At first, Janelle Wooford thought she was having indigestion. When her pain got worse, she called 911. Then, moments after the EMTs arrived, Janelle says everything went white, and she experienced the afterlife.
“I didn’t have pain at all. What is everyone back on earth doing? I wasn’t worried about that. I wasn’t worried about anything and I was just overwhelmed with the peace and the joy and the glory of it all,” Janelle recalls.
It all started with a heart attack that killed her. That’s when Janelle’s spirit was transported to Heaven.
“Pretty quickly after finishing eating I had a feeling that was heavy in my chest, but just felt like indigestion and didn’t really think a whole lot of it,” Janelle tells CBN. “Then I noticed pain in my left shoulder. It started to kind of go up near my jaw.”
“My breathing was getting a little harder, shallow, and all of a sudden I got real clammy and sweaty,” Janelle said. “That’s when I really started to think, well, maybe this really is something going on with my heart. I called for my daughter to come out to talk to me, and I let her know I wasn’t feeling right, that I felt like I might need to go to the hospital.”
“She’s like, ‘call 911,'” Janelle says, describing her daughter’s frantic response. “So, I did. They came in and I remember the EMT started asking me questions, who I was, how I was feeling, and I started to describe to him the pain and what all the symptoms were that I was feeling. All of a sudden, I just said, ‘My head feels funny.’ I said, ‘And my vision.’ And at that point all I saw, it was like this veil – this white, cloudy veil just kind of came down. And that was it.”
“The next thing I know is I was just in a bright, bright place and was overwhelmed with joy and peace and happiness,” Janelle said as she found herself in Heaven. “I was looking around at everything, everyone, just trying to see who all was there. It was a place of comfort. It was like a familiar place. I knew people that I loved were there, and I was looking to see what all was there and who all was there. It was just beautiful. No pain, no fear, just peace, comfort, joy. It was amazing. Why would you want to leave? I didn’t.”
“As I’m doing all that, I hear my name called out,” Janelle says, putting her hand to her ear. “I was like, ‘No thank you, I’m happy here. I’m staying here. I’m enjoying this. I’m not leaving this.’ Then I heard my name again and I’m like, ‘Oh, do I have to answer?’ I said, ‘Maybe if I answer, they’ll let me come back.’ So, I answered, and the moment I answered to my name – the minute I answered my name, it was gone. I was back right there with the EMTs, no longer in Heaven.”
“Then they just started letting me know what was going on,” Janelle says about the EMTs attending to her. “They told me I had actually had a heart attack, that they had to perform CPR and shock my heart to get me back. He said that it was about two to two and a half minutes that I had been dead, that I had no heartbeat.”
She was taken to a hospital where her diagnosis was rendered.
“I ended up having a tear in one of my arteries, a very small tear,” Janelle says. “They gave me some heart medications and said that I should be alright and that it should heal up on its own. I was only in the hospital for two days and I was able to go home.”
“I really believe the Lord let me go through this for my daughter,” Janelle says of her Heavenly experience. “So, that she can have that reassurance to know, truly know, that Jesus is real, God is real, Heaven is real and it’s all worth it. To know that whatever you go through on this earth, in this earthly life, as bad and as hard as it is, it’s worth it to know Jesus as your savior and to trust God with all you’re going through.”
“There is nothing on this earth that can even give you a comprehension of how amazing and glorious the peace and the joy is up there. The knowledge of knowing that Heaven is there waiting on me, on everyone that trusts and believe in Him – it’s just amazing.”