Chase DeMayo's Air Force Near-Death: Meeting Jesus in a Garden

The Injury That Changed the Plan

Chase grew up in Orlando, adopted by his grandparents from birth. His mother was 17 when she had him. His biological father wasn't interested. But his grandparents had already adopted other children, so Chase grew up with two Korean sisters, a Korean brother, and a Black brother. People would ask what church they were with when they all piled out of a Tropic Traveler bus at restaurants. It was a great childhood.

In seventh grade, Chase joined a middle school ROTC program. His grandfather and great-grandfather had both served. There was always just something inside of me that said you know this is this is what you need to do as well, he remembers. The second he turned 17, he joined the Air Force. His dad, who'd served in the Army, told him if he was going to sign the paperwork, it had to be the Air Force. As a parent, you want the best for your kids.

Chase trained as a SERE instructor: Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. The job was to learn terrain for pilots and train them to survive if their plane went down. But not long into training, he injured both knees in a training accident. Both kneecaps came out and ruptured. The Air Force surgeon recommended a lateral release surgery to reset them.

Looking back, Chase thinks he probably could have rehabbed without surgery and kept his original job. But the surgery wasn't a success. Up until that point I had a clear goal of what I wanted for my life and what I expected for my life you know 20 years in the military, he says. Once the knee injury happened it started to crumble my goals and my my vision for my life. It was catastrophic for me. He didn't know what he was going to do. He started to get really scared.

The military began the retirement process. Your body is no longer good enough to stay. It's a long process. During that time, Chase started showing up late to his office. He was young and a little unprofessional. He knew he was getting out anyway. What were they going to do, fire him?

The Morning Everything Changed

One morning in early 2008, Chase was really late for work on base. His supervisor had a key to his dorm room. She came in thinking she was going to catch me sleeping and instead she found me unconscious on my dorm room floor, Chase says.

They sent him immediately to the Langley Air Force Base hospital. Doctors hooked him up to every machine, ran blood work, did tests. They couldn't find anything wrong. He was 19, in the best shape of his life. There was no reason he should be unconscious. They looked into drugs, alcohol. Chase had never touched a drug. Still hasn't. The doctors couldn't make sense of it.

A nurse said they'd do a chest x-ray. If they couldn't find anything, they'd send him home. When she fiddled with my IV and she walked out of the room from that moment everything changed, Chase says.

The alarm started going off. It became like something out of a movie or TV show. The alarms are going off and my vision starts to kind of go to the left to the right and things get hazy and it just didn't feel like reality, he remembers. Nurses and doctors started running in. He was at the end of the hallway, so they almost ran into the wall, they were moving so fast. Chase knew something was really wrong.

The Voice to His Left

As doctors and nurses stood over him, working on his body, somebody sat down to the left of me and started stroking my arm telling me everything was going to be okay, Chase says. While the alarm blared and people shouted, while he could hear the nervousness in their voices, this calm voice to his left kept reassuring him.

The voice to the left of me said you're going to have air is going to travel up your arm it's going to be really painful but everything's going to be okay, Chase recalls. The pain that came up his arm felt like a silver bullet, something 51 times too large in that vein. It was so painful he could feel every centimeter of it traveling up, like a train headed toward his heart. His right leg kicked up in the air, a natural reflex to the pain.

But the calm voice to his left was so assured, petting his arm. It was so calm and reassuring to have somebody to the left of me just saying it's going to be fine it's going to be okay. For a military guy, the thought of having a guy stroke his arm would normally have been uncomfortable. But it was so peaceful. It's such a weird feeling to feel so calm while you're experiencing so much pain, Chase says.

He kept trying to look to his left to see who was comforting him. Finally after trying to continually look over to my left I finally did and Not only was there nobody to the left of me but I saw the screen completely Flatline.

Traveling Upward

In that moment as I saw myself Flatline I started traveling upwards, Chase says. It just felt like everything started to free up in my body it felt like ice like this really cool beautiful feeling of my body just starting to release and kind of pour out of my chest almost like a a shooting a tunnel out of my chest of light.

It was the best feeling I think I could ever experience. It was like this beautiful Blissful just this feeling of love surrounding my body. He could have experienced that feeling a million times over. There's no way to describe it. He was moving upward to somewhere he couldn't see, but he had complete trust. If this is the feeling now I can only imagine where I'm about to go.

The Garden

Before long, Chase ended up in a garden. It was a garden filled with flowers and plants that we've never seen before and these beautiful colors and everything was just vibrant. It was almost like looking into the sun where you have to squint a little because everything was so beautiful and colorful.

Chase had no preconceived notion of what heaven was. He grew up loving Elvis and thought Elvis would be waiting there and everything would be calm and peaceful, up in the clouds. The heaven that I experienced was so much more Vivid and so much more real. There wasn't a floating sense. Your body felt so light, zero gravity. But the garden and the leaves were so real. These plants and flowers that were so bright we just don't we don't have those colors here. He could say they were purple and red and blue, but it doesn't do it justice.

Everything was just so bright and almost kind of war w you know there's a vibration off of everything you just felt so in tune and connected, Chase says. When we walk past a tree or down a sidewalk now, we might say that's a beautiful plant or flower. In heaven it felt like I was feeling the the plants and the flowers.

When you dream, you don't necessarily feel something. You envision it. This was so real because I was feeling things and I felt I felt the grains of of dirt in between my toes, Chase says. He hates being barefoot, so it was a vivid memory that he could actually feel dirt in his feet.

The Little Boy and the Man in the Robe

Ahead of him, Chase saw a gentleman in a robe chasing after a little boy, about three or four years old. Little curly-haired blonde boy. The boy was running ahead, looking back, being cheeky. Chase watched this beautiful interaction, almost like father and son. The little boy was so happy, so purely enjoying his life.

Until I got close then you kind of look down and go oh my gosh that's me, Chase says. I forgot I had blonde curly hair and I used to be that happy and I used to just laugh all the time and smile constantly as a kid growing up no matter what was going on around me. He was always a happy kid. I think I had forgotten that by that time by the time I was 19 I was taking life so seriously.

He was so worried about career and military and all these things that he'd forgotten about being that happy little kid. It was a beautiful reminder of how he used to be.

Jesus

As I see the man turn to me I immediately knew it was Jesus, Chase says. Jesus didn't look like what Chase would have thought. But he was so certain it was him. He had short brown hair piercing green eyes and the biggest grin possible. Growing up, you see images of a man with long blonde hair, really skinny. This man was just a healthy um peaceful man in a robe.

But as sure as you're sure of what your left hand and your right hand is and you look in the mirror and you know it's you I knew it was Jesus, Chase says.

In that moment, Jesus turned to me and he basically showed me this is what your life should be spreading light love and laughter. It was almost like a reminder. You've been here and you already know this like you you have forgotten it but you've all always known about the joys in life about finding any reason to make yourself smile throughout the day. This reminder that you're taking life way too seriously.

At that time in the Air Force, Chase really thought his life was over. Everything he'd trained for and hoped for and envisioned was done. That conversation alone was enough for me to say okay I'm I'm focusing on all the wrong stuff here I'm focusing on a career I'm focused on money I'm focused on making sure I can make a car pay when really none of that at the end of the day matters. What matters is feeling fulfilled, feeling like you've given back to the world by making people smile.

It was such a good lesson of this is what life is supposed to be forever you're supposed to always find joy and laughter and happiness, Chase says.

They stood there for quite a while. Time stood still. I couldn't say if it was 5 minutes I couldn't say if it was 5 hours. It was enough time for Chase to get so much knowledge that he felt like he already knew. It was such a friendly relationship that felt like I had spent so much time with them in the past.

The Return

Before I knew it he kind of joked and and smiled and said you know you have to go back and I didn't argue I said yeah I know, Chase remembers. It was such a reminder that I have been here multiple times uh maybe not as dramatic as a near-death experience or or being flatlined but I have been there um so many times.

It was just a kind of, you know, better you know you can't stick around here too long, you've got to go back. I said okay I understand and it was just this very playful friendly thing just like you're saying goodbye to a friend you know that you've seen him before and you're going to see him again so you're just saying bye for now.

There was no part of my body that said I wanted to stay it was just like you know spending time with a friend and you know you've got to go back to your house. It just felt so understood that he had a lot more to do.

Before I knew it I was back in my body. He was in a different city, off base. The Air Force had sent him to Hampton, Virginia, to a different hospital to be pronounced dead. I woke up and I started opening my eyes and of course at that time you know when you have the best dream you think you know you think it's a dream and you kind of close your eyes to go back.

His eyes were open. His body felt completely normal. He had no pain in his chest. But he was confused. He wasn't in the same room he'd died in. The people walking past the hallway weren't in military uniforms. It was very clear he wasn't on base anymore.

A nurse peaked in. Chase said hello. She looked frazzled and she said I'm going to go get a doctor and took off and and ran away. A doctor came back in and said, I don't know what to tell you um but we're going to send you back to the Air Force and they're they can do what they want with you.

Chase called a friend. I just died uh can you come pick me up from the hospital. They did what every person who would die and come back does: they went to Chick-fil-A. I guess death made me very hungry. Chase said he wanted to get out of town for a couple of days. He didn't want to go back and sit in the same dorm room. They went to Washington DC, saw all the monuments, took pictures.

What Happened

Chase's left arm was black and blue. The bruising was so bad from the air traveling up to his heart. He went back to the hospital because he wanted an answer. Why did he die? Why did he flatline?

The hospital documented what happened to his arm. They wrote an entire paragraph of uh patients suffered an air embolism. That's when air travels up to your heart. It looks like the nurse uh on accident allowed air to get through the IV that was you know in in one of the main uh veins for me and and accidentally flatlined me.

The nurses and doctors couldn't make sense of it either. Chase doesn't know how many people they saw flatline and survive. There was never really an honest conversation um with the medical staff of here's exactly what happened to you and we can't we can't figure out how you're still here.

From that time forward, Chase didn't feel comfortable telling people the story. I felt very grounded in the sense if if I go tell people this going to think I'm crazy, he says. That was a genuine concern. He didn't even know about the term near-death experience or NDE. None of that world made sense to him. I just thought people would think I was nuts. So he just wouldn't tell people unless they were really close to him.

A New Life

By July 8, 2008, just a few months later, Chase was fully retired from the military. Within a week of getting back, my life changed so dramatically. Anything that I had thought looked fun growing up or anything that interested me I said I'm going to go do it now.

He joined a breakdancing club at a local university he didn't even go to. He did stand-up comedy for a bit. He got into photography and photographed people's weddings. He learned how to ballroom dance and became a ballroom dance instructor. I just was almost like checking these things off of the box of like I have another opportunity to be here and I'm going to go out and enjoy life, Chase says.

He got to host contests with celebrities, go on TV, be an announcer for a local baseball and hockey team in Norfolk, Virginia for a couple of years. I just I wanted so badly to do things that made me happy and I could spread the light laughter and love that I was told to continue to share.

But then a part of him said, no, it's time to grow up. You have to get a real person job. He took a job working for a radio station. It was a very corporate job. He did that for quite a few years. It was fulfilling. He paid his bills, got a nice house. But that's when really um I started to feel guilty that I was I became selfish and I wasn't sharing laughter with everybody. He was sitting in an office, not able to create memories for people anymore.

The Retreat and the Gifts

Chase went on a retreat with a veteran organization that sends veterans out for five days to do yoga and meditation, focusing on mental health and finding peace within yourself. He'd never really meditated or done yoga before. A bunch of macho veteran guys doing yoga, everyone rolled their eyes at first.

But at the end of the five days, it felt like it was the happiest I had ever been in my life. When he got back, his wife said within minutes, you're a different person you seemed so relaxed. During that time, Chase had been so focused on his corporate job, being the serious executive. You've changed you know you you just seem so happy with yourself.

In that moment, Chase started to ask again, what is my purpose? Why am I here? I really started to remember my near-death experience.

Within a day or two, I started to feel my body completely changed and become so aware of my surroundings. The meditation, yoga, and breathing exercises relaxed his mind so much that he was able to really look at the outside world and get a better understanding of how he could help.

I started to really realize that I had gifts that maybe weren't as common as maybe I had thought. He started to really feel everybody's emotions around him. The intuition became stronger. I was so aware of if other people around me complete strangers were suffering. He felt this burden: I need to fix everybody around me, I have to heal everybody of their suffering.

His grandmother was in the hospital. Chase started to pray, doing what he knows. It's a feeling within my kind of my my chest or my heart where I can kind of put my hands out and pray um for a little less pain. He knows he can't completely heal everybody, but he was praying for a little less pain for her, a little less suffering.

Before I knew it I started to feel tingling in the palms of my hands. He looked down. Next thing I know I've got really visible marks on both Palms of my hands. He knew immediately, okay, this is freaking me out a little bit. He showed his wife, took a picture to document it. He showed it to people he trusted.

Immediately they said, you have to stop taking other people's pain it's not your pain to take. In his human brain, Chase wanted to say it's an allergic reaction, just a rash. But the marks started coming only at times where he was really trying to help somebody around him. It is not a painful experience at all it is a peaceful experience that I can physically feel uh within my hands um like an energy is coming just through that that part of my hand.

The Second Encounter

Chase was on a plane recently. It was completely silent. He could never nap on a plane. I just felt this this presence that immediately kind of hit me in my chest and was like whoo you know and I knew it was Jesus again.

They had this exchange. Hey you're on the right path but take care of yourself you you if you drain your battery you you're not going to be ever you're not not going to be able to help anybody. Jesus said, you have to allow people to have a human experience you can't take everybody's pain because some people need to experience that pain.

That was was profound for me but it also was really hard, Chase says. It was a reminder that he can't go try to heal everybody he thinks is suffering, because then he's going to suffer too. I have to still allow people to experience this human world that we're in and it's not my job to continually intervene into people's lives.

It would be very clear when he had the opportunity to heal people. That's pretty recent, within the last couple of months. He's now trying to figure out how to use his gifts without interfering in people's lives.

What It All Means

It's hard to experience what I experienced and not come back a different person, Chase says. Laughter smiling it's such an easy thing it's free it's just like Breath Right like we can breathe for free we can pray for free we can meditate for free and we can laugh for free we can find joys in everything.

We live in a world right now where it seems like we're so separated. Chase drives past the bus stop he grew up going to almost daily. He had great memories as a kid, laughing and playing right before school. Nowadays the kids are all 10et apart from each other on their phones and that's tough to watch. To Chase, smiling and laughter and being close to people is the best medicine for us.

My understanding is is that we all are here to serve a very specific purpose and not everybody's life's purpose has to be this big Holy One. We're meant to have different goals and different personalities, just like a fingerprint is meant to be different. But for me it's to continually learn and evolve.

When you're a little kid, when Chase was that little boy he saw in heaven, you're absorbing everything and you're continually learning and you're experiencing everything through a a view of everything is great. You don't have these grownup constraints and stresses on you.

Chase tries to do that now. He's continually in school, getting alternative medicine degrees, getting a Ministry degree. After that, he's going to school again. I think as long as we continually learn um I think we're in we're going to leave the world in a better place as long as we learn from history and learn from past mistakes.

His grandmother has always said that education would heal the world. Chase believes that as long as we're continually learning, we're setting the next generation up to make it better. Education looks different to everybody, whether you're actually in school or reading a book every day or reading the news. As long as it's educating you and not just making you more depressed I think um that is the meaning of life is um learning evolving and making everything better than than how we came.

What This Experience Reveals

Chase's story carries a message we see across thousands of near-death accounts, but rarely with this much clarity: we're here to learn joy. Not achievement. Not status. Not even survival. Joy.

The detail about seeing himself as a happy little boy, running and laughing in that garden, is one of the most moving elements of his experience. It's a reminder that shows up in many NDEs: the person you were as a child, before the world taught you to be serious and afraid, is closer to your true nature than the armored adult you became. Jesus didn't show Chase a vision of military success or career accomplishment. He showed him a three-year-old with curly blonde hair, purely enjoying his life.

The air embolism that killed Chase was a medical accident. A nurse fiddled with his IV and air got into his vein. It happens. What's remarkable is that Chase heard a voice to his left, calming and reassuring, before he even knew what was happening. That voice told him exactly what would happen: air traveling up his arm, intense pain, but everything would be okay. When Chase finally turned to see who was comforting him, no one was there. The monitor was flatlined.

This is one of the most commonly reported features of NDEs: the presence of a guide or companion during the moment of death, even when no physical person is present. The voice wasn't coming from the room. It was coming from somewhere else, accompanying Chase through the transition.

The garden he describes, with its colors we don't have words for, its flowers and plants that vibrate with life, is another consistent feature across thousands of accounts. Experiencers struggle to describe it because our language is built for this world. Chase says the plants and flowers were so bright, so vivid, that it was almost like looking into the sun. He could feel them. Not just see them, but feel them. The grains of dirt between his toes. The vibration off everything.

This is not a dream. Dreams don't have that kind of sensory detail. Chase makes this point clearly: when you dream, you envision things. You don't feel the dirt between your toes. You don't feel the texture of the leaves. This was more real than real.

And then there's Jesus. Chase didn't expect to see Jesus. He expected Elvis. He had no strong religious framework going in. But when the man in the robe turned to him, Chase knew with absolute certainty who it was. Not because Jesus looked like the paintings. He didn't. Short brown hair, piercing green eyes, healthy build. But Chase knew the way you know your own face in the mirror.

The conversation they had wasn't about theology or doctrine. It was about spreading light, love, and laughter. That's it. That's the curriculum. Chase had forgotten how to do that. He was 19, his military career was crumbling, and he was taking life so seriously that he'd lost the joy he had as a kid. Jesus reminded him: this is what your life should be.

What strikes me most about Chase's story is the ease of the return. Jesus said, you have to go back. Chase didn't argue. He said, yeah, I know. It was playful, friendly, like saying goodbye to a friend you'll see again soon. There was no drama, no clinging, no fear. Just an understanding that he had more to do.

And what Chase did when he came back is instructive. He didn't go to seminary. He didn't become a monk. He joined a breakdancing club. He did stand-up comedy. He learned ballroom dancing. He photographed weddings. He checked off a list of things that brought him joy and let him share that joy with others. That's the assignment.

The healing gifts that emerged later, the marks on his palms, the ability to feel others' pain, these are not the point. They're a side effect. The point is the joy. The laughter. The connection. When Chase took a corporate job and stopped creating memories for people, he felt guilty. He knew he was off track. The retreat brought him back.

And then Jesus showed up again, on a plane, to tell him: take care of yourself. You can't drain your battery. You have to allow people to have a human experience. Some people need to experience their pain. This is a crucial lesson for anyone who comes back from an NDE with heightened empathy and a desire to fix everyone's suffering. You can't. And you're not supposed to. Your job is to be present, to offer light when it's needed, and to protect your own energy so you can keep doing that work.

Chase's story is a reminder that the meaning of life isn't hidden in some esoteric teaching or ancient text. It's right there in the way a three-year-old plays in a garden. It's in the laughter at a bus stop before school. It's in the decision to learn something new, to stay curious, to keep evolving. His grandmother said education would heal the world. Chase believes it, as long as that education is making you more alive, not more depressed.

We're here to learn. We're here to spread light. We're here to remember how to laugh. And when we forget, when we get too serious, when we lose ourselves in career anxiety and bill payments and the weight of the world, there's a garden waiting. There's a man in a robe with piercing green eyes and the biggest grin possible, ready to remind us: you already know this. You've always known. You just forgot.

Chase came back to tell us: don't wait until you flatline to remember.

[Read more about Chase DeMayo](/experiencer and explore his other accounts, including his detailed talk at an IANDS conference where he expands on the nature of the garden and the lessons he brought back.