Don Piper's Near-Death Experience
In 1989, a man named Don Piper was driving along a long bridge crossing a river.
"I approached the end of the bridge, and before I reached the end, a tractor-trailer truck owned by the Texas Dept. of Corrections crossed the center stripe and hit my car head on."
At that moment, he was instantly transported somewhere special...
"I did not see a single person that I did not know," he says. "They were relatives, they were friends that died in high school, they were teachers--they were people I had seen and known all my life who had gone to glory. They were smiling; they were embracing me; they were welcoming me; they were in the process of taking me through the gate of heaven."
He noticed a large gate where they were all standing near. It had a bright portal, that Don describes.
"The gate of heaven was a magnificent edifice, the one that I saw. It looked no less like a giant gate that had been sculpted from mother-of-pearl,"
"Behind that portal was such a light that I don't conceive of how you could see it in an earthly body. It could only be envisioned in a heavenly body because it was too bright."
"In all honesty, as awesome as the sight was, the sound was more amazing," he says. "I heard literally thousands of praise songs. They were all praise songs. I really couldn't see anything. I was so preoccupied with the people around me, I couldn't see anything. But you could sense this hum of wings hovering all about you, like you were being ministered to by angels, and they were observing this whole episode."
While Don was having his experience, the driver of the truck, Dick Onerecker, rushed to his body, which was sitting in the wrecked car.
"It was as though I was compelled to stop and to pray for him. The Lord had just impressed on me very emphatically, very urgently that I was to pray for him," says Dick. "I walked over by the door. There was great physical damage on the outside. I laid my hands on him and began to pray for him."
Don was taken to hospital, and amazingly he had no head or major internal injuries, apart from many broken bones. Some of his limbs had to be rebuilt. Don continues to speak fondly of his experience in heaven, and has even written a book called "90 Minutes in Heaven".
"I like to say that I came back by popular demand," he says. "People prayed me back from the gates of heaven. People prayed me back from death's door. I'm here because people asked God for me to be here."
"I approached the end of the bridge, and before I reached the end, a tractor-trailer truck owned by the Texas Dept. of Corrections crossed the center stripe and hit my car head on."
At that moment, he was instantly transported somewhere special...
"I did not see a single person that I did not know," he says. "They were relatives, they were friends that died in high school, they were teachers--they were people I had seen and known all my life who had gone to glory. They were smiling; they were embracing me; they were welcoming me; they were in the process of taking me through the gate of heaven."
He noticed a large gate where they were all standing near. It had a bright portal, that Don describes.
"The gate of heaven was a magnificent edifice, the one that I saw. It looked no less like a giant gate that had been sculpted from mother-of-pearl,"
"Behind that portal was such a light that I don't conceive of how you could see it in an earthly body. It could only be envisioned in a heavenly body because it was too bright."
"In all honesty, as awesome as the sight was, the sound was more amazing," he says. "I heard literally thousands of praise songs. They were all praise songs. I really couldn't see anything. I was so preoccupied with the people around me, I couldn't see anything. But you could sense this hum of wings hovering all about you, like you were being ministered to by angels, and they were observing this whole episode."
While Don was having his experience, the driver of the truck, Dick Onerecker, rushed to his body, which was sitting in the wrecked car.
"It was as though I was compelled to stop and to pray for him. The Lord had just impressed on me very emphatically, very urgently that I was to pray for him," says Dick. "I walked over by the door. There was great physical damage on the outside. I laid my hands on him and began to pray for him."
Don was taken to hospital, and amazingly he had no head or major internal injuries, apart from many broken bones. Some of his limbs had to be rebuilt. Don continues to speak fondly of his experience in heaven, and has even written a book called "90 Minutes in Heaven".
"I like to say that I came back by popular demand," he says. "People prayed me back from the gates of heaven. People prayed me back from death's door. I'm here because people asked God for me to be here."