A Kansas woman has come forward with her harrowing personal story of literally going to Hell and back during an 11-minute near-death experience.
Charlotte Holmes — at the time a 68-year-old great-grandmother — said her journey to the other side began during a routine heart check-up with her cardiologist in September 2019.
As her blood pressure rocketed up to 234 over 134, her doctors told her, ‘Either you’re having another stroke, or you’re about to have a heart attack,’ as she recalled.
What followed was a trip to ‘Heaven’ and a tour to ‘the edge of Hell’ led by God himself as a lesson, according to Holmes, that she was asked to pass on to the living.
Holmes and her husband Danny told The 700 Club that doctors declared her clinically dead after heart stopped for nearly twice the full time (five minutes) routinely used by medical professionals to assess death.
Danny watched in disbelief as the traumatic event unfolded: “Immediately, they call this code and everybody started rushing in,” he said.
“They just started working on her and I thought ‘Well, I’m wondering if I’m even going to be able to bring her home.”
Danny said he could corroborate his wife’s supernatural story, recounting the shocking moment when he heard his wife describing otherworldly things that were not physically in the room, but that she was witnessing in real time.
“That’s when I knew she was not in this world,” he explained.
Holmes explained that her journey began as a classic ‘out of body experience’ before she was led by angels into Heaven.
“I was above my body,’ as she remembered the ordeal.
“I could see them doing chest compressions. I could see them, all the nurses around. I could smell the most beautiful flowers I’ve ever smelled. And then I heard music.”
In a flash, Holmes said, “When I opened my eyes, I knew where I was. I knew I was in Heaven.”
Holmes described her journal to Heaven as one of ‘no fear’ and only ‘pure joy.’
As she told the Christian news broadcaster, she was greeted by younger healthier versions of deceased family members as well as historic saints from history.
“I saw my mom. I saw my dad. I saw my sister. I saw family members standing behind. I saw saints of old,” Holmes recalled. “They didn’t look old. They didn’t look sick. None of them wore glasses.”
Standing behind my mom and dad was a light so bright,’ she continued. “I couldn’t look upon it. So bright. But I knew it was my Heavenly Father.”
After being briefly reunited with a child that she had lost when she was five-and-a-half months pregnant, Holmes recalled that God then took her on a darker, but more educational detour.
“God took me to the edge of Hell,’ the 68-year-old great-grandmother professed.
“I looked down and the smell — rotten flesh — that’s what it smelled like,’ Holmes recalled. ‘And screams. After seeing the beauty of Heaven, the contrast of seeing Hell is almost unbearable.”
Holmes told The 700 Club that God had a purpose for showing her the horrors that follow a life lived outside of morality: ‘He says, ‘I show you this to tell you if some of them do not change their ways, this is where they shall reside.’ I heard my Father say, ‘You have time to go back and share.”
Charlotte and her husband Danny said that she made a full recovery and was released from the hospital after two weeks of observation.
Last year, medical researchers with the University Hospital of Liège in Belgium tracked 19 people after they had a near-death experience in an intensive care unit (ICU), following up with them 12 months later.
The researchers, who published their findings in the journal Critical Care, found that patients who had a near-death experience experienced a greater propensity for dissociative symptoms days after their ordeal.
These included feeling disconnected from oneself, feeling little to no pain, feeling uncertain about who they were, and increased spiritual and personal well-being.
But, after that period, there was no significant association with quality of life, despite the fact that NDEs (near-death experiences) ‘are typically reported as transforming and may be associated with negative emotions,’ the researchers wrote.
For years after her own ‘NDE,’ however, Charlotte Holmes maintained that her experience had been significantly more transformative.
Up until Holmes’ final passing on November 28, 2023 at the age of 72, the Kansas native would share her incredible story both in public appearances and in private conversations with friends, family and any interested strangers she would meet.
“People need hope. They want to know that there really is something out there,” as Holmes explained her reasoning. ‘They want to know that everything’s okay.'”
“I have been privileged to bring people to Christ, as He asked me to. All the authority that He had, He has given to us,’ the great-grandmother professed.
“It’s more real than you can imagine. I can look you square in the eye and tell you for sure, ‘Heaven is real.”
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