Jeffrey Olson's NDE: A Father's Journey Through Guilt to Grace

The Last Goodbye

Monday morning came. Time to go back to work. They had breakfast, hugged everyone, loaded the kids into their car seats. Jeffrey was already thinking about missing half the workday. They were pulling away from the curb, Tamara's parents waving from the porch, when [Tamara said wait, stop](/video/Z7vnMIgoWe0?t=77" class="text-blue-600 dark:text-blue-400 hover:underline">Jeffrey Olson. Jeffrey thought she'd forgotten something. But she looked at him and said, "I just want to say goodbye to Mom and Dad one more time".

He thought, women, we've loaded the car, we've got to get on our way. But he watched her jump out and run up to her parents. She didn't just hug them. She kissed them both. Then she came back, joyful, and buckled up.

Jeffrey shares this for a specific reason. Somewhere she had a whisper, somewhere she just had that weight stop, I've got to go hug Mom and Dad one more time. He's learned over the years to become very conscious of that, when you get that little hit, that little whisper. He's grateful Tamara stopped. Because as the day played out, that was the last goodbye.

The Crash

Jeffrey hit the interstate and cranked the cruise control up to 75 miles an hour, as fast as he could legally go. He was hustling to get back to work, back to the office, back to their lives, all that chitter chatter going on in his head as he raced up the freeway. Then he happened to glance in the rearview mirror.

His youngest son Griffin caught his eye, sound asleep in his car seat. It's almost like time stood still. He was overcome. They'd been told they might never have more children, and there he was. Jeffrey noticed details. How Griffin's hands were laid on the car seat tray. How long his eyelashes were. In that glance, I saw that and I felt him. Then he heard the laughter, Spencer playing with action figures behind him, making all the joyful noise of a little boy. He glanced at Tamara, who'd reclined her seat back and fallen asleep, still holding his hand. Wow, we're 10 years into a marriage and she's still holding my hand. It was an absolute moment of gratitude, this surreal glance in the rearview mirror, seeing what he was surrounded by, being extremely grateful.

About an hour after that, it all came apart.

One of the most difficult things about telling the story, Jeffrey says, is that I believe I may have dozed off at the wheel, I might have just nodded off briefly like that. He swerved to the right, overcorrected to the left, lost control. The vehicle flipped and began to roll, not off the road but down the road. A horrific automobile accident. They say the car rolled at least six to eight times.

Jeffrey blacked out for most of it. When the car came to a stop, he was completely conscious. The first thing he heard was Spencer, his seven-year-old, crying hysterically in the back seat. My thought was I've got to get to my boy, I've got to get to my son. That's when he realized he couldn't move. He was pinned to the floorboard or the seat, he couldn't tell. The rancid smell of gasoline, broken glass everywhere.

He was unaware of his injuries. Both legs had been crushed and shattered. His left leg would eventually be amputated above the knee. His back had been broken in two places. His right arm had almost been torn completely off. The seat belt had cut through him and ruptured his insides. His rib cage was damaged, his lungs collapsing. He found it hard to breathe. He was losing consciousness. The adrenaline was screaming: got to get to my boy, I can hear my son, he's crying.

That's when the reality hit, the horrible reality. No one else was crying. He became aware at the scene of the accident that both Tamara and Griffin were gone. Killed instantly in the crash.

That's the darkest hell a man could ever be in. Pinned, unable to move, losing consciousness. A hysterical seven-year-old he couldn't get to. Half the family gone. And he was driving the car. The guilt, the regret. I just I wanted those three seconds back. What happened? It felt like a nightmare, but it wasn't.

Light Came

In that chaotic darkness, suddenly light came. When Jeffrey says that, he means it felt as if light came to me, it felt as if light came and surrounded me, literally comforting him in this horrific situation. Then suddenly he could breathe. It felt as if I was rising above the accident scene, and he kept thinking, how can I be okay? Because it felt like, well, I'm okay. The pain is gone. He was very conscious, super conscious.

He believes what was happening is my soul had left my body, but here he was in this light, wondering how he could possibly be okay.

Then Tamara, his wife, who he knew was deceased at the scene, suddenly she was in this light with me, right there, right with me. No injuries or trauma. She was gorgeous, radiant. She was communicating to him. She kept saying Jeff you can't be here, you can't be here, you got to go back, you gotta go back, you can't come, you've got to go back. She was emotional and emphatic about it.

Jeffrey was still searching for his bearings, but we literally had a conversation. They talked about what would happen if he stayed with her. Spencer would be orphaned. We literally made the choice that I was coming back. Jeffrey says we have no idea how powerful our thoughts are. As they made that choice, as he said the most profound goodbye he'll ever say, I didn't have to figure out how to come back, it was in making the choice. Our thoughts are so powerful. Suddenly, in saying that goodbye and choosing to go back, he found himself wandering around a hospital.

Wandering the Hospital

When Jeffrey says wandering around, moving about freely, he has no concept of time in this light. He later found out that other drivers stopped at the scene. Spencer was banged up pretty good but physically walked away from the accident. He'd bruised his ribs and cracked his wrist, but he was okay. Emotionally, he thought the whole family was gone.

Jeffrey had to be extricated from the car and was airlifted to the nearest level one trauma center. He knew none of that. All he knew was that he'd crashed the car, lost half the family, and here he was moving freely about the hospital.

As he moved about, he encountered the nurses and the doctors and the other patients and the families of the patients, everything in a hustling, bustling level one trauma emergency setting. It's difficult to know the words to use. As he encountered them, I knew them perfectly, even if they were strangers perhaps in this realm. Everyone he saw, I knew their love, I knew their hate, I knew their motivations, I knew their challenges, I knew their thoughts, I knew their decisions and choices, I knew them as well as I knew myself. He now calls it a Oneness. There was an undeniable connection that this was true of everyone I encountered, I knew them perfectly, and yet it was all connected in this absolute unconditional love. Love without conditions. Everyone he saw, he loved them.

Then he suddenly came up to a body that he didn't feel anything from, which he thought was strange given this experience. So he stepped closer to look. That's when I realized oh my goodness that's me. There was the flesh, the body he was going to have to get back into, the one he'd lived his life in up to that point. He knew he had to get back in that body and its brokenness.

Again, our thoughts are so powerful, I didn't have to figure out how, just the choice, the intention, I'm going in, I'm going into the body, boom, then I was back in the body. But back to the grief and the pain and the regret and the guilt and the trauma. It was so heavy.

Tamara's Soul in the Operating Room

There's a key part of Jeffrey's near-death experience that's unique to his story. When he was life flighted into the level one trauma center, one of the doctors, actually Dr. Jeff O'Driscoll, he's written about this and has spoken about it publicly, he and one of the nurses had a profound experience as well. While Jeffrey was out of the body, having this near-death experience, they had an experience where they came into the operating room, the emergency trauma center where I had been airlifted into, and they both reported that they saw and experienced my wife Tamara, who was killed at the scene, they experienced her soul, her spirit, in the operating room.

Dr. O'Driscoll shares that he came in and she was standing in the air above my gurney and she communicated with him. When Jeffrey asked him what she communicated, the doctor said, "She simply thanked us, she simply shared her gratitude for all we were doing to save your life".

When he said that, Jeffrey thought, of course she did, that's exactly how she was. But he also realized the doctor didn't know that they'd had this conversation, that they'd made this deal, that Jeffrey had agreed to come back and raise their surviving son. Their body wasn't shutting down, their brain wasn't lacking oxygen. They were alive and well and healthy in the operating room and experienced Tamara's soul as they worked on Jeffrey. As he was making the choice to go back into the body, in saying goodbye to his wife, they were saying hello. They were introduced and she communicated how grateful she was for them saving my life.

Months in the Hospital

The months in the hospital were profound. There were times it was so painful Jeffrey felt like I would leave the body again, like I would just have to take a break and stand over in the corner of the room and look at my broken self, just getting a breather and getting up the nerve to get back in the body and keep going.

But it was at that moment, at that point, that he had another profound out-of-body or near-death experience. It was one night when he finally laid on his side and I fell into a deep peaceful sleep. He was aware that he was in a deep peaceful sleep, sleeping and thinking, wow, I haven't slept peacefully for months, it's been so dramatic and the grief was so heavy. But on this particular night, as he slept, I felt that light come again, but this time the light dispensed and I was in the most beautiful place.

People can say heaven or the spirit world or the other side. The only word that comes close to what I was experiencing is I was home, I was home, it was so familiar, it was so welcoming, I was home. And he began to run. He doesn't run in this realm, but there I had two feet and two legs and I began to run. It was such a physical experience. I could literally feel the energy of the ground beneath my feet. An invigorating physical experience. I was running and I was laughing gleefully thinking I'm home.

That's when the knowing came: you're not here to stay. He knew he wasn't there to stay. At the same time, there was this corridor off to the left, and I knew intuitively I'm to go that way, I'm to go down that way. He began working his way down this corridor. As he did, he looked at the end. There was a crib.

Griffin, his son, had been sleeping in a crib at the time of the accident. He was only 14 months old, just a toddler. Jeffrey raced to this crib and looked in. There he was, there was my little boy, and he was sleeping as beautifully and as peacefully as when I glanced in that rearview mirror. That's why he brings this up. He looked at Griffin laying there, and the same emotions came up, he's a miracle, I noticed the details, I noticed just how long his eyelashes were. Jeffrey picked him up and held him against him. He was solid against me and I could feel him breathing, I could feel his breath on my neck. He began to weep, just holding him and smelling his hair and kissing his face.

The Divine Presence

As Jeffrey held Griffin, I felt this presence come up behind me, this overwhelming powerful cosmic presence. Then he began to have that guilt bubble up again, all that regret. He was holding Griffin, and given his upbringing, I was feeling like wow that presence is God and I'm in so much trouble, my little boy's here because I crashed the car, you know his life was cut short because I dozed off and I lost control. All that guilt was coming up as he held Griffin, weeping, with this presence coming closer and closer and closer.

Jeffrey had the thought: I hope there's some way I can be forgiven. As he had that thought, this presence had come so close, and this almost felt physical that I just felt these divine arms just wrap around and hold me and my little boy. He just began to weep. With that thought, I hope I can be forgiven, there was this download of information, of peace, of love.

The first thing that was communicated is "there's nothing to forgive, everything is in perfect divine order".

Then Jeffrey had what he's learned is called the life review. He began to see his life. I saw my parents' divorce and what that did to me, it made me so insecure in my self-doubt and my not-enoughness, and I saw my brothers and the role they played in my life as my best friends and my heroes. He saw things where he'd say, all that, that was a mistake, I didn't mean to do that. And this beautiful being that held me said there are no mistakes, what did you learn.

This beautiful being said, "That's your judgment of it, not ours, what have you become because of it, not in spite of it". There was all this love. There was so much unconditional love in these arms and no judgment, only beauty and peace and insight, like deep wisdom.

Jeffrey was told by this divine presence, this being who held him, that even felt physical the way he was held, "You can be mad at God your whole life and that would be okay, they would love me anyway, or I was told I could be mad at myself my whole life and that would be okay, they would love me anyway, there was nothing but love".

But Jeffrey was also given a third choice. This was interesting because the being who held me, who I call God, said I want you to have your will in this circumstance. Jeffrey thought, my will? I was brought up in a conservative Christian home, it's your will be done, not my will be done.

This being communicated to Jeffrey, "Your will is my will, that's how much we love you, my will has always been that you have free will and I want you to make a choice".

It was communicated to him that I could give my son back. That he could exercise his will and hand Griffin over to God and release him and trust and let go, rather than harboring all that anger and guilt and turmoil within him.

In all that peace and all that love and all that beauty and all that insight and wisdom, I was able to kiss my little boy and I handed him back, I gave him over, I handed him over to God and I let go.

Then Jeffrey was back in the hospital bed, back to the amputation and the colostomy bag and the braces and the wheelchair and all that went with it. But I had a little bit different insight, it had expanded everything for me. He'd grown up believing that life was a test, and yet in all that love and in all that beauty, I realized that life is not a test, it was a gift, I was told life is a gift. In every moment, he has a choice of what he chooses to do or how he chooses to react, even the emotions. If something makes him angry, what a gift that he can feel an emotion.

Coming Home

It was time for Jeffrey to go home. His brothers came to get him. They would literally have to lift me, they would have to lift me up and put me in the wheelchair. They drove to his brother's house, where Jeffrey was going to be staying for a while, where Spencer had been. Spencer was excited for him to come home.

But Jeffrey was so worried about how Spencer would accept him. I mean I'd been the rough and tumble dad and now I was crippled and had this colostomy bag and all the things that went with, I just I was never going to be the same. He kept worrying, how is he going to deal with this, how is he going to accept me.

As they pulled up to the house, there was Spencer, seven years old, looking out the window, watching as his uncles lifted Jeffrey out of the car and into the wheelchair. Jeffrey kept thinking, how is he gonna deal with this, how is he gonna accept me. He began to navigate his way. They'd built a ramp for him. They were insistent that he become independent. He had to drive that wheelchair into the house.

Spencer my seven-year-old came running out the door and he came running toward me and he ran right past me. Jeffrey thought, well that's it, this is too much for him to see me like this and to be on his turf now, this it's just too much, he's got to process this. Jeffrey continued to navigate the wheelchair, going to the ramp, turning the wheelchair to go up the ramp. He just looked over his shoulder to see where Spencer had gone.

Then he heard him. What he had done is he had run across the street and was knocking on all the neighbors' doors and he began to shout "Come out, come out, my dad has made it home, come and see my dad". Jeffrey burst into tears again.

Spencer made the rounds hollering, and then he came and threw himself on Jeffrey's lap, which just about killed him because he still had all the sutures from the abdominal repair. Spencer threw his arms around Jeffrey's neck. Jeffrey told him, "Look I'm gonna work really hard to get well but I'm going to be like this for a while, are you going to be okay".

Spencer is a grown man now. It's been 25 years. But they still laugh about what he said. "Dad if you are nothing but a puddle of blood I would still love you". And that's been true.

What the Experience Taught Him

Jeffrey says the near-death experience has taught me that what's important is the life experience. You don't have to have a horrible accident and lose half your family to realize, wow, let's make the best of today because maybe we don't get tomorrow. Life is a gift, it's not a test.

And there is Oneness, we are connected, we do have Oneness if we choose to embrace and see each other that way rather than judging and dividing. Jeffrey trusts there's something in his story that may have been an answer for you or may have assisted you along your way.

All there is is love, even grief is love, we only grieve because we love. Lean into the love in your life. Tell the people you love that you love them. Smile at that stranger and pitch in. Be more kind. Be more you. Simply be the highest manifestation of you there can be.

A Pattern of Forgiveness

Jeffrey Olson's experience sits at the intersection of two of the most common and most misunderstood themes in near-death accounts: the life review and the encounter with a divine presence. What makes his story particularly significant is how it addresses the question that haunts so many people after loss, especially loss they feel responsible for. Can I be forgiven?

The answer Jeffrey received, "there's nothing to forgive, everything is in perfect divine order," echoes across thousands of NDE accounts. This isn't spiritual bypassing or a dismissal of human suffering. It's a fundamental reordering of how we understand mistakes, guilt, and the purpose of our lives. The being who held Jeffrey didn't say his choices didn't matter. The being asked, "What did you learn? What have you become because of it?"

This is the curriculum. Not punishment for getting it wrong, but transformation through experience. The divine presence in Jeffrey's account, like so many others, doesn't judge by our standards. It sees the whole picture, the soul's journey across time, the lessons we came here to learn. Jeffrey grew up believing life was a test. What he discovered is that life is the classroom, and love is both the teacher and the lesson.

The detail about his wife Tamara appearing to the doctor and nurse in the operating room is particularly compelling. Dr. Jeff O'Driscoll and a nurse both independently reported seeing her soul above Jeffrey's gurney, thanking them for saving his life. This wasn't Jeffrey's hallucination or oxygen-deprived brain creating comforting images. This was a shared experience by two medical professionals who were fully conscious and alert, working to save a dying man. Tamara's presence in that operating room, expressing gratitude for their efforts to keep Jeffrey alive so he could raise their surviving son, corroborates the choice Jeffrey and Tamara made together in the light. She kept her end of the agreement.

Jeffrey has also shared his story in another detailed interview where he explores the nature of consciousness and our soul's purpose (you can watch that here. Across all his accounts, the core message remains consistent: we are eternal beings, connected in Oneness, and the love we give and receive is the only thing that matters.

What awaits us on the other side isn't judgment by an angry God keeping score of our failures. What awaits us is home. A place so familiar, so welcoming, that Jeffrey ran with two legs he didn't have anymore in this realm, laughing gleefully, feeling the energy of the ground beneath his feet. What awaits us is the truth that our will and God's will are the same, that we are loved beyond measure, and that every experience, even the most painful, is part of a perfect divine order we can't fully see from here.

Jeffrey's seven-year-old son, running through the neighborhood shouting "Come out, come and see my dad," understood something profound that day. Love doesn't require perfection. Love doesn't require two legs or a body that works the way it used to. Love is the ground we stand on, the breath we take, the choice we make in every moment to see each other as we truly are: connected, eternal, and home.