At UC Santa Cruz, Brooke Knisley fell more than twenty feet from a redwood while drinking and spent ten days in a coma. What followed was the long, messy work of living with a traumatic brain injury: double vision, memory gaps, relearning daily life, and building white-board systems to keep moving forward. With sharp humor and hard-won clarity, Brooke traces the shift from bar fights and self-numbing to therapy, sobriety, and a steadier kindness toward herself and others—learning to “play the tape through,” when making decisions, and to find joy in the small moments.

Brooke is a talented freelance writer specializing in humor, personal essays, and reporting on disability, mental health, and culture. To read more of Brooks insightful and engaging work, visit her website: brookknisley.com

Contains traumatic brain injury/coma, alcohol misuse, and a reference to sexual assault. Listener discretion advised.

Story Producer: Nicholas Tecosky

If you have a transformative near-death experience to share, we’d love to hear your story! Please email us at aliveagainproject@gmail.com We’d love to hear your story!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2015, Robert was poisoned by someone he knew. A rapidly spreading infection sent him into emergency surgery—then into a profound near-death experience. In a vivid desert vision, a calm “guide” spoke to him in the precise, mathematical language his mind trusted, explaining reincarnation, non-linear time, and a threshold beyond which returning is impossible. A nurse later told him he had been clinically dead during the operation. Robert emerged changed: less nihilistic, newly attentive to meaning, and committed to leaving people and places better than he found them.

Contains poisoning, drug use, and discussion of clinical death. Listener discretion advised.

Story Producer: Nicholas Tecosky

If you have a transformative near-death experience to share, we’d love to hear your story! Please email us at aliveagainproject@gmail.com We’d love to hear your story!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When a falling rock shattered Rhesa Bailey’s pelvis at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, survival became immediate and bodily— improvised splints, a perilous raft run to the remote ranger station, a turbulent helicopter through weather.

In the year leading up to the accident, Rhesa had begun to doubt her beliefs—beliefs that had defined her—beliefs that once seemed unshakable—about God, safety, and certainty. These were stripped down to questions.

In this riveting episode, Rhesa talks about the Grand Canyon accident that almost killed her, her crisis of faith, the ache of doubt, the humility of not knowing, and how her experience of almost dying helped reshaped her identity. Eventually she re-imagined faith— not as answers to the mysteries of the universe, but as a practice: presence, honesty, and love enacted in small, daily choices. What emerged was a renewed understanding of herself and her place in the grand universe.

This is a story of faith transformed by experience, moving from borrowed conviction to a grounded, personal belief that can hold both mystery and joy.

Contains traumatic injury, blood loss, and medical/ICU details. Listener discretion advised.

Story Producer: Brent Dey

If you have a transformative near-death experience to share, we’d love to hear your story! Please email us at aliveagainproject@gmail.com We’d love to hear your story!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.