It's a secret he kept for years, telling no one what he saw for fear they wouldn't believe him.
John Edwards has written a book about his experience the night he nearly died. Edwards spoke with 5NEWS via Skype from his home in Dallas.
"If it had gone any further over my head was underneath, and I probably wouldn't have survived that,” Edwards explained.
He was a junior at Northside High School the night the car he was riding in rolled at a Fort Smith intersection pinning him underneath the Oldsmobile. The year was 1966.
The driver and other passengers suffered minor injuries, but Edwards skull was fractured. He says today doctors would probably diagnose it as a traumatic brain injury. The teen was rushed to St. Edwards emergency room. There he claims to have had an out-of-body experience, traveling through a black void toward a tiny point of light.
"I uh, saw something that's described in revelation 20 and 21 very well,” Edwards said, recalling the experience. “It was the city of light."
Edwards says members of his family were there to greet him; his uncle and a close family friend. As they talked, he stood in the green grass admiring the city from afar. He's careful in his choice of words, but it's obvious that Edwards believes he saw heaven. His uncle Cleve told him they were waiting for someone to arrive, but Edwards could not make out the man's face because of the bright light.
"We had a long review of my life thus far, and it left me really longing to continue to live and to be a servant to this person the rest of my life,” he told 5NEWS.
Edwards says he believes the figure that stood before him was Jesus himself. He would grow up to become a missionary and bible translator. Forty-five years after that night, the author tells his story in a new book entitled "Encouraged By The Light". (Click the book’s title for a link to learn more.)
