A woman whose heart stopped beating for three full minutes has revealed how her near-death experience erased a lifetime of pain and replaced it with an overwhelming sense of love. Callie Elwayns, from Alberta, Canada, suffered a fatal medical event that led to a profound spiritual journey, permanently altering her perspective on life.
A Life-Threatening Collapse
Callie's ordeal began when she experienced a tension pneumothorax, a critical condition where air becomes trapped between the lung and chest wall. This pressure can compress the heart and major blood vessels, making it a genuine medical emergency. "I knew I was having a lung collapse because of the pain and the inability to breathe," Callie recalled, describing the terrifying moments before she lost consciousness. Sensing something was terribly wrong, she managed to call 911 before she collapsed.
Paramedics arrived swiftly and fought for three minutes to resuscitate her after her heart stopped. It was in the ambulance, on the way to the hospital, that medical professionals successfully brought her back to life.
The Out-of-Body Transformation
During those three minutes when she was clinically dead, Callie underwent a powerful near-death experience. She described leaving her physical body and entering a state of "vast awareness." "I lost a sense of my person, my identity as Callie," she explained. "It was an awareness knowing itself – it was like I became a part of everything."
She felt her physical form and personal identity completely dissolve away, finding herself in a timeless space that she compared to a universe filled with tiny lights. The dominant sensation she encountered was one of pure, unconditional love.
A Lifetime of Trauma Finally Healed
Upon returning to her body, Callie understood the deeper purpose of her journey. She had endured a traumatic childhood with a mother whose behaviour was episodically chaotic. By the age of 13, she no longer felt safe at home and began sleeping rough. At 16, she suffered her first lung collapse, an event that would recur multiple times in the following years.
She now believes these repeated health crises were physical manifestations of the "fear and shame" that had plagued her since childhood. Her near-death experience, however, acted as a cleansing. "When I came back and entered my body again — which had been depleted and was having lung collapses and had been having fear and shame for so long — I realised I had that love inside of me this whole time," she said. The event stripped away the trauma, leaving her feeling whole for the first time. Despite the challenges, Callie went on to build a normal life and welcome two children, but it was this profound encounter that truly set her free.
