Show Notes
Heavenly Basketball Game With Stepdad! What really happens in the moments after your heart stops? This episode of Round Trip Death brings together two guests with strikingly different connections to the same profound mystery: the near death experience. ________________________ Get 15% off OneSkin with code ROUNDTRIP at https://www.oneskin.co/ROUNDTRIP #oneskinpod #sponsored __________________________ Host Eric sits down with Makai Calles — a journalist turned filmmaker who himself had a childhood NDE after a venomous scorpion sting in Mexico — and Bubba Herrick, a former college baseball pitcher whose routine elbow surgery turned into a full-blown clinical death. Makai wrote and hosted the new documentary Final Hours, and his own near-death experience as a seven-year-old set him on a lifelong path of investigating others' stories, including Bubba's. Bubba's account is the heart of this episode — and it's a wild one. After an allergic reaction to anesthesia stopped his heart on the operating table, he describes floating above his own body, undergoing an intense 360-degree life review filled with guilt and unexpected anger at himself, and then being pulled into a breathtaking realm of pure light. There, his deceased stepfather appears — not with words, but with a basketball, recreating a childhood memory in real time. Their telepathic "game" becomes the vehicle for a message about purpose, responsibility, and reluctant return. The conversation digs into why so many NDE experiencers report depression and grief after coming back, how life priorities shift dramatically post-experience (career changes, fading fears, even divorce), and why guilt-driven life reviews like Bubba's are actually the exception rather than the rule. Equal parts eerie, emotional, and hopeful, this episode asks the big question the show is built around: if these accounts are real, what do they tell us about fear, death, and how we're meant to live right now? VIDEO VERSION RoundTripDeath.com Donate to this podcast: https://www.roundtripdeath.com/support/ Makai's Film "Final Hours": https://www.theepochtimes.com/epochtv/final-hours-is-death-really-the-end-6027582
More from Round Trip Death Podcast - NDE
What happens when your heart stops for over ten minutes and you come back not just unharmed, but “upgraded”? Rosemary Thornton joins host Eric Bennett, to share her Near Death Experience (NDE), which followed a botched surgical biopsy. ____________________ Podcast listeners save 30% at Otter Spirit https://otterspirit.com/?ref=roundtripdeath Code: ROUNDTRIP30 Note: 30% off for orders over $99. 20% off for all other orders, use code: ROUNDTRIP20 ______________ Widowed by her husband’s sudden suicide and in deep despair, she describes floating into blackness, meeting a vast feminine presence who told her, “I’m the original,” and being washed in white mist before choosing to return. Her NDE experience had no tunnel or chimes, only wit, wholeness, and the message that God loves us as we are. Afterward, doctors found no heart or brain damage, and a second biopsy found no trace of her stage-two cancer. The conversation also explores the stigma suicide loss survivors face, their heightened risk, and how society often blames them instead of supporting them. A raw, funny, and moving listen for anyone curious about near death experiences (NDEs). If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) in the U.S. VIDEO version now available on Apple Podcasts and YouTube ______________________ RoundTripDeath.com Donate to this podcast: https://www.roundtripdeath.com/support/
To mark the show’s 250th episode (in 4.5 years), host Eric Bennett is joined for the first time by his son Will, who edits the podcast and works behind the scenes. They look back on what they have learned from more than 250 interviews with people who have had a Near Death Experience. They also address listener feedback and the show’s future, which will include Will doing some of the interviews, a possible subscription option, and improvements from listener feedback. Among other topics, Eric & Will discuss common themes among NDEs, hellish experiences, how to tell the authenticity of near death experiences, God's unconditional love, and how NDE Experiencers no longer fear death. VIDEO version now available on Apple Podcasts and YouTube ______________________ RoundTripDeath.com Donate to this podcast: https://www.roundtripdeath.com/support/
Declared dead, zipped into a body bag, and headed for the morgue: that's where Vinney Tolman's NDE Experience begins. After accidentally overdosing on a supplement, Vinney collapsed in a locked Dairy Queen bathroom in Orem, Utah, and was found cold to the touch. Then a rookie medic broke protocol, ripped open the bag, and shocked his heart back to life just feet from the hospital doors, with Vinney floating above it all. ________________________ Get 15% off OneSkin with code ROUNDTRIP at https://www.oneskin.co/ROUNDTRIP #oneskinpod #sponsored __________________________ He saw golden light glow around the rookie's heart. Host Eric Bennett calls it one of the most amazing NDE stories he's ever heard. Vinney's Near Death Experience carried him through a life review, a radiant guide, angels, and a heaven where every blade of grass poured out more love than all the parents on earth combined. After three days brain dead, he woke at 1:11 a.m., tore off life support, and sent two nurses screaming as he hit the elevator button, determined to go home. Hours later, he was out jogging! This is one of the most remarkable NDE (near death experiences) you will ever hear. VIDEO version now available on Apple Podcasts and YouTube ______________________ RoundTripDeath.com Donate to this podcast: https://www.roundtripdeath.com/support/ Our first interview with Vinney: https://www.roundtripdeath.com/301-vinney-tolmans-nde-after-being-dead-15-hours-part-1/
When Science Meets Spirit: A Near Death Experience That Bridges Two Worlds. Biochemist, cancer researcher, and lifelong martial artist Crystal Cassidy joins host, Eric Bennett to share an NDE experience that began in March 2020. After months of premonitions, she became critically ill with COVID, was hospitalized in isolation, and had to say goodbye to her husband. As a cytokine storm took hold and her nervous system began to fail, she reached a moment of deep surrender, "a giving over" rather than giving up. In response, a "loving intelligence" arrived and activated her energy centers, and she found herself back in her body without pain. Crystal's near death experience took an unusual turn when she began seeing glimpses of a medieval man's life, which she believes was a past life or a simultaneous timeline. She describes how her own healing seemed to change his story. Crystal also explains how her analytical, scientific mind has come to reconcile with her spiritual experiences, why she thinks science and spirituality are converging, and how people can lessen their fear of death through meditation and direct experience. VIDEO version now available on Apple Podcasts and YouTube RoundTripDeath.com Donate to this podcast: https://www.roundtripdeath.com/support/ Crystal Cassidy: https://www.soulpodapp.com/
Is this an NDE? You Decide... What if you spent eight and a half years trapped inside a body you no longer recognized—and then, in a moment when doctors thought you were gone, something brought you back? Elena’s story begins with a devastating head injury, years of unexplained symptoms, and a family desperately searching for answers. Then, during a medical crisis, everything suddenly changes. After an unexpected response to treatment, Elena begins remembering things she hadn’t been able to remember in years—and tells her daughter about an experience that she insists was not a dream. During her NDE, she heard thunder. She found herself in complete darkness. Then a voice spoke to her, telling her, “I am your Father,” and promising to wake her up. What happened next left Elena convinced she had encountered God—and that she had been given another chance for a reason. Was it an NDE, a dream, a neurological event, or something far more mysterious? In this unforgettable episode, Ricky and Elena share a deeply personal Near Death Experience, the strange details surrounding it, and the remarkable journey that followed. It’s an NDE Experience that raises some big questions about consciousness, faith, miracles, and what might happen when we reach the edge of life. VIDEO version now available on Apple Podcasts and YouTube RoundTripDeath.com Donate to this podcast: https://www.roundtripdeath.com/support/ Rikki Jo Neyer: https://www.rikkineyer.com/