'I fell 100ft saw angels in bizarre near-death experience – they gave me chilling message'
Andrew, who sustained catastrophic injuries after tumbling off a cliff, told Soft White Underbelly about his near-death experience after the terrifying fall
A man who sustained catastrophic injuries after tumbling off a cliff claims he experienced a peculiar near-death experience (NDE) involving an "interrogation room" and "spirits". Andrew, from Kingston, New York, plunged 100ft in an accident at Kaaterskill Falls in upstate New York, on Spruce Creek in the eastern Catskill Mountains.
He explained that he, his brother and their friends frequently visited the "beautiful" location, which he described as a "very sacred place" reached via a half-mile trek through the woods.
In the account, he told Soft White Underbelly on YouTube: "It's a beautiful site and you can climb up the left side and come down the right side. It was kind of like a, not really a beaten path, but it wasn't too dangerous.
"You know, I've done that hike with little kids before. To me, it didn't pose too much of a danger, and I had done it probably 10 times."
However, everything changed on July 10, 2009. He and his mate decided to hike up to the location, but on the descent, Andrew encountered what he described as a "switchback" on the trail.
Rather than "walking the extra 20ft", Andrew, a former American football player who briefly played for the Detroit Lions, chose to get down on his backside and slide to the next trail, a distance of approximately five to 10 feet. However, he slipped and struck his head.
He said: "I kept falling and I fell off probably a 10ft lip of the side of the mountain, and then kept going. And then I fell off a much, much larger cliff, part of the side of the mountain.
"My buddy watched it happen. And he said, at one point, kind of like when a baseball player slides into second, and his feet catch, and he stands up.
"As I was sliding, my feet caught and I turned basically to him and fell backwards off the cliff or off the side of the mountain."
Andrew estimates that the fall was "100 plus" feet, though it was far from a straight drop. Rather, he tumbled down the mountainside, accompanied by rocks and vegetation.
Upon hitting the ground, Andrew lost consciousness and claims to have had two "mystical" experiences. He explained: "One of them was my point of view, was in the sky.
"And I remember seeing the tops of the trees. And looking up at the blue skies, I could see what looked to be like, if you think of a tornado forming and you flipped them on their sides.
"But it was light and they were kind of whipping back and forth. They looked like two whips of light, and they met and then was redirected in my direction."
He added: "You know it was almost like violent light and all I could feel was complete love, forgiveness. There was an essence of seeing an old friend or coming home."
His second encounter was comparable to being in an "interrogation room", where he found himself lying down in a place alongside "spirits or guardian angels".
Andrew recalls that two of them appeared to be weeping, while another remained more "stoic". They reassured him that they would see him through the ordeal.
However, they left him with a chilling message – "this has to happen". When pressed on what "this" referred to, Andrew confirmed he meant the accident itself.
Once he opened his eyes, he questioned whether he was alive. Fortunately, there was a doctor hiking nearby.
Andrew, who was airlifted out, suffered a shattered right shoulder, torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in the knee, cracked pelvis, collapsed lung, and broken vertebrae.
Incredibly, just 56 days after the incident, Andrew, who now works at a private school, drove himself back to college to finish his degree.
