Alex Ferrari 0:00
Tell me what your life was like before you died.

Mike Ben Avi 0:08
I was working as a correctional officer at the maximum security prison, Bernard, Illinois. That was just put it that way-a place that drains all your mental and emotional energies and exchange them with bad ones, whether you want it or not, whether you believe in it or not. You know, I came in there this happy guy with this old life, just coming in there for the money, for the challenge, for helping the community. But I was never the spiritual type. I was the complete opposite. I was in fact a rebel. I was very materialistic. And every day I walked in there, I truly saw the underworld of our reality of our generation. Like you see things that the general public is not supposed to see. See a lot of people think about 3500 of the worst criminals of the state of Illinois, and amongst them, there are some people who also dealing with mental issues, and and and everything is criminalized. And there's a lot of agony. There's a lot of pain. There's a lot even a sympathy in a way for those who really just ended up there by making a mistake. So there's a mixed emotions that you soak in every time you go, and in your head you're trying to convince yourself, oh, it's just a job, but it wasn't to me. It was draining me slowly to a point when I couldn't sleep after my shifts. I was a night guy. I was working at nights, sometimes 14 hours, because we were very short on manpower, so we were doing mandatory overtime. And I used to commute to work one hour each way in midwestern town, small town, tons of cornfields. The same drive every day back to work and from work. And one night it was a night shift that I remember. It was the night before the accident, and I remember that because in one of our breaks, see, we couldn't take any smoke breaks inside a prison, or we couldn't bring our cell phones inside the prison, so all of our breaks were outside. It was little hill that we used to all gather there, and in one of the breaks, like 3 a.m. I saw this beautiful shooting star. I think it was a meteor. It was something falling from the sky, and I remember I was just so shocked that for the first time in my life, I'm seeing something like that really coming down, and I was positive that everybody's going to talk about it in the news the morning after. That look, there's like a falling star, and it's like media or something. But it was very noticeable, at least to me and to my other friends. But instead, I was the one who made the newspaper, and I'm going to get to my story. So that morning, it was it was a Tuesday morning, so it was my technically my day off. I was I was not a senior officer. I was only there for two years, so my days off were Tuesdays and Wednesdays. So I was excited. Nobody could keep me there past my shift, and I was heading home just like a normal morning. And I remember I wasn't even I didn't feel tired. I didn't feel anything. I was actually uplifted. I was excited to go home, and start my two days off. And I remember driving the same road at Cornfield, surrounded road, and the speed limit was 70 miles per hour. So I was doing a speed limit, and all of a sudden, as I'm driving, I don't know if I dozed off for a minute. I don't know if I just closed my eyes. I don't. Everything happens so fast. But I remember that I'm driving, and then I open my eyes, and all of a sudden I lose control of the vehicle. My wheel locked, my brakes locked, and I felt like there was no hydraulic flute at all to to even work with. And here I am looking at the speed gage, and everything is happening so fast. And instead of the speed going down, it's going up from 70 to 75, 80 miles per hour. So really high speed, and I'm like, what's going on? And I can't control the vehicle.

Mike Ben Avi 3:56
And I'm like, and I'm aware, and I'm awake, and I have these few seconds to tell myself that I'm probably not going to make it out of it, and before I even get to do anything, I see this car coming right in front of me, and it was 7:00 a.m. Tuesday morning, and I could see that there was a mom and two kids. He's probably about to drop them off at school. From that moment on, I remember that I told myself that no matter what happens, I'm not going to hurt another person because of either I fell asleep or my mistake or whatnot. So with everything I had, I turned the wheel to the right, and for some reason it worked. And here I am heading into this concrete wall at 80 miles per hour. Now note that as close as closer as I get to the wall, time starts slowing down, and I'm realizing, like you know how they say that you can see your whole life passing through. So I didn't see my whole life, but time completely slowed down. Everything was slow motion, and the thing I remember the most. Is that I used to be a martial arts instructor for 20 years alongside working as a correctional officer. So I'm a guy that if I see danger, I'm usually reacting with my hands, with instinct, try to dodge, to block, just to you know, I got good instinct. And as I'm heading towards that utility pole or concrete or whatever it was, I'm just smiling. I'm not even worried. I have no fear. It's almost like I'm welcoming it. I'm almost like looking forward to it. And this is the first time that I realize there's two me's. I'm like, what's going on? Like, why are you not scared? Like, where's the part of you that would do that? That would jump out of the car or would try to do something. And instead, I'm sitting there and smiling, laughing, almost like telling myself, "Is this is how I'm going to go? Like in my uniform on my way back from work. Is this why I'm laughing? Is this why I'm smiling? But apparently, this is not why I was smiling. The reason was discovered years after. And then I remember getting into that wall, and I hear the the the big bang, the blast, and it was the loudest explosion I've ever heard in my life. And I've been in the military, so I've heard some explosions in my life. And and when I hit the wall, it was almost like a nuclear device was set off. And all I remember was the airbag starting to deploy, and it looked like it was like a sheet flying in the wind. It was like so beautiful. I'm looking at this airbag just slowly, slow motion, deploying, and this was it. That's all I remember until my experience started. Seconds after I open my eyes and I'm upside down, and I look around me and I'm completely crushed. If you had a chance to see pictures of the vehicle after the accident. I'm not sure if you did or not. So when you see that, you tell yourself, "How can a person possibly can come out of this alive? I was inside. Apparently, I was. I hit the wall, and then I rolled over five times in that high speed, and I ended up completely crushed. It's like a like a soda can that someone stepped on, and seems like most of the damage was on the driver's side. It's almost like it was aimed at the driver's side, and the car itself formed, and everything's documented on the video, like four metal swords type things, like forks. They're crossing each other, meaning like if the driver was there at the time of the accident, which is me, he would have been completely exactly hurt. So I'm I'm upside down and I'm seeing myself, and everything is crushed. It was the best feeling I have ever felt my entire life. First of all, I remembered everything. The second I opened my eyes, I remember me coming back from work. I remember me dozing off. I remember me losing control over the vehicle. I was awake and alert the whole time. The only time I was not was when I hit the wall. But when I woke up, I remembered everything.

Mike Ben Avi 7:55
So I knew I wasn't even dreaming or having a concussion. I knew that I wasn't seeing things. I remember that the most fascinating thing at the time was that there was no sound. And when I'm talking about silent, I'm talking about it's almost like something sucked out all the sound out of the world, and it's pleasant. You feel like it's it's it's peaceful, both physically and mentally. And then I'm looking at myself, and I'm like, how come there's no pain? There's no pressure. I mean, I'm. I know what happened. I see where I'm at, and I don't feel anything. And you'll, you'll know. You'll realize after that what I felt was real. And then I was trying to smell, and there was no smell. And I'm like, the only thing that's operating are my eyes. And I'm looking outside, and everything is the same. The cornfield is a little gray. It's a little depressing outside. There's nobody out. I mean, there's nobody out at the time. And then I realize that something happens. There's no sound. There's no pain. There's no smell. All of a sudden, I realize I have no thoughts. You know, in this consciousness, we always think. Even if we are the most relaxed, we can be in the remote island, relaxing. We'll still be thinking about how much we relax them or something. And all of a sudden, it's like everything was empty. I I just existed. I didn't have any thoughts. I was just there. It felt good. It felt myself. I felt warm. I felt like something was around me, but I didn't see anything, of course, until I picked out of the window. Because at one point I realized that I just want to get out of there, and I'm looking out the window, and all of a sudden I see that lady, and she's in her like mid 60s or something. And what I noticed about her the most is she she was dressed up all in black. She had a headscarf, but her clothes were like from the 1800s, 1700s. It was not modern clothes. It was not 2014 back when the accident happened. It was not none of that. And she's just walking there, pacing outside the car. It's like three feet outside my car, and I'm upside down looking. And she's just walking back and forth. And I remember that I couldn't speak because there's no sound. There's no. So I was just waving with my arms. I wave. I was waving for help. Hoping she'll close somebody, hoping she'll lose something, and all she did was just pacing and waving. No, just with her head, not just like that. And I kept trying. It was the same thing. And then there was the second time that I felt that I was not myself because the old me would get really mad really quick, would be really judgmental, would be probably just cussing and asking and screaming and be like, "What's going on? How can you not helping me? Panicking, and all of a sudden I'm looking at myself and I'm like, "No, I'm not judging you, lady. Maybe you're just scared. Maybe you know some people are afraid to do more harm than good by by approaching an accident. I was really not judging her. I was just thinking that she just doesn't want to get involved, and that's okay. And then I close my eyes. I remember because I wanted to get some some extra strength to try to get out, even though everything was just dream state like. And the second I closed my eyes, it wasn't even a split second. I open them, and everything comes back to life. It almost like a pause movie that you just replayed. Everything, the smells, the sound, the smoke. I felt the pressure of the car on me on my right leg, and people around me are just screaming and running. And I just remember that I'm like, "What happened? It was so good. Like, why? Why everything is just now activating? And the car smells like gasoline. I was like reaching out and turning off, and the car was still running. And I reached out and was like, "I didn't want to die in a fire or anything like that. So I was like, "I turned it off.

Mike Ben Avi 11:28
And people running, and I remember this paramedic just tackling the car, screaming through the window at me not to move. And I'm like, "Sir, I'm okay. I'm 100% okay. Just get me out of here. I was like, "No, we can. We got to call the firefighters to bring the jaws of life, and for those of you who don't know, the jaws of life are those hydraulic machinery that supposed to just rip the car open to extract pain passengers. And I'm like, I'm okay, sir, and he keeps screaming that I'm not okay and that I'm hallucinating, that I'm probably severely hurt because of how the car looked, and and they could tell. And then the firefighters came, and I'm closing my eyes, just missing that experience that I just experienced. I really wanted to go there and be there and understand what happened. And I'm hearing them drilling and cutting and ripping the car open and extracting me, and all of a sudden they're giving me a shot of morphine to my stomach, like against my wheel. Even like nobody asked me a question. They're just screaming at me not to move, and I realized that I have to play it again because I don't want them to restrain me or anything. I kept saying, "I'm okay. And next thing I remember is they're rushing me in an ambulance, of course, to the hospital, and I'm laying there, and and there was a sheriff lady writing a report, and I remember saying to her, "I said, you know, ma'am, can I ask you a question, please? And she replied that I know you know you need to rest. You just had a bad accident. You can talk to me later when I take a statement. And I said, well, I insist to ask you a question if that's okay. And she said, go ahead. And I said, isn't it against the law for a citizen not to help and not a citizen in distress? The lady that was walking outside the car, and and she was like, there was no lady there. We were the first in the scene. There was absolutely nobody there. And after they arrived, there's hundreds of people. But she said at the time we were first in the scene. And I remember telling myself like, huh, like this is getting weird. And I'm this is miracle number one. I'm getting to the hospital, and they're rushing me through everything. I felt like a VIP guest. Like they brought the MRI machines to me get a CT, so they take you to trauma. Trauma, unlike the ER, is like they do things really, really fast. There's no time to waste, and they check me from head to toe. And I'm laying there, and this professor, this doctor, comes to me and he said, "Listen, I've been here all these years. I've never seen anything like that. And I said, "What do you mean, sir? And he said, "You don't even have a broken nail, not even a bruise. I'm gonna have to let you go. So after like an hour and a half in the ER, after this accident, which if you'll see the pictures, you're not gonna believe that he said 99% of the people don't make it, and the 1% would be severely hurt and probably vegetables for the rest of their lives. And he sent me home. I'm telling you, I felt like I just took a shower, and I was like, I couldn't. You know, it was years of trying to understand what happened that day. It was the new soul molding into this old body. A good life to me is a life where you know that you are a soul that happened to have a body, and not a body that's still wondering whether it has or not doesn't have a soul. It's to know who you are. My mission in this life is to care for my loved ones and help anyone that I'm supposed to help help as part of their life journey and mine. And luckily, I've been doing it, and I've been doing it in ways that I don't get rewarded.

Mike Ben Avi 14:44
This is where I can feel like I'm giving from a place that something was taken from me, because to me, this is the true definition of giving. You gotta give and feel like something was taken from you. If I'm a billionaire and I give you a $5 bill, yeah, I give you. It's nice. It's a good deed, but I didn't really feel it. Was taken from me. If I'm broken, I'm giving you that's different. So this is why to give and give and give.