The sky was a bright blue and the air crisp, the perfect weather for a late afternoon stroll.
‘Give me 10 minutes,’ I called to my husband Brian as I ran in through the front door.
I’d just picked up our daughter Tatum, 13, who was now milling around looking for an after-school snack.
‘Are you ready yet?’ called Brian.
We’d been married for 30 years and always looked forward to a pre-dinner walk and a catch up.
Just then Brian’s phone rang.
‘That was Jeff,’ he said after a brief chat. ‘He’s passing by and wants to drop in to say hi. I said he could come for a walk with us.’
Ten minutes later, our friend Jeff’s car pulled up and we went out to meet him.
While Brian walked back to get his key, I turned to chat to Jeff.
‘You just can’t stop, can you?’ Jeff laughed, watching me sweep away dirt from our little rock garden.
I smiled back… and that was the last thing I remembered.
It was Jeff who watched, horrified, as I fell face-first into the rocks and crushed my face.
He said it was as though a switch had just been turned off.
‘Call 999!’ Jeff had shouted in a panic.
Brian came charging back out of the house to find me on the ground, unresponsive.
While I don’t remember any of this, Brian has to live with every horrifying second.
‘Tina, Tina, can you hear me?’ Brian screamed.
He frantically dialled 999 while Jeff started CPR.
‘Tina, come back to us,’ Brian begged.
As my eyes rolled back in my head and my face turned a strange shade of purple, Brian feared he’d lost me.
Jeff carried on with CPR, then turned to Brian, exhausted, and said: ‘I can’t do any more, mate. Can you take over?’
Brian continued, then eight minutes later the ambulance arrived.
The paramedics shocked me three times, watched by my terrified husband.
‘Did it work — have you got a heartbeat?’ Brian asked, desperately.
‘She’s not responding, I’m afraid, sir,’ said the paramedic.
They even hooked me up to a LUCAS machine, which carries out automatic chest compressions, but I still flatlined.
Loading me into the ambulance, everyone feared the worst.
‘Meet us at the hospital,’ the paramedic told my husband.
Brian bolted there, calling our four kids on the way.
In A&E, he sat anxiously in the waiting room, dreading what was to come next.
Finally, a doctor appeared.
‘Your wife is alive,’ he said.
Brian broke down and began to sob.
‘I didn’t think I had a wife any more,’ he cried to Jeff.
Apparently they had shocked me another two times in the ambulance, with no response.
But then they shocked me one last time at the hospital, and that’s when my heart finally started pumping again.
The doctor told Brian my hands had started to move, and I’d tried to pull the intubation tube out.
‘Her vital signs seem to be strong, but we’re going to sedate her and carry out some more tests,’ he said.
I was put into a medically induced coma and Brian was allowed to see me, along with our children Logan, Jordan, Jacob and Tatum.
While they held my hands and prayed, something amazing and unbelievable had happened to me on the other side.
I’d been considered dead on arrival at the hospital and the paramedics were about to give up.
But then they’d decided to shock me a sixth and last time.
It was just before this point that I remember seeing a bright, yellow light that looked like the sun.
I had an overwhelming feeling that I was in the presence of Jesus who was standing before some black gates and reaching out his arm to touch me.
But at exactly that moment, I felt a… BANG!
And I was shocked back to life. I remember feeling that I had to tell everyone what I’d experienced.
That was when I tried to pull the tube out.
But I wasn’t out of the woods yet…
Doctors feared I’d wake up brain-damaged.
‘She was a long time without oxygen,’ they told Brian. ‘You should prepare yourself for the possibility that she might have a brain injury.’
That night family and friends gathered at the hospital hoping and praying I would be OK.
I was kept under sedation until the following morning, when they started trying to wake me up.
Brian and the children were sitting round my bed, willing me to consciousness.
‘We don’t know what to expect,’ the doctors warned Brian.
But after a few minutes, I made a gesture as if to say: ‘What’s going on?’
Brian said gently, ‘Babe, you’ve had a heart attack, you’re in the hospital.’
Everyone grasped my hands but I knew I had to do something.
‘Dad, I think Mum wants to write something,’ Jacob, 20, said.
He grabbed his college backpack and pulled out a notebook and pen.
Jacob held the book to my hand and I could feel Brian put the pen between my fingers.
Despite still being fully intubated and hooked up to the machine, I concentrated as hard as I could to send my message.
After 30 painstaking minutes, I managed to write: IT’S REAL
‘What’s real, Mum?’ asked Tatum. ‘Do you mean hospital?’
I slowly shook my head.
‘Do you mean the pain is real?’ asked Brian.
Again, I shook my head.
Then Tatum piped up: ‘Are you trying to say “heaven”, Mum?’
I nodded in relief, still unable to open my eyes.
Jacob asked: ‘Did you see Jesus?’
Again, I nodded with as much strength as I could muster.
That afternoon, doctors removed the intubation tubes, and I opened my eyes and tried to talk for the first time.
I was so happy, oblivious to what my family had just been through.
‘I was in heaven,’ I finally managed to whisper.
‘What was it like, babe?’ asked Brian.
‘It was beautiful, calm and peaceful. I’m no longer afraid of dying,’ I replied.
When I heard what had happened to me, I couldn’t believe it.
I’d felt no pain when I collapsed, but I was in agony now because my chest bone had been broken from the CPR.
Still, it was a small price to pay for my life.
Doctors monitored my progress and couldn’t believe my recovery.
I started trying to get out of bed the following day and even managed to walk and talk.
But they had news.
‘We need to implant a pacemaker to make sure this doesn’t happen again,’ the doctor said.
‘Will it show?’ I asked.
‘We’ll try to put it under the muscle so it won’t stick out!’ he replied, smiling.
Later that day they wheeled me into surgery to implant the device.
Then, four days after dying for 27 minutes, I walked back through my own front door.
With me was the note I’d scribbled as I was coming round… IT’S REAL.
‘You were barely conscious,’ Brian told me. ‘How were you able to do that?’
‘I just had an overwhelming need to tell you what I’d seen on the other side,’ I replied.
I’d never been one for tattoos, but not long after my niece Madie came to see me.
‘I’d like to get your eerie message inked on to my wrist,’ she said.
‘Of course — you should,’ I told her.
I’m no longer afraid of dying when my time comes — I just don’t want to leave my loved ones behind.
Brian jokes that now I have a pacemaker, I’ll probably live to be 120 and be the last one left.
I’ll be begging the doctors: ‘Please turn it off — I just want to go now.’
