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COURTESY
Matthew Dovel has recently appeared on Good Morning America on ABC and a program about near death experiences on the A&E channel.
By Conor Shine (contact) 
Friday, Nov. 18, 2011 | 2 a.m.
Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman poses with Matthew Dovel, president of International Suicide Prevention, a nonprofit group that offers counseling services, as well as suicide scene cleanups.
When he was 12 years old, Matthew Dovel nearly drowned while swimming in a backyard pool at a friend’s house.
As he took his last breath and his lungs filled with water, Dovel, who now lives in Las Vegas, said he was overcome with terror.
And then, he said, he felt himself being pulled from his body toward a white light and “the terror flipped to a pleasure I can’t describe.”
As he floated through a surreal plane, Dovel relived the events of his young life — playing in the grass with friends, eating fried bologna sandwiches — before coming face to face with a silhouette that emerged from the light.
“There was no doubt in my mind who it was. It was Jesus Christ,” said Dovel, who said he wasn’t religious at the time. Then Dovel felt himself shot back into his body lying on the side of the pool, a survivor of a near-death experience.
The incident traumatized the young Dovel, and he struggled for the 13 years with what his brush with death meant.
“I thought this world was hell after experiencing such a pure place,” he said. “I thought, why did I come back? What is this all about?”
Dovel eventually fell into drugs and alcohol, developing a $1,000-a-day cocaine habit, dropping out of the military until one day, at age 25, he decided to kill himself, in hopes of returning to the place he had seen when he was 12.
“I got to the point where I made a decision if I had to keep living this way, I didn’t want to live another day,” he said.
After washing down handfuls of sleeping pills with a bottle of gin, Dovel prepared to die. He came close and had another near-death experience. Only this experience wasn’t like the first. Instead of going to a place he believes was heaven, he was sent to Hell.
Dovel said he spent three days in a monochromatic existence, filled with a dense, hot atmosphere and reliving all of the times he had hurt others in his life.
“I saw myself in the coroner’s office as my mother was identifying my body,” he said.
But Dovel believes he was saved again, and awoke in his bed many miles from where he had tried to kill himself.
His body was weak, but he was filled with a new conviction. He quit drugs and alcohol, and set out on a path to help others troubled by suicidal tendencies and those who were affected by the suicides of loved ones.
“My passion at that point was to start helping people so they didn’t make the same decision I did,” he said.
Nearly 25 years after his suicide attempt, Dovel is now the president of International Suicide Prevention, a nonprofit group that offers counseling services, as well as suicide scene cleanups.
He moved to Las Vegas from Alaska shortly after his suicide attempt in search of work, and has stayed here ever since, attending UNLV and starting his organization.
He said the toll of the recession that has resulted in thousands losing their jobs or their homes has made the city an unfortunate hot spot for suicides. He’s now working to raise the $250,000 needed to open a permanent facility to help people struggling with suicide, especially military veterans.
He’s also working to create a documentary for the United States government about mental health issues affecting veterans and the rash of suicides they are resulting in.
Near-death experiences have becoming an increasingly studied area in psychology and medical care, but there is still much that is unknown about them, said Raymond Moody, who has written several books on the subject and chaired the now-closed consciousness studies program at UNLV for several years.
No two experiences are the same, Moody said, although there are similarities found in many.
Feelings of peace, out-of-body experiences, immersion in a powerful light and encountering spiritual beings have all been reported in near-death experiences documented around the world.
“Generally I would say it’s an experience which tends to be profound and spiritually interpreted,” Moody said.
People who have near-death experiences, whether it’s while suffering cardiac arrest, nearly drowning or any of a wide variety of other situations, often come back changed, he said.
“There’s an abundance of people who said prior to this they have no religious leanings, but when they come back they think there’s something to that,” he said. “It takes them away from the idea of denomination being important into something broader.”
Although many attribute the experiences to biological causes — events being interpreted differently by the brain during a time of stress or oxygen deprivation — even after years of research and countless articles in medical journals, no definitive explanation has been put forward as to why people process these events the way they do, Moody said.
“Things are seldom as simple as they first seem,” he said. “In reality we just don’t know the relationship between the immediate inner-sense of awareness we all have and the material substance of the body.”
Dovel is less interested in exploring the mystery of near-death experiences and focuses on sharing his story to help others who are struggling in their lives.
He’s recently appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and a program about near-death experiences on the A&E channel. He’s working to update and republish a book about his life and struggle with suicidal thoughts.
“Anyone can be depressed. Anyone can become suicidal,” he said. “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, and I’m trying to help people understand that.”
I absolutely don't believe in this hokey junk. I have had personal experience with a near death experience. My heart stopped three times and I spent some time in a coma......no white light or other trash. Money making scam for people that need a false sense of hope and wonder.
I had a near death experience once-after eating at The Circus Circus Buffet.
I'm glad he is helping other people, thats a great and very honorable thing to do. But these stupid stories of going to heaven and hell are a load of crap.
Great, this means all suicide victims are forever in hell being tormented. That's just wonderful to know.
They came to do good, and did well.
A saying about the missionaries. Yes, I'm a bit cynical.
"Praise God! blah-blah-blah-"
ATVDAD1 -- your religious beliefs are just another opinion here. Far more credible to me are posts like those from Heretic, vc and Vinny. Human history shows it's all just mankind's feeble attempts to explain the unexplainable.
"To sum up: 1. The cosmos is a gigantic fly-wheel making 10,000 revolutions a minute. 2. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. 3. Religion is the theory that the wheel was designed and set spinning to give him the ride." -- H. L. Mencken, "Coda" 1920
I am also a near death experiencer. Always happy to see someone helping others, having the experience impells you to help others. Millions of people have experienced the love and compassion and want to pass it on. I have written a book on the subject in order to help others. "In the Presence of Unconditional Love." It is very important for everyone to understand this experience.
Astral projection, which is a occult practice explores the same realms, without the trauma. Have you ever felt that strange feeling at the bottom of a set of stairs when you thought there was one more step, but there wasn't? You stepped through the floor with your astral body. Your astral body which runs your physical body was then slightly out of conjunction, hence the funny feeling.
"Astral projection, which is a occult practice explores the same realms..."
tommyguns -- interesting theory. Those who would mock you for it should be cautioned to first consider remote viewing, which was explored in the movie "Suspect Zero." The Sun did an article on a local government retiree who I recall was the lead researcher in that field. There's so much about the metaphysical we don't yet understand.
"Mankind cannot bear too much reality." -- T.S. Eliot
I've always found fascinating, people who have claimed to have had experiences that they recall when being so close to death, or momentarily dying and then being brought back to life. When I was a teenager back in the 1960's I was riding a motorcyle (dirt bike), like the young fool that I was. When I crashed, it seemed so quick, the excrutiating pain that I felt. But then, suddenly, like a television that had emotions and feelings, I was turned off. I felt no more pain, and everything from within me went dark. Unbeknownst to me at that time, I had gone into a coma. According to family and medical staff, I was in a coma for a period of three days. I had absolutely no memory of being in this coma. However, I have to assume that it was during this timeframe, I did recall hearing voices that I recognized. Voices of immediate family and relatives. I've always wondered whether this could have been some type of dream, or whether the familiar voices I heard while in a coma, and recalled afterwards, were in fact, real.
During the time that I was in this coma, I recall one specific time quite vividly, in an audio only setting, when my parents were visiting me. My father said he was leaving my hospital room. I heard the door open, and then the door close behind my father. My mother remained, alone in the room with me. I recall hearing her saying that I had finally gotten the kind of trouble that I had been looking for. She then went on to say to me, that she had no idea how they were going to pay these hospital bills. Just a moment before hearing my father's voice as the door to my room opened, my mother had said to me, "I don't know why you always choose to be a burden."
In the aftermath of this ordeal, and as some time passed in physically healing, I confronted my mother as to why she said to me what she did while I was in a comatose state. She never admitted to saying what I had accused her of, but she never denied those allegations either. This fueled the fire to an already strained relationship that would last a lifetime between the two of us. Sad, but true.
There are millions of people around this planet that have had some type of Near Death Experience. It continues to be researched both scientifically and casually. The big question is how can so many people having NDE be discredited? At this point, NDE continues to be explored towards explanation. And it doesn't matter to anyone if you believe it or not. It is personal truth.
Now, for those of you who wish to journey into some interesting research about Near Death Experiences, I recommend navigating to
http://crystalinks.com/neardeath.html
and peruse through Ellie Crystal's detailed files under Near Death Experiences. This provides both a scientific and metaphysical examination of the subject.
People are quick to dismiss things that are out-of-the-box until THEY, THEMSELVES have the experience. As they say, "Don't knock it until you tried it!".
Blessings and Peace,
Star