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Three Iowans Explore the "Near-Death Experience"

Charity Nebbe
Gene Zdrazil and Loni Parrott speak about "near-death experiences."

 

 

What happens after we die? It’s a question that we can’t answer. But more and more people are reporting what happened to them during a "near-death experience." And if you listen closely to their stories, some fascinating clues to the question emerge.

Retired professor of psychiatry at the University of Iowa Russell Noyes spent years collecting accounts of his patients' near-death experiences. On this hour of Talk of Iowa, Charity Nebbe chats with Noyes, social worker Loni Parrot of Iowa City and chiropractor Gene Zdrazil from Lone Tree about their thoughts concerning the illuminating phenomenon of the "NDE."

From 2000 to 2004, Parrott held monthly meetings in Iowa City under the auspices of the International Association for Near-Death Studies. She invited speakers to share their near-death experiences and provided the space for people like Zdrazil, who went into a coma after an attempted suicide.

He hadn’t been able to share his story until Parrott’s event.

“I was afraid of being considered a kook--a nut,” Zdrazil says, “I had to make a serious decision to not talk about it.” But as we hear, the NDE was transformative for him and overwhelmingly changed his life for the better. As for Dr. Noyes, he still has a colletion of over 200 stories of NDEs, and continues to be fascinated by the many accounts he has collected over the years.

Charity Nebbe is the host of IPR's Talk of Iowa
Dennis Reese was the mid-day host for Iowa Public Radio