. It wasn't
like in Revelation where you have you know, the
angels and the believers and the thrones and
all that kind of stuff. It was just this place
of peace and tranquility. And it wasn't like
there was no God, it just wasn't a factor in
this experience that I had. And you're floating.
Do you remember seeing anything? Was it light?
Was there like an earth or planets? Or what did
you see besides other people, you said? It was
like I see other people. And things that I created
were physical. And as I said, I didn't manifest
them through my mind. I actually built them,
assembled them, then say, here's how to do this.
Anybody wants it, here it is. I didn't go into
manufacturing them because I wanted anybody could
take them and do what they want with them. That
was it. It just didn't, you know, it wasn't like
a production line. But these ideas you had were
things that applied to earth life here. They
didn't apply to some heavenly spiritual kind
of experience. No. Interesting. The people that
I saw who drifted into my realm of existence,
there was no propulsion or anything. There was
no way to walk. They were there. They were just
like you and me. They looked dressed in normal
clothing. They had personalities and things like
that. They were real people. They treated me
and I treated them like real people. But it was
in a place where there was no competitiveness.
There was no... negativity or hostility, it just
wasn't like it wasn't possible in that place.
I really hadn't thought about it until you asked
that question because I only looked at it from
from my perspective, which is why I was there,
experienced it still. I didn't know what questions
to ask. Are there any other adjectives you could
put to how you felt? I felt wonderful. I felt
relaxed. I felt creative, not in a competitive
sense, but just in, you know, Here's something
I can do. Other people were creative and they
helped me with their, you know, things they were
doing that I wanted to know more about her to
do. It made me think that I knew what being in
space was, you know, in that it was kind of a
weightless thing. But it had, you know, it didn't
have a sky and a planet down below or anything
like that. It was just this white, almost dove
color. You know, dove gray is just a soft white
gray. Do you have any recollection of how you
got there or how you went from this to experience
number two? No, it just started and then it stopped
but there was no sense of starting or stopping.
I mean I was doing it and then it was gone and
the next one started up, seemed to start up right
away. Okay, let's go with that one. What happened
there? This is the one that I have the least
memory of because I think it was about My life
as I was living it right then. And I was doing
things that anybody would do in their normal
life. I was resolving things that I hadn't known
I needed to be resolved. But it was a normal
place. You know, there was a floor, there was
a ceiling, there were walls. You could look out
the window and see the sunlight or the moon.
It was a normal place. And I was doing normal
things. But it wasn't as Ned Barnett. It was
just... who I was then. So there's not a lot
to remember there, but I think I was probably
being shown ways that I can live my life better
than I was because after all this was done, I
was doing better emotionally, spiritually, and
eventually physically when I recovered from the
sepsis. So there's not much there to say, but
it helped me improve my life. It helped me see
things. Just as the... first one helped me to
see that I had something to give to other people
to help them in their journeys wherever they
were going and that that was something positive
and rewarding and that helped me shift my business
focus to working with individual writers who
had either they could write but not through professional
standards or they didn't think they could write
at all but they had their own compelling story
to tell and I just for instance helped a woman
in the Midwest who was running for governor of
her state to do a campaign biography. It was
actually an entertaining and informative autobiography,
but I wrote it for her. Everybody needs something
different. Yeah. But I can't talk a lot about
that one because it really is not something I
can stick really cling to. It was a transition
from the one to the next one. The third one was
the most active and most Interesting and you
know to me in a variety of ways. I would like
to move on to that one Yeah, give me all the
detail you have I was in this third place and
it was like the real world But I was kind of
a larger -than -life person. I physically manifested
as about six five and not skinny Whereas normally
I'm five nine and could lose a few pounds Anyway,
I was in this place and I had two parallel jobs.
They work together. One of them was I was a hostage
negotiator. And if that didn't work, I would
lead a SWAT team in to recover, save people who've
been kidnapped or trapped, something like that.
People in real trouble, you know, school shooters
in the school, something like that. And I was
there to go and resolve it. And this was a very
active thing to be doing. very rewarding, but
it was dangerous and it was crisis -filled and
I was able to save people and that meant a lot.
The other thing I was, was I was a reality TV
program host and created a producer and what
I did in this TV program was go in and rescue
people. So as I'm preparing to go, you know,
rescue somebody or grab a school shooter and
stop the violence, Rather than just doing that,
I was creating these TV episodes. I didn't care
about the fame, but it was wildly famous. It
was successful. And that's where people knew
to contact me because they had seen me in action.
So I would go in leading the charge to rescue
somebody. Well, I have a microphone in my hand,
you know, and a Steadicam, a guy with a Steadicam
with me. You know, we charge into these places.
And I had a crew with me, but, you know, I was
the leader then. I don't know where the two come
together except that I can have an impact in
my life and I can also document it and share
it with people so that they can see those experiences
and understand them better. But it was a lot
of fun. It was actually, I mean, it was adrenaline
and all this kind of thing. In episode number
three, or let's call it experience number three.
Were you still in this floaty kind of place that
you were in number one or was this more of a
reality 3D kind of physical place? Reality 3D
kind of place. You know, it could have been in
Minneapolis at that, you know, the shooter who
attacked all those children, you know, in the
church that was attached to the church school.
I wrote an article that was published today about
that and about that one in Nashville, which is
also a church school. It was published earlier
today on American Thinker. But anyway, it was
real. It was very real. If I tripped and stumbled,
I would skin my knee and it would hurt. You know,
I had all my senses going, and there was danger.
You know, I knew the danger, yet I was, you know,
I was not only willing to do it, I was drawn
to do it. I wanted to save people, not in a spiritual
sense, but in a whole life situation. I was...
people who were being held hostage were liberated
and freed and able to get, you know, the physical
health and mental health they'd need because
those things do scar people. But then I go into,
you know, it was a lot of glory. I went on to
do the next one. And when I was doing the ones
for, you know, TV, as soon as it was resolved,
I would go and edit the videotape. And as a professional
journalist in early life, I used to do weekend
camera work for Channel 10, Columbia, South Carolina.
And they'd send me out with a camera and I'd
find something and shoot it and then rush back
to the studio, you know, have it developed while
I wrote the script for it. And then the newscaster
would read it on the six o 'clock news. It was
that kind of reality. but larger than life. Tell
me was there a time when this experience you
felt like it ended somehow? Like some people
feel in their NDE like they're out of their body
and all of a sudden they're put back in their
body. How did yours end? That's a great question.
You know in our exchange earlier I forgot to
mention this. There was a time before the first
one started where I was in a room but I was trying
to help people being stymied by it. But what
I remember was there was this really unusual
pattern in the ceiling in this room of big rectangular
white spaces and really vivid black spaces. And
it was haunting me. It was, it was, I couldn't
understand what it was, but it was haunting me.
People were chasing me. I was trying to hide
from them and I needed to get back to my wife.
Those were the things I remembered in this time
frame. I was driven to try to get a hold of my
wife, tell her I was okay. And I was also hiding
from people who I did not want to have to deal
with. They were a threat and I didn't want to
go there. That led me into this empty space.
It was a transition. That was where I went from
the world into this place. And I had the idea
that I was in a hotel. that had convention hotel.
I don't know why I thought that, but that was
it. There were people at the convention that
were there to do me harm. So I wanted to stay
away from them. But I really needed to get a
hold of my wife. And then when I came out of
the third one, I was back into that kind of a
space. And I was still trying to get a hold of
my wife. And I realized that I was like 41 miles
away from her. I was in a specific part of the
Las Vegas Valley, and to get from there to where
she was, 41 miles away, and I had to get out
of this hotel, and if I couldn't find a car,
I'd walk. I had to do whatever I could to get
a hold of her. When I finally came out of all
of this, I realized it was not a hotel. It was
the ICU of the hospital I was in. I didn't know
this at all at first. As it was ending at the
other end, as I started coming out of it, I realized
that I was in a hospital. It finally dawned on
me that I was not in a hotel. I was in a hospital.
But I still had this overwhelming need to go
and contact my wife. And I asked the nurses,
give me a phone. I got to call my wife. And they
said, no, no, we're not gonna do that. We don't
have phones in this room and we're not gonna
do that. And I thought and struggled to get out
of there. So I could find a phone somewhere in
the building and call her just to tell her I
was okay. I didn't learn it from the nurses.
They were both from the Philippines or Cambodia,
something like that. They had a very poor relationship
with the English language. Also, they were not
really interested in helping me. I didn't realize
I was in an ICU. I just knew I was in a hospital.
I struggled to get up and get out of there. And
they were really harsh on it. And then later
when I became aware and talked to my doctor who
was there, he said, well, if you'd succeeded
in that, you would have ripped out the tubes
and you would have died before anybody could
save you. That's how it kind of petered out.
And then the next day I was able to call my wife.
I didn't know that they'd been able to get a
hold of her, you know, from when I went. to the
ER, but she knew what hospital was at and she
talked to nurses. But I didn't know that and
I was just desperate to get a hold of her, to
tell her that I was okay and that when this is
all done, I'd come back. Okay, now is the hard
part of my job. I have to play devil's advocate
for just a second because there are always some
people that are skeptical. Some of them might
say, sounds like a dream. Ned, you were asleep,
you had a dream. I have dreams like that. Tell
me how you know this was different than that.
Well, for one thing, it couldn't have continued
more than three or four minutes in the real world
because otherwise I would have been brain dead
from lack of oxygen. And as I said, the two doctors
tried desperately to help me. One of the things
they did was they put me on dialysis, but dialysis
is a four or five hour treatment. And one of
them doesn't just solve everything. And this
had to turn around in a very short period of
time or they would have had to pronounce me dead.
Because if you go four or five minutes without
oxygen, there's really not much left there. So
I knew it had to be unworldly experience because
I couldn't have just even done these things if
I had to play out over the time period. Each
one of them seemed like it was a big chunk of
my life. weeks or months, maybe more. I mean,
it wasn't just one moment's experience. Each
one of them in their own way continued over a
period of time. So when I came out of it, I couldn't
have done that in a dream because, you know,
there wasn't enough time. That makes sense. And
you know from your doctors you were clinically
dead. Yes. Yeah, twice. How does an experience
like this change you? Most people are not the
same after it. Do you feel like there's a sort
of a NED 2 .0 going on now? How are you different?
Well, in a number of ways. First of all, right
after this I was inspired to stop working for
corporations. Not that there's anything wrong
with that and I was good at it and it was fulfilling,
but I wanted something that would nurture my
soul and not just my wallet or my ego. And after
that first experience, the first one, of creating
things in my mind and then giving them to others.
I can't think of a better way of describing writing
a book, whether it's fiction or non -fiction.
And I write both. And I started working on projects
I'd let go years before, bringing them back into
life. And some of them have been published. But
that was one thing. And I was helping people.
With my creativity is helping people. And that
meant something. Then the second one. I was living
my life from a more positive perspective. There
was nothing specifically memorable, but things
were going my way because I was trying to help
others instead of just helping myself. And then
the third one, rescuing people, hostages, saving
their lives, and then also being able to put
it in, you know, on a TV show, which is, you
know, a book in another format. So I was saying,
okay, I'm gonna help people, I'm gonna save people,
not in a spiritual sense, but in a physical sense.
And then, you know, I'll tell the world so other
people can maybe be helped the same way. So yeah,
it changed my whole life. And now I work with
people who are, you know, have a great idea,
but they're financially strapped. And where for
one client, it might be $3 ,500 a month. I might
do it for somebody else for $1 ,500 a month because
that's all they can afford. And I wanted to help
them to bring their dreams to reality. For my
time as PR and marketing and advertising, what
I was trying to do was helping other people make
their dreams come to life. I was promoting them,
not me. And so then they were able to improve
what they were doing and improve themselves.
And that was rewarding to me emotionally. Bringing
ideas into the world that hadn't been there and
get helping other people to open their eyes and
see how they can help themselves That's another
time that I thought was you know, another way
I was really doing it. So yes, my whole life
changed It wasn't just dramatic on day one. I
did this but after this my wife Fell and broke
her back was in the hospital for six weeks and
then another four weeks shortly thereafter I
decided I'd get back into writing books because
It's tough when you're married and suddenly you're
alone in the house, even though you know she's
going to be coming back and all that. It's just
tough. And it was something I could do with my
time, and I did, and that's when I really got
involved in active and aggressive writing, both
for clients and for myself. A few minutes ago,
you referred to yourself as a believer. Do you
mind telling me what that means? I'm a believing
Christian. I try to live my life with Christian
tenets. And when I find myself backsliding, and
I find this usually with things like, you know,
suddenly the clients dry up and I'm wondering
how I'm going to pay the rent, praying to God
that I was trying to do it all on my own and
that's not going to work. I need your help. And
I've always, you know, managed to have something
come through that would help me achieve my goals.
A number of the books I've ghostwritten for people
were Christians who had specific beliefs that
they wanted to share with the world one of them
was on small talk Which said you don't want to
waste your time with small talk. There's nothing
really there. It's a trap It'll suck you away
from leaving the light leading a life. You're
supposed to lead I Don't know that I agree with
that, but I I didn't disagree with it I was helper
glad to help her achieve that all right two more
quick things before I let you go one is How much
fear of death did you have? prior to this experience?
That is a wonderful, thank you, it's a wonderful
question. I was afraid of death. I had not experienced
it in my life. No, it had, I'd lost a son, so
I had experienced that and it was traumatic and
I wondered where he was and all this. I didn't
know what was going on. My wife had gone through
a near -death experience and I was there and
helped pull her back. So quite a bit of fear.
How about after this experience? I had no fear
because I realized that my life, the energy that
was me, not the body, but the energy that was
me, was going to go on. It was going to transition.
It was going to go on. After death, I live a
new kind of life. It was kind of like the first
experience. After the death of the world that
I had known and I was in this great place that
was floating around, I continued on. I was there
and I was able to do things that I wanted to
do. It wasn't like I lost all my opportunities.
I talked with other people who were people of
faith, and some of them sought that way. A lot
of them didn't. They feared death because they
didn't know where it was going. That exit situation
where I needed to reach my wife and tell her
I was okay, that was, you know, that was really
trying, you know, that's spiritual. I may die
someday. But I'll still be there. You don't have
to worry about that. I'll be there. And then
you'll die and you'll still be there and we'll
be together. So yeah, it took away all that.
I don't I'm not afraid of it anymore. I'm not
seeking it out. I'm not eager for it. But it
doesn't it's like it's just going to be I walk
through a door to another room. Yeah, I love
that analogy. Last thing, if there's somebody
out there struggling today with just not having
hope. in the future, or maybe they've lost a
loved one, or maybe they've been given some real
bad news today. What message of hope do you have
for them? Without being evangelical, I'd say
if you will go and read the book of Psalms and
pray over each one, because some of them are
going to be directly related to what you were
trying to do. When my wife took her own life,
I knew that she was in trouble for several weeks,
but I didn't know it was going to be that far.
But every night I would sit down and read the
book of Psalms, and I would read them as if they
were prayers, and I was changing them as I was
reading them to reflect her particularly, to
help her, to spare her. The answer to the prayers
was no. It's not right. When she died, I was
attending Episcopal Church in St. George, she
came out to do last rites for Carol. after she
died, and she said, I want to just tell you this,
I felt no evil there. She was in desperate need
and now she's in a better place. So don't worry
about that. Yes, suicide is not the best way
of handling things, but we're looking at it selfishly.
We lost somebody in a shot, but God's had a better
plan. So don't worry about it. If I was talking
to somebody, I'd say, do that, read the Psalms,
or if there's another book of the Bible you like,
Read it and try to understand it and pray on
it and you'll get help. If you ask for help from
God, He'll give it to you. He's waiting. Again,
I don't want to be evangelical. I'm not saying
be an Episcopalian or a Mormon or what have you,
but God's there for you if you're willing to
open yourself up to it. And if you're really
hurting, first of all, I'll pray for them, but
I'll also encourage them to pray for themselves.
because if they embrace that, that's a direct
pipeline. If I pray for them, it's an indirect
pipeline, and they're not actively involved in
it, so it may be harder for that to help them.
Ned, I really appreciate your time today. When
you go from a whole bunch of fear of death to
zero fear of death after an experience, to me
that says everything. That says to people who
haven't been through it, hey, get rid of some
of that fear. Okay, you don't need it. You don't
need to carry that with you. We can believe in
what's coming next and that's okay. So anyway,
Ned Barnett, appreciate it. Thank you. Eric,
I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you. Thanks
again for listening and sharing this podcast.
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that you're looking for in this life and the
next.