Chris Batts Jumped From a Moving Car and Met God: An NDE Story
After a lifetime of abandonment and abuse, a young man's suicide attempt became the moment he discovered unconditional love
Chris Batts was 10 to 15 feet from the railroad tracks when he heard the honk. His friend had followed him, figured out what he was planning, and pulled up just in time to ruin everything. He got in the car, furious. His mother, whom he hadn't spoken to in years, called at that exact moment. He thought maybe she was calling to apologize, that this one conversation could change everything. Instead, she told him she didn't want him, that he wasn't her son, and hung up. Chris looked at his phone, said two words, rolled down the window, and threw it out. Then he looked at his friend in the driver's seat, mumbled under his breath, opened the door mid-turn, and jumped. His head hit the concrete. What happened next would change not just his life, but his understanding of what life actually is.
The Child Nobody Wanted
Chris Batts grew up in the Antelope Valley, a couple hours south of Los Angeles. His grandmother told him the story when he was five years old: his father left and didn't really want a kid. His mother gave birth to him but didn't want a child either. She'd been on her way to a modeling career, and the pregnancy put that on hold.
When Chris was six months old, she threw him in a dumpster in a local neighborhood dumpster across the street and left. A neighbor came out to take out their trash and heard a baby crying. The neighbor picked him up, recognized him, and called his grandmother. Chris's grandmother raised him from that point until he was about three and a half or four.
Then his grandmother had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized for a year. Chris bounced between a few places before ending up with the sister his mother hated most. They treated him horribly. The irony wasn't lost on him: they went to church every Sunday, sometimes on Wednesdays, acting holy while cherry-picking Bible verses to justify their cruelty. They'd quote "spare the rod, spoil the child" and take it as permission to beat him whenever they wanted because it meant they'd go to heaven.
Chris used to count back in the day. If he went a week without getting whooped, that was an accomplishment. There were times he had marks and bruises all over him. Teachers would ask if he was in trouble at home. He was so scared he'd say no, convinced that if he told the truth and got home, it would only get worse.
Was he afraid of God? Hell yeah. He was terrified of God. This God in the sky who was going to kill him, burn him, torture him for eternity. His soul wouldn't get any rest. And they went to this church every week. Between his home life and his thoughts on religion, he was already messed up. He felt like he had nothing.
At 15, he made the decision to raise himself because there was no one else who could do it for him. He taught himself life by strictly observing and experiencing. By the time he was actually 15, he felt like an adult already. He stayed out however late he wanted, came back whenever he wanted. He started getting behind in school. He sat at graduation in the bleachers because he didn't graduate.
The Slow Collapse
After high school, Chris watched his friends progress in life while he didn't. They had people to help them, give them that little boost. He didn't. When they got their first houses, first apartments, first cars, he was going to the county building trying to get $200 in a month on the bus. He was embarrassed to tell people he needed help, embarrassed to tell people he was on the bus.
The embarrassment led back to the depression he'd had as a kid. He got so depressed he went numb. He tried all the pills he could. He would drink every day. Prescription cough syrup. Got bored of that. Went back to drinking. Got bored of that. He tried different things, but he never really had an addictive personality. He just got bored and wanted to do something else.
His life had become a closed loop: nobody he could count on, family friends moving on, too embarrassed to tell them he needed help, family members who didn't want him to do anything with his life. He decided he was going to get out of here.
Chris went to the train station and timed every train that passed. He just stayed there watching them go by, looking at the time. He picked a specific time and day to jump in front of a train. Whatever happened, happened. He didn't care. What could be worse than being here right now?
The Plan Interrupted Twice
On the day he'd chosen, Chris was arguing with one of his friends, one of the only friends who knew what he was going through. They had an idea when he left: oh shit, he's going to go, he's going to do it. Somehow they followed him.
Chris was about 10 to 15 feet away from that railroad track when he heard the honk. He thought, damn, there goes my plan. Now he had to come up with something completely different. She came to save him and he was like, you fucked up my plan.
He got in the car. Then, out of all the timing in the world, his mom called him. He couldn't believe it. What a time for her to call, when he was literally about to kill himself. He hadn't talked to his mom in years. He thought maybe she was calling to apologize. This could change his whole entire outlook on everything.
She said his grandma told her he was looking for her. Chris asked how she got his number. She said his grandma gave it to her, that he'd been asking about her. Then she told him: "I don't want you. You're not my son." And hung up.
Chris looked at his phone and said, "Fuck you. You never were." He rolled down the window and tossed the phone out. All he knew was they'd just made a right turn and kept going. He looked at his friend in the driver's seat and just mumbled under his breath, "Fuck this." He opened the door, jumped out. Boom. Head hit the concrete.
The Moment of Separation
Chris thought, I think this hurts, but he wasn't sure if it hurt. He figured he'd just go home. It was hard to get up. Something kept telling him, I wouldn't do that if I were you. He kept trying to get up, trying to pull himself up with all his force. Then it was like this suction feel, going right out. He looked down and saw a body laying right there. He thought, that's my body. Then, nah, that's my mind messing with me. He was just going to go home now.
He took about three steps. Everything was different colors. Slow motion. Next thing he knew, he was thinking, how the hell could this happen?
Then he got this feeling, right here, from the most dominant force he'd ever feel in his life. He knew it was God because you just know when it's that strong. He could compare it to being hit by lightning every time, just constantly after every sentence, after every statement.
The Questions and the Answers
Chris had a bunch of questions in his head, and in the order the questions were in his head, they were answered. He was thinking, who are you?
Chris didn't believe in angels. He said no. He didn't want to see any angels. He didn't believe in that stuff. That stuff was for TV, he thought.
Then it was like a projector screen came up. He saw a lady walking like a prostitute. God said, "I love her." Then he saw a guy with a suit and a briefcase. God said, "I love him." Then he saw a guy on a skateboard smoking a joint. God said, "I love him".
What Chris took from that was God wanted him to know: you think you're not good enough, but you are, because I love everybody. Then God said something that hit even harder: "I will go to the end of the world so that everyone is with me". Chris understood: God would literally go to the end of the earth for us just so we could be with him, because he loves us like that.
Chris asked what he was supposed to do when he went back to earth so people didn't think he was crazy. God said, "Go and tell everyone that I love them".
The Hug That Changed Everything
Chris never saw God at all. He just felt him. God got on one knee and gave him a hug. The hug was very tight and safe and Chris did not want to let go.
The first meeting with source had been, "Oh my god, I don't deserve to be here. Get me out of here. I'm not perfect. Let me go get perfect." It went from that to, don't let me go from this hug.
Chris felt cared for, and he wasn't used to that. He definitely wasn't used to someone caring about him genuinely, unconditionally. The dominance was manly, the most macho male, but the hug and the caring was way more than a woman, way more than a woman. It was both, all in one. That's why Chris calls it source now, not him or her.
The Angels and the Choice
Then Chris was in the air. He saw clouds, a bunch of angels flying everywhere. There were two particular ones he just recognized, like he just knew them. It seemed like they were familiar, like he'd known them all his life.
These angels he was actually looking at. He hadn't seen God, but he was actually seeing these angels. He saw everything around him just like he was looking at someone right in front of him. The one on his left had this beetle kind of face. He didn't get the best look at the face because there was so much light shining down from it, like looking at the sun.
The one on the right was more human than anything. Human face, curly brown hair, blue jeans, brown sandals with a red flannel shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. A lot of people like to compare it to the Brawny man. Chris compared it to Dan Connor from Roseanne.
The angel said, "You have so much to do for so many people". Chris was like, I do? They told him to look down. He saw his body laying there. He saw the friend he was with. He saw the ambulances. He felt this big urgency to go back to Earth.
The one on his left side was frustrated, like in a stern voice: "Are you sure you want to go?" But Chris got the sense he wasn't mad at him. He was upset at what happened to Chris in life. This was Chris's chance to say, hell no, I'm out of here, I'm not going back there.
But for some reason, Chris felt this huge responsibility or urge, this huge urge to go back. When he said okay, I'll go back, it was like the blink of an eye.
Waking Up Changed
Chris woke up two days later in the hospital. He just remembered them calling him miracle, saying they thought he was dead, they didn't think he was coming back. They said he hemorrhaged, they didn't know how many times, and there was nothing, he was gone.
The day he was released from the hospital, he was being wheelchaired out to the car because he couldn't walk, couldn't talk, didn't have senses, none of that stuff. He looked up at the sky and saw the mountain, the clear sky, the sun, the horizon. Everything was perfect. But it looked different.
Chris knew there was something out there that's good, a God that was loving and caring and doesn't judge us. That's when he knew God was the real God. He never feared death ever again. After that, everything changed.
Chris just knew he had to find out the truth. He started going through all types of stuff on Google: the truth about religion, the truth about the Bible, the books that didn't make it in the Bible. He wanted to know why certain books didn't make it. He looked at a lot of material, trying to compare it to what he could believe.
He changed his perspective about death. He changed his career. He'd been doing hard labor, working at the mall, clothing stores. He started working with special ed kids because he somehow felt like they were closer to God than a lot of people. He felt like the special ed kids don't get the same life skills a lot of other kids get, but spiritwise, they're so connected. He wanted to be around kids who were connected.
The Message He Came Back to Share
Chris says suicide is real and a lot of people don't have the experience he did. If he didn't have his experience, he probably would have been another lost soul. He just got lucky enough to come back and tell people who are suicidal that God, source, loves them, and there's someone in the world that loves them too. You just have to open your mouth. There's someone out there who'll help you.
Chris was too embarrassed to speak out about it, which is what the average suicidal person won't do, and that's when they're going to do something, because they're not talking about it. He says there's someone out there who does care. Don't be embarrassed.
One thing he always says: the situation you might have in life, if you change your thought, you could change your life. Change the way you feel about yourself and see what happens after that.
[Chris Batts](/experiencer has shared his story on multiple platforms, including interviews with Anthony Chene production, IANDS, and Passion Harvest Podcast, reaching hundreds of thousands of people with the message he was sent back to deliver.
What This Story Reveals
Chris's account contains several elements that appear consistently across thousands of near-death experiences, and a few that are particularly striking.
The sensation of being pulled out of his body, the immediate recognition of his physical form lying on the pavement, the shift in perception where colors appeared different and time moved in slow motion: these are among the most commonly reported features of the separation phase. What's unusual is his initial confusion and the voice warning him not to try to stand up. Most experiencers describe an instant knowing, but Chris's account suggests the transition can sometimes include a brief period of disorientation.
The communication with what he identified as God is textbook: not heard with ears, but received as pure knowing, answers arriving in the exact sequence of his unspoken questions. This telepathic transfer of information, often described as faster and more complete than verbal language, appears in the majority of deep NDEs. The comparison to being struck by lightning captures what many experiencers struggle to articulate: the sheer power and undeniability of the presence.
The projector-screen vision showing different people, each met with the declaration "I love him" or "I love her," echoes a pattern we see in life reviews, but Chris's version is more like a targeted teaching moment. God wasn't showing Chris his own life. God was showing him the truth about divine love: that it's given freely, without condition, to the prostitute, the businessman, the kid smoking a joint. For someone raised in a household that weaponized religion and conditioned him to fear a punishing God, this revelation was the exact medicine he needed.
The hug is worth pausing on. Physical sensation during an out-of-body experience is one of the great mysteries of NDE research. Chris describes a hug so real, so safe, that he didn't want it to end. He felt cared for, perhaps for the first time in his life. The detail about the presence being both intensely masculine in power and more nurturing than any woman aligns with what many experiencers report: that the divine transcends human categories of gender while somehow embodying the best qualities of both.
The encounter with angels is less common than the encounter with the divine presence itself, but it's far from rare. What stands out here is Chris's initial refusal to meet them. He didn't believe in angels. He thought that was TV stuff. The fact that he was shown them anyway, and that he recognized two of them as familiar, suggests a kind of soul-level memory that predates this lifetime. The angel with the beetle-like face surrounded by blinding light and the one who looked like Dan Connor from Roseanne: these are not the sanitized, greeting-card angels of popular culture. They're specific, strange, and unmistakably real in Chris's telling.
The choice to return is perhaps the most significant moment in the entire account. Chris was given an out. The angel on his left, frustrated and stern, asked if he was sure he wanted to go back. This wasn't a rhetorical question. Chris could have stayed. But he felt a huge urge, a responsibility, to return. He was told he had so much to do for so many people. And he believed it.
When he woke up two days later, unable to walk or talk, his senses gone, the doctors calling him a miracle, Chris looked up at the sky and saw the world differently. Not metaphorically. Actually differently. This shift in perception, this sense that the veil has been lifted and reality is more than it appeared to be, is one of the most consistent aftereffects of NDEs. Chris never feared death again. He knew, with a certainty that no amount of argument could shake, that consciousness continues, that love is real, and that he had a purpose.
The fact that he went from a suicidal young man with no direction to someone who works with special education children, drawn to them because he senses their spiritual connection, tells you everything you need to know about the transformative power of these experiences. Chris came back with a message: God loves you. There's someone who cares. Don't be embarrassed to ask for help. Change your thought, change your life.
It's a simple message. It's also the message that might have saved his life if he'd heard it before he jumped from that car. Now he's spending his life making sure other people hear it in time.
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