Divine Encounters Episode 108 | Near-Death Experience Story
Robert Marshall says he was a man with a growing mass on his neck, struggling to breathe, when he walked into a Fort Worth emergency room and, according to his medical records, died three times. In this Divine Encounters episode he tells Alex Ferrari about the first two, a vivid heaven with a melodic hum in the trees, a reunion with his father, and a message about faith he brought back.
Key Takeaways
- Robert says he went to an emergency room on May 17 with severe trouble swallowing and breathing, and that his oxygen reading was about 88 to 89 percent.
- He says a mass on his neck blocked his airway after a breathing tube was removed, and his heart stopped for about 15 minutes of CPR.
- He describes hovering over his body, then, within seconds, standing in heaven without any tunnel.
- He says every tree and flower gives off a melodic tone, all combining in a song of praise, and that the light of Jesus lights up all of heaven.
- He describes meeting his father, who looked about 35 or 36, and hearing their old family joke.
- He says he was told how to approach Jesus, then was pulled back into his body before he could.
- He says he died a second time, felt at home in a pasture, and that his wife told the staff to keep doing everything they could.
| Guest | Robert Marshall |
| Episode | Divine Encounters 108 |
| What Robert says happened | A neck mass blocked his airway in the ICU; he says he died three times |
| Time away | About 15 minutes the first time, according to medical records he cites |
| Where he says he went | Heaven: an inner courtyard, trees, flowers, a river of life and a throne |
| Who he met | His father, as a young man; a silhouette of Jesus in the distance |
| What he felt | The most peaceful, loving feeling, like a giant hug |
| The message | Works cannot earn heaven; belief is available to anyone |
A Mass on His Neck
Alex opens with his usual question, and Robert answers by going to the day it all began. On May 17, he says, he had a very large mass on his neck. He had already been to a stand-alone outpatient emergency room because he was having trouble breathing and swallowing. They did MRIs and blood tests.
The doctor came back and told him there was about a 99 percent chance it was a very aggressive form of cancer. He had sent Robert’s information to two other doctors, he said, and they agreed. Robert needed to see a cancer surgeon immediately. The surgeon had cleared his schedule for Monday. Do not put this off, the doctor said.
Into the Emergency Room
Robert never made it to Monday. By Friday the 17th, he says, he was having extreme difficulty swallowing and breathing. He could not swallow water. The little oxygen meter read about 88 to 89 percent, and they had been told that below 90 you need to get to an emergency room fast. His wife drove, because he did not feel safe doing it.
At a downtown Fort Worth emergency room, he asked her to drop him at the front and park. He walked in, and the woman behind the window looked at him and asked if he was okay. He was struggling to get the words out. She told him to go straight back and pushed the button to open the door, without even checking him in.
The doctor examined him, and when his wife arrived, said they were going to intubate him. They put him to sleep, put in the tube, and admitted him to intensive care. That was the last time he was awake.
Thirty-Five to Forty Minutes
In the ICU, Robert says, a doctor looked at the charts and the machines and said his stats looked good. Let’s see how he does without the tube. He says she should have done an X-ray first, but she took it out, asked his wife to leave the room and watched. His wife came back in. Everything looked great, with good oxygen readings. The doctor said he seemed to be doing okay, and she left the room with his wife.
They were gone about 35 to 40 minutes, according to the medical records. Everything was recorded, Robert says, which he finds unique: he can look up the time. In that stretch, he says, the mass rolled over his airway and he suffocated. His heart stopped.
His wife was the one who found him. He was turning blue, deeper and deeper. He jokes that he looked like someone in the Blue Man Group, without the makeup. She ran out and hollered that he was blue. The doctor ran in, saw it and hit the Code Blue button. He says everybody in the world came in. They chased his wife out. CPR took about 15 minutes to get his heart going. We share this as Robert’s account, not as medical information.
Hovering, and Then Heaven
Robert says he actually died three times. The first time, he was in heaven for what he and others tried to equate to about 15 minutes of Earth time, going by the records of no heart activity.
He left his body and remembers hovering above it, looking down at the nurses and doctors crawling under tables and pushing equipment. They ended up breaking his ribs with CPR. He drifted into the hall and saw his wife crying, hysterical, with puddles of tears on the floor. There was no pain and no feeling. It was surreal, he says, but it did not feel strange. This lasted maybe 20 or 30 seconds, long enough to look down and see what was going on.
Then, he says, that fast, he was standing in heaven. He did not see a tunnel. He did not go through a tunnel of light. For a plain-language overview of what people often describe, see our complete guide to near-death experiences.
The Inner Courtyard
As soon as he was standing there, he says, he could feel, smell and hear. He was at the edge of what he calls an inner courtyard, like a huge maze of trees and bushes. He looked at the trees and flowers, and it was so beautiful and brilliant. He notes that they have 43 oak trees in their backyard, and compared to the trees in heaven, they are like little dying branches.
The colors were vibrant, and the space was not three dimensional but, as he puts it, “that’s like gazillion dimensional.” There are colors and greens that do not exist here, he says. And he was feeling “the most peaceful, loving feeling.” It was like a giant hub where you are connected to everything, and everything fills you with love and peace. “It’s just like a giant hug.”
No Sun, a Hum and a River of Life
In heaven, he says, there is no sun and no night. It is just day, but there is no sun in the sky. We say Jesus is the light, and Robert says that is literal: “his light lights up all of heaven,” and his love carries out through that light, permeating everything and everybody.
He noticed something unique about the trees and plants. Every tree, every flower and every plant gives off “a little melodic tone or hum,” he says, and together they are “singing praises to Jesus all day long.” It is in the background, not like white noise, but you can hear it if you stop. It is the most beautiful song he could think of.
He describes a river of life running all the way up toward what would be a throne, with benches, trees and flowers along the river, like the elaborate shrubbery of a grand mansion, everything perfect. For a short definition of how people use the word, see our glossary entry on heaven.
Meeting His Father
Then he saw a figure he recognized, far off, tending the bushes. It was his father. His father had died at age 92, Robert says, but he recognized him as the dad of his youth, about 35 or 36, in perfect health and happy.
Robert walked up to him and said, Dad. He and his father had a little thing from Robert’s years in the military, when he spent three and a half years in Vietnam and sometimes came home wounded. His father would say, “Well, you did it now, didn’t you, son?” This time, his father said it again, and Robert understood that this was his dad. Robert told him he had not done anything, that he had died. His father said he knew.
Am I in heaven? Robert asked. “Where do you think you are?” his father answered. They talked a little about the past. In the far distance Robert saw light and the silhouette of a man, and asked who it was. His father asked who he thought it was. Jesus, Robert said. Yes, said his father.
His father told him how to approach: start with your right knee on the ground, then your left knee. If there is a conversation to be had, he will start it. Robert, being himself, wanted to go meet Jesus right away. He started to walk. And that fast, he says, he was back in his body.
Back, and Then Again
He says the doctors got his heart going, and he went from total, absolute ecstasy right back into all the pain. Almost as fast as he came back, he died again. This time he did not hover. He was right back in heaven, standing outside a big pasture, with the familiar smells and the hug of love. It felt like home, he says.
Back in the hospital, he says, they could not get a tube down because the mass blocked it, so they moved to a tracheostomy and did CPR again. His lungs had filled with blood, he says. He had already gone about 15 minutes without oxygen, and it took another 20 to get anything down. The staff told his wife it was gone again and asked what she wanted them to do. They had a living will, and she said to do everything they could. So they did.
He came back, and it was not pleasant. He went through surgery, he says, and the doctors had no idea he could feel anything. Robert says he died three times in all; in this conversation he describes the first two.
What He Takes From It: Faith and Works
Robert closes with a theological point that matters to him. He believes that no works will get you into heaven. He says God gives you the faith, because you cannot do it on your own. After that you can still help the poor and the needy and do good things, but not out of guilt or obligation or to try to earn your way. “No works will get you into heaven,” he says. You have to believe, and “that’s available to anybody, anywhere, anytime.”
At Next Level Soul we share each guest’s account and beliefs in their own words, and we know many people hold different views. Robert’s story speaks from within his own Christian faith. If you are curious how others describe meeting Jesus, our glossary entry on Jesus of Nazareth is a good place to start. We do not make medical claims, and what these accounts mean is still debated.
Questions to Sit With
- Robert says the first thing he felt in heaven was love like a giant hug. When have you felt held like that, and what helped you feel it?
- His father used a small, familiar phrase to say it was really him. What phrase or ritual connects you to someone you miss?
- He believes good works flow from faith, not obligation. What would change if you acted out of love, not duty?
This week, speak a familiar phrase or tell a family story about someone you love who has passed. Say it out loud, even if you are alone.
Spiritual Takeaways
- Robert says heaven is lit by Jesus and filled with love that permeates everything.
- He says the trees and flowers hum a song of praise.
- He describes meeting his father as a young man, with a familiar joke.
- He says he was told how to approach Jesus.
- He says no works can earn heaven, and belief is available to anyone, anywhere.
Please enjoy my conversation with Robert Marshall.
Guest Links: Connect With Robert Marshall
- Robert Marshall’s official site
- 44 Hours in Heaven on Facebook
- 44 Hours in Heaven on YouTube
- Full NDE story with Robert Marshall
Listen to the Episode
- Watch this episode ad-free on Next Level Soul TV
- Download the MP3
- More episodes: Divine Encounters
- Listen to Divine Encounters on Apple Podcasts
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Robert Marshall?
Robert Marshall is a near-death experiencer who says he died three times in the ICU after a mass on his neck blocked his airway. He tells his story to Alex Ferrari in this Divine Encounters episode.
What happened to Robert in the hospital?
Robert says his breathing tube was removed in the ICU and, according to medical records, the mass rolled over his airway about 35 to 40 minutes later. He says his heart stopped and it took about 15 minutes of CPR to restart it.
Did Robert go through a tunnel?
No, he says. He saw himself hovering, and then he was standing in heaven. He says he saw no tunnel and no tunnel of light.
What did heaven look like to Robert?
He says it has an inner courtyard like a maze of trees and bushes, brilliant colors that do not exist here, a river of life leading toward a throne, and no sun, because the light comes from Jesus.
What is the hum Robert describes?
He says every tree, flower and plant gives off a melodic tone, and together they sing praises to Jesus all day long, softly in the background.
Who did Robert meet?
He says he met his father, who looked about 35 or 36 and in perfect health, and saw a silhouette in the distance that he understood to be Jesus.
What did Robert’s father say?
He greeted him with a familiar joke, “Well, you did it now, didn’t you, son?” and when Robert asked if he was in heaven, he said, “Where do you think you are?”
Why did Robert die a second time?
He says the staff could not get a breathing tube down because of the mass, which meant going without oxygen for longer, and his heart stopped again. He says he again went to heaven, to a big pasture that felt like home.
What does Robert say about faith?
He says no works will get you into heaven, that God gives the faith, and that belief is available to anybody, anywhere, anytime.
Does the episode cover all three deaths?
Robert says he died three times. In this conversation he describes the first two in detail.
Does Next Level Soul say a near-death experience is real?
Next Level Soul shares near-death experiences as lived experiences told in the person’s own words. Researchers continue to study and debate what they mean. Nothing here is medical advice or a medical claim.
Keep Exploring
- The complete guide to near-death experiences
- What heaven means
- Jesus of Nazareth in the glossary
- A man describes a tour of heaven with a figure he understood to be Jesus
- A woman describes a detailed heavenly tour after a lightning strike
- A woman describes a very detailed tour of heaven
- A veteran clinically dead for ten minutes meets Jesus
- A man clinically dead for 105 minutes describes meeting God
- Browse more free masterclasses and the Divine Encounters podcast.
Follow Along with the Transcript
Alex Ferrari 0:00
Tell me what your life was like before you died.
Robert Marshall 0:08
On the 17th of May, I had a very large mass on my neck. It was swallowed like this. I had gone previously, gone to an outpatient emergency room stand alone, and the doctors said that came back at he did MRIs blood tests and all that stuff, and I was having trouble breathing, that's why I went there and swallowing. And the doctor came back in and told me, he said that there's about a 99% chance that this is a very aggressive form of cancer. And he said, I've sent your information out to two other doctors. They have all agreed that this is very aggressive, and you need to go see this cancer surgeon immediately. On Monday, He cleared his schedule so I could go in on Monday. He says, Do not put this off. It's very aggressive. And he said, You need to go see him now. I said, Okay, I never made it to Monday, Friday or on the 17th of may. I was having extreme difficulty swallowing and breathing. I couldn't swallow water. I couldn't swallow anything. We have little oxygen meters that measure your oxygen and my oxygen at that point was registered, registering about 88 to 89% and they say below 90 you need to get to an emergency room fast. So my wife said, Let's go. We went to the emergency room in downtown. Fort Worth she drove. I was feeling enough out of at that point. I didn't feel safe to drive. She drove. Went to the emergency room. She I said, drop me off in front parked the car. Come on in. She said, Okay. And I walked through the emergency room doors. And there's a line in emergency rooms, people checking in. The lady at the who was behind the window kind of went like this and looked at me and says, are you okay? Well, I had to struggle to get to get out, so I'm having a little trouble breathing. And she said to get in the back right now. And she pushed the button, the door open, and I went straight into the back. She didn't check me in at this point, just sent me right, straight back to the emergency room. The Doctor met me back there, sat down, start looking, examining me and taking his little preliminary test and everything else. And my wife got there about the same time that the doctor said we're going back here and we're going to intubate him, which is an oral tube down my throat. So they took me into the back room, and of course, they put me asleep to put this tube down and intubated me. They put the tube in and then so I could get oxygen, and took me immediately, They admitted me to the intensive care unit. That was the last thing I last time I was awake. And what happened was the doctor came in, looked at the charts, looked at all the machines, you know, because they had me, you know, they put you on the machines and everything. And of course, the oxygen going in, and tubes everywhere. And the doctor looked down and says, Well, he seemed to be his stats look real good. Let's see how he does without the tube and see if he could breathe without it. Well, she kind of messed up, because she should have had, should have done an x ray prior to that, which she didn't, or an MI or something. She took it out, asked my wife to leave the room, took it out, and, you know, started watching. And my wife came back in, and she was in there about 30-35, minutes. And I was breathing fine. Everything was looking great. And I'm getting oxygen stats into my, you know, they put it on figure and I said, everything was good, and she's all right. Looks like he's doing okay on this. And she left the room with my wife out there. And of course, my wife came back in well, they were gone about 4035, or 40 minutes, according to medical records. And that's the other nice thing about unique thing about this. Everything was recorded. So I can, when I say the time, I can look up the medical record, say how long it was during that 35 to 40 minutes that they were gone, that mass rolled over my airway and I suffocated to death. My heart stopped. I had no oxygen. My wife is the one that discovered me. Turning blue, deeper blue, deeper blue, deeper blue. I looked like somebody in the Blue Man Group, except I had no makeup. I was just no oxygen. She ran out of the room out there and hollered, he's blue. He's blue. And the doctor was at the nurse's station, and the doctor, of course, ran in and discovered me that she was right, and stopped breathing. My heart had stopped. They, course, hit the Code Blue Button. Everybody in the world came in. They chased my wife out of there. They were doing CPR. They took them 15 minutes CPR to get my heart going. And they they, in the process, they were trying to get oxygen into me, and they couldn't do that. Now, when I died, I'd actually died three times. So first time that I died, I was in heaven for 15 minutes. Basically is about what we tried to equate that time, 15 minutes, Earth time. We tried to equate this according to how long, no heart, no absence, no nothing, no stimulus, and everything according to medical records, and I left my body, and I remember hovering above my body and looking down and going, and I'm watching all the nurses and the doctors crawl under the tables. There were tubes. They were pushing. They ended up breaking my ribs, of course, doing CPR, trying to get my heart going. I drifted out to the hall, and I saw my wife just crying. She was just hysterical, as you can imagine, and literally, there were puddles of tear on the floor. She was bent over at that point. I knew something isn't normal, okay, yes, I'm not with my body. I'm going, like, looking down. It's surreal, but it wasn't like that. I'm going, Oh wow, I'm down like, no pain, no feeling, nothing. I'm just watching them. Now, this isn't for a long period of time. This was like maybe 20-30, seconds, how long it takes to look down and see what's going on. And I drifted out here, and then that fast, I was standing in heaven. I didn't see a tunnel. I didn't go through a tunnel of light. I didn't do it. I was just in heaven. I remember the feeling as soon as I was standing there. Now I could feel, I could smell, I could hear, I could do everything. And I'm standing at the edge of what I call, like the inner courtyard, if you would call it. It's like a huge maze, like there were trees and bushes. So I'm standing here, and I'm looking around, literally, like you were just what's it like? And I'm looking at, I'm looking at the trees and the flowers, and it just disrupt everything. And it's just like, there's this massive it's so beautiful, brilliant, and like, we have 43 oak trees in our backyard, and our oak trees, compared to the trees in heaven, are like little dying branches. The colors are so vibrant, right? And it's not like three dimensional, that's like gazillion dimensional. I mean, it's just, they're just there. And the flowers and the colors, there is absolutely no way you could describe all those. There's colors and trees and and the greens and different colors you they don't even have here that I am feeling the most peaceful, loving feeling. It's like a huge, giant hub. It's like you're connected to everything, and everything is just fills you with love and the peace, and I found out what that is. In Heaven, there's no no sun, there's no night, it's just day, but there's no sun in the sky. You know, we always say that Jesus is the light. Well, that's literal. He his light lights up all of heaven, and in his light is his love that carries out and comfort that just permeates everything and everybody, and everybody's connected by that, that love that just, you just feel the love. It's just like a giant hug. So now I'm looking at the trees and the vibrancy of them, but something unique about the trees and the plants in heaven, every tree, every flower, every plant, gives off what I call a little melodic tone or hum, and they all combine together at singing praises to Jesus all day long. Now it's in the background. It's like a not a white noise, but I mean, if you stop and you could hear it, but it's there. There's no dead silence, but it's there, and it's continuously. And it's the most beautiful song, melodic tone that you ever could think of. Well, the plants and everybody are, which is just, it was the, just the neatest thing I've most peaceful, loving feeling. You're looking at you going like, Wow. I mean, you just can't believe, and it's like, you don't feel any pain, you don't feel you just feel vibrant, love, warmth. It's just incredible. And the beauty of everything is unbelievable. Over at the outside, I was outside, but I was looking in the inner courtyard, and it's just rows of shrubbery. There's a river of pier calls a river of life, running through all the way back up to what would be like a throne, if you would have it. And along it were benches with trees and flowers on the edge of the river and stuff, if you ever seen a these huge mansions that have, like, all the shrubbery and stuff in designs and everything only the most elaborate, elegant, beautiful things and everything was absolutely perfect. And I remember looking over and I saw a figure that I recognized, and I looked and was in the distance, and he was just there tending the bushes and stuff like that, you know. And it was my dad. My dad had died in 1990 he died at 92 in 2011 but when I saw him, I recognized him as a dad of my youth. He was about 35, 36 years old, maybe perfect health, happy, and I remembered him from when I was growing up. And I'm looking and I'm going like, wow, because now the sensory overload is just I realized now I'm pretty sure I'm in heaven here. This is, you know, but I'm still not thinking about having been dad dying. And, you know, there was no pain that I was just eating when I was down there. And I remember walking over approaching my dad, and I walked up to him, and I said, Dad. Now my dad and I had this kind of little thing that we had when I was growing up. I was in the military and in some pretty precarious positions, and I remember I get shot or wounded or something. I spent three and a half years in Vietnam, alone, but I'd come home and he, he'd say, Well, you You really did it. Now, didn't you? Son, Yes, Dad, I didn't do anything, you know, and he was his little way of putting light on the situation, but it was kind of a little thing that we did. Well, every time I get in trouble, you did it now, didn't you? I walked up to him and. And I said, Dad. And he goes, Yeah. He says, Well, you did it now, didn't you, son? And it was kind of like his way to let me know, this is my dad, right? And I'm going, dad, I didn't do anything. I died. He goes, I know, I know. And I said, Wow. And I went like, Am I in heaven? He says, Where do you think you are? And I says, I think it's happening. He goes, yes. And we talked a little bit and about, you know, things in the past and and I remember looking over, seeing over in the far distance of light and a silhouette of man, which kind of, you know, has silhouette of Jesus. When I'm looking at him again, my guy says, who's that over there? And he said, Who do you think it is? Says, Jesus. And he goes, yes. Well, he says, first thing you do when you approach me, you start with your right knee on the ground, then your left knee on the ground. And if there's a conversation to be had, he'll start it. I said, Okay, so we're talking a little bit more. And of course, my being me, I'm I want to go and meet Jesus. So I started to walk it that fast, just as fast as I was there, that fast I was back in my body. Those cotton picking doctors got my heart going. I went from total absolute ecstasy, right back, all the pain, everything. And at this point, fortunately, I wasn't there that long. But then it was almost as fast as I was back. I died again. This time I didn't hover. I was right back in heaven again. This time I was standing outside of a field, big, huge pasture, and the trees, the familiar smells and the hug and the feeling of love was like, I'm home. It was absolutely incredible. While what happened down there, and the reason I died again was because of stress, pain. I suffocated the first time, the second time, during the time I was gone, they were trying to, took 15 minutes, get my heart going again. This time, they were trying to get a trach down me again so I could get oxygen again, but they couldn't get it down in there because that mass had rolled over. It was blocking it. So then they decided they had a trach me, and they're doing CPR again, because my heart stopped again, and what had happened was they couldn't, still couldn't get oxygen to me, so I continued being without oxygen. So I've already been without oxygen for 15 minutes. Took them another 20 minutes to get anything back down in there. And the reason for that when they inserted the tubes, they couldn't get oxygen in still, and my lungs were filled with with blood. And the trait tubes got filled with blood, and all it was doing was pumping blood oxygen in there, and they couldn't get any oxygen because my inside of my lungs had been coated with blood. They were coagulating. And when my heart stopped the second time, and they went, they they came up to my wife, he's gone, he's it's gone again. He's gone, he's gone. And they came out and to my wife and says, What do you want us to do? And we had a living will. My wife says, you do everything you can. And they went back in and said, his wife says, keep doing everything that we can. So they did. They continued and that fast, and I'm back in my body, and it was not pleasant. I went through surgery. The doctors had no idea that I could feel anything. Believe in the one that God has sent. That's God's works. All the works he has you do, he says, and that is through faith, and that not of your own. So he gives you the faith because you can't do anything. No works will get you into heaven. Makes no difference. You have to do that here through the faith that He gave you. But those works are done without believing in Him. It takes those works and then once you do that belief, then he says, everything else is not work. You can still go help the poor, help the needy, Do this, do that, do good things, but you're not doing it out of guilt or obligation or out of trying to get your way into heaven. There's no works that can get you into heaven. That isn't the way it works. You have to believe, and that's available to anybody, anywhere, anytime. That's the big difference, right there.
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