A Seattle IANDS Near-Death Experience Story

Her Blood Pressure Dropped to Zero
by Kris Williams

"Who am I?" That's what they wanted to know in the hospital when I returned from my near-death experience. Who am I? How does one answer that? A woman, I could say. But I could also answer that I'm a person who did construction plumbing and electrical work to support herself through school, where I then learned and taught metal design. I've also traveled all over the world, although I traveled more during what I now know is called "a near-death experience" than I have in my whole life.

On April 27, 1993 I was admitted to Northwest Hospital's emergency room in a coma, unable to keep down food, and my temperature was at 101. Apparently hit simultaneously by an influenza virus and a type of E-coli bacteria, my blood sugar level had soared to 976. For a diabetic, which I have been since the age of ten, a sustained level of 950 is almost certain death. My niece Judy, who's an RN, held my hand during this period and watched as my blood pressure dropped down to practically zero.

I didn't travel through a tunnel. I was just there. And there was Uncle Al, who had died of diabetic complications when I was ten. Since I had also had diabetes at that time, I had made the assumption that my life would be like his, that I too would grow, then die of diabetic complications at the age of 40. In the coma, at the hospital, I was now 40.

The first thing he said to me was: "This isn't your contract! It was my contract! Furthermore," he went on, "I didn't die of diabetes. The real cause of my death was that I missed Joyce." Joyce had been his wife, who had died a year earlier from tuberculosis. "I needed to go see her. And so I did. But you’re not tied to that 40 year limit if you don’t want to be." Then he said, "But the year I left, you discovered something physically about yourself that I knew about myself all along. And you took on all the contract, and you don't have to have that contract."

It seems like I'm describing "talking", but that word, and the other words of our sensory world, like "touching" and "seeing", are not even close to what I experienced. Communication seemed to take place all at once, not divided by words, and barely divided by individuals. Although I did experience thoughts with "individuals", that is only my brain trying to fit my experience into the language I know.

"Seeing" was vivid, so much so that being here is like participating in a black and white movie after having experienced color. However, what I "saw" wasn't bodies the way we think of bodies, but only shapes, as in shoulder profiles and head "shapes". There weren't any faces as we recognize them. They were more like shadows, or a thumbprint or a scuff.

Yet, I knew exactly who I was speaking to. I was speaking to my Uncle Eldon, who had died when he was three years old, before I was born. He talked to me about his life on earth, what it had been like, how short it had been. He talked about why he had come.

I was amazed that in terms of their "essence", there was no difference between those who I now recognize as alive, and those who are no longer on the earth plain. I was with many of my father's siblings: Mary, Ann, and Hank. My Grandpa Mitchel Shultz was there, with his brother Isaac. Each of them gave me messages for their children who are alive, and said "since you're going back," and I hadn't agreed yet, "we have some things we'd like you to tell them." They told me things that only they and their child could have known about. My job was to then deliver those messages.

During this near-death experience, I felt as though I was standing in a high place, and around me were thousands and thousands of people, as far as the eye could see, holding out their hands to me, in loving connectiveness, offering support. The closest I can explain it to you is that once I was in a crowd of 200,000 when Pavarotti sang in Central Park, New York City. It was like all of those people together listening to me. And they seemed to be saying, "Do what you need to do," while loving me no matter what choice I made, to stay or return. I had total choice, 100%. And I'll never forget that feeling, because I still have it. They are still there holding their hands out to me, all of them in loving support.

At the same time I was able to feel the tremendous amount of caring coming from the four people who took turns staying by my bedside at the hospital: my husband Hunter, my sister Kae, and Judy and Elizabeth.

A choice. I looked at it and decided that when you're from eternity, you know it's not going to be very long before you're back. Relatively speaking, it would just be a snap of the fingers. So, "Sure, I can do that. I can deliver those messages." And I returned to that cold slab of meat defined as my body. It was painful. There was too much of what I now knew that I was, stuffed inside too small of a container. My skin felt tight and drawn. My head throbbed from having to confine experience into language. I searched through the files trying to find words that BEST expressed what I knew.

In neurological tests for brain damage, the first thing they ask you is, "Who are you?" Inside and out, when they asked me that, I became lost and enthralled. "Yes," I said. "Who am I? Haven't I pondered this for centuries?" And off into eternity I searched. Noting my response, they wrote "Patient is not stable" on their little chart. When they'd left I finally asked my husband, "What did they want to know?" And he went, "Your name is Kris." "Okay, okay. I'll remember that one. I'll remember that one." So the next time they came in I said, "Okay, so I'm called Kris." I wouldn't say, "I am Kris." I said. "I am called Kris." Their response was, "Still has some brain damage." The next question they asked immediately was, "Where are you?" "Oh, God, where am I?", I wondered. But by the third hour after I'd returned from my NDE, and now the third time that they'd questioned me, I was ready for them, and very proud of my answer. I sat up straight in bed and named off on my fingers "Mercury, Venus, Earth!" I was so proud of myself! They shook their heads. "Still not coherent." I later discovered the answer was "hospital." They asked me what day I was born. After confirming to which parents, I proudly answered "Tuesday!" Later I discovered they really wanted the date of my birth.

Learning to speak again, learning to be here again, was like learning to be on what I call "The Flat Planet", a pancake reality where everything is kind of ironed out and two dimensional. And feelings. Even though I've been empathetic to other peoples' feelings my whole life, my sensitivity was boosted even more by me NDE. Rarely do I find people who have their channels tuned to one station at a time, who concentrate and are clearly in one state of being. Around most people I pick up what seems like a blaring boom box of four or five different radio stations of emotion at once. There have also been times, when my husband and I have been driving down the road, that I've not only been aware of the emotions of the people in the next car, but have been able to tell Hunter their complete life story. For a while this made me feel like I was going crazy.

I called my cousin Edith, who lives in the small town of Dallas, Oregon. My intent was to get together with her and a nearby uncle to communicate the messages they should receive. Unbeknownst to me, she called all the relatives on my fathers side of the family. When we gathered in June I was speaking to 35 of my relations at a picnic lunch.

My life's observation has been that Christian secularism can be very divisive. It has been so in my family. The three uncles who I was carrying messages for had been excommunicated from the same church attended by most of those at this picnic. It was a surprise, then, to discover that what I had to say became a healing experience for everyone. An unspoken message seemed to be heard by all, that we are part of a larger family.

It was interesting that my cousin Susan, for whom I had the most pointed message from my Uncle Al, was also the one who most easily tossed aside what I had to say, just as he'd predicted she would. But he'd said, "Tell her anyway. She'll think about it." Some of the telling was painful, some of it poignant. My cousin Edith, who misses my Aunt Mary very much, needed to hear what Aunt Mary said to tell her, that "The glass is very thin, and you're just on the other side of the one-way mirror. I can always see you. It's just sometimes you only see yourself when you look out at the mirror."

Then there was the message from my Uncle Al to me. That I had chosen a path I didn't need to choose. That believing I would die at the age of 40 from diabetes could bring it about.

One of the memories I returned with from my near-death experience was of almost dying when I was three days old. I asked my mother about this and she said, "Yes, we came into your room, and you weren't breathing." My parents were very devoutly Christian, and threw themselves on their knees, begging God to let me stay. And I did, only for them. But in coming back and being here, I remembered that this is not my first choice, but my second choice to be here. And it is only a little time.

Editor's note: Kris Williams died on November 16, 1993. Her husband Hunter said that while she was in the hospital for dialysis treatment, she passed away from a heart attack. The medical team working on her at the time was surprised that resuscitation efforts were having no effect. Hunter, watching their efforts in the recovery room, forced his way in and told them that if they wished to have any chance of bringing her back, they should allow him to touch his wife. They did. For three years Hunter and Kris have practiced kinesiology on each other, a form of muscle testing that allows questioning of the inner self of the other person about its reactions to almost any circumstance. At this point all vital signs had stopped. As Hunter approached Kris, however, her heart beat resumed momentarily. But when he asked Kris the baseline question, "Can I perform muscle testing on you?", the response was definitely negative. He honored this wish and did not proceed further. Then Kae, Kris's sister, approached and said aloud to the medical team that she wished she could talk to her sister. A nurse responded ,"That's fine. We know they can hear you." The heads of the rest of the team nodded in agreement. So Kae said aloud that she wished Kris would stay, that she really loved Kris, that she wished she could be there with them. They got a heart beat. Resuscitation efforts resumed, but unsuccessfully. Kae believes Kris was trying to say "I hear you." At this point Kae and Hunter informed the medical team that they believed that they were not only dealing with a broken organ, but a spirit that wasn't desirous of returning.

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