'I died in car crash that killed half my family – then I saw something impossible'

A dad was travelling home with his wife and two sons when he briefly dozed off at the wheel – resulting in him losing half of his family in the subsequent crash.

Jeffrey Olsen’s wife, and their 14-month-old son, were instantly killed when the car suddenly rolled over. His other son, who was seven, survived, while he was left with significantinjuries, including a broken back and shattered leg which had to be amputated. The devastating accident happened back in 1997 and it took Jerffrey almost a decade to talk publicly about his near-death experience.

He recalled: “I am losing consciousness. I have a hysterical seven-year-old I can’t get to. I don’t know how badly hurt he is, based on his crying, I believe he is okay, he is hurt but he is going to be okay.

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“But my wife and youngest son were not okay and I was aware of that. I knew at the scene of the accident they had passed and that was the setting. I don’t share to be morbid, but that was the setting.”

Jeffrey, who was 33 at the time and ran an advertising agency, said he then blacked out before he felt a tangible light surrounding him.

Outlining his near-death experience to , he continued: “It felt comforting. It was holding me in this horrible terrible situation and it felt like I was rising above the accident scene and I was a little bit confused. What is going on because now I could breathe, there was no pain, I was very much alive.

“I suppose my spirit or soul left my body but I was very much alive. I was held in this light and then my wife, who I knew was deceased at the scene, suddenly she was there in the light with me.

“She was there and very much alive, beautiful, she didn’t display any of the injuries that took her life. However, she was emphatic, like, ‘Jeff, you can’t stay, you have to go, you can’t be here, you have to go back.’”

He then explained that they had a conversation about their surviving son, Spencer, who may have been left orphaned. Jeffrey added that he had to say a profound goodbye to his wife before making a choice to go back.

His next memory was being “whisked” into a trauma centre emergency room hospitalwhere he had a “360 degree awareness” of the patients, their families, doctors and nurses, all of who he had a sense of knowing deeply.

He then saw his battered body on the hospital bed and he continued: “There I was looking at this magnificent machine of the body and I knew I had agreed to go back in.

“And mine was so broken. It was so banged up. And again, just thoughts, intention, I didn’t have to figure out how to get back in, it was just the decision, intention, I am going in and then boom, I was back in the body, back into the heaviness, the grief, the trauma, the pain, both physically and emotionally.

“The guilt, I was driving the car…”

His legs were immobile after the crush and his arm was also immobile after almost being torn off completely. There was also damage to his rib cage, lungs and the seat belt had ruptured his insides.

But speaking about being back in his body, he added: “There I was back in the body but I had this profound out of body experience. Very conscious. It wasn’t in my brain, it was something bigger, something different. I call it a spirit or a soul. There are all kinds of words for it but yeah, I was very conscious outside of my body, and boom back in.”

He remained in hospital for six months and survived 18 surgeries. Jeffrey also explained that not everything was okay after his “comforting” near-death experience, and after being back in his body, the immense loss he suffered hit him forcefully, and he underwent unimaginable grief.

However, without his out of body experiences, he said is unsure whether he would have been able to get through the loss of his wife and child. In the hospital he had his left leg amputated, his right arm was in a brace and he relied on a colostomy bag.

And one night, after finally being able to fall asleep on his side, he claimed to experience his second visit to the afterlife. He said: “I was in so much grief at the loss of half my family. Again, the light surrounded me, it felt like I was rising above the hospital bed.

“I was in the most beautiful, incredible place. I mean, there are words like heaven or the spirit world or the other side. The only word that comes close to what I was experiencing was that it felt like I was home.”

He described a feeling of elation at being able to run on two legs before a corridor suddenly appeared. After following it down, he encountered a crib, and inside was Griffin, the 14-month-old son he lost in the cash.

He said he swept him in his arms, felt his weight and heat, and smelled his hair before being overwhelmed by a “cosmic powerful presence” behind him.

It was at this point he became fearful and he explained: “The guilt began to bubble up again. I mean, this presence is coming closer and closer. I am holding my son and I am very much aware he is here because I crashed the car.

“I fell asleep or dozed off or overcorrected and his life was cut short. The guilt was bubbling up and so I could feel this presence coming closer and closer behind me. I am holding my son, I am weeping, and I had this thought, the hope was I can be forgiven.”

Jeffrey said “divine arms” then held them both and he remembered: “What was communicated by this magnificent being who held me, I will say God, was there is nothing to forgive. It is all in divine order and I thought, ‘How can that be?’

“I began to see my life and I was seeing events of my life and I am in the arms of this loving divine being and I am looking at my life.

“I am making judgments, like, ‘that was a mistake, I didn’t mean to do that,’ but in these beloved arms… there was no judgement, just pure unconditional love.

“You are so loved, we love you as much as that child you are holding and here I am looking at my son.”

He added: “In all that love, all that peace and all that beauty, I kissed my little boy and I handed him over. I trusted and gave him back and then back to the hospital bed and back to the injuries and all that went on.”

The accident was 28 years ago and Jeffrey’s other son, Spencer, is now married and has a child of his own.

Jeffrey – who wrote a book with Spencer called Where Are You? – said he now has no fear of dying.