In the summer of 1976, Timothy Cleve Abbott was rushed to the hospital when a blood blister on his foot became infected and spread down his leg.
Doctors injected him with penicillin to stop the infection, but the injection caused a violent allergic reaction that caused him to “leave his body.”
The Austin, Texas, musician said the experience totally transformed his life and his views on religion and the nature of reality.
Abbott, now 68, suffered multiple near-death experiences and believes there is a reason why about a third of people become repeat “experiencers.”
Tim Abbott says the experiences changed his life and views forever (Tim Abbott, supplied)
He told DailyMail.com: ‘It all started in the summer of 1976, I left secondary school.
“I bought a new pair of shoes and I got a blood blister, and I didn’t pay attention to it, but it went up past my knee to the point where I couldn’t walk.”
After his friends took him to the hospital, doctors punctured and drained the blood blister, but immediately injected him with the antibiotic penicillin, which Abbott said he is extremely allergic to.
The young man immediately collapsed.
He said: ‘I immediately left my body. I saw my body fall and bounce on the cement floor.
“The staff started going crazy and screaming, and the next thing I knew they were trying to bring me back with CPR.”
Abbott said that despite seeing his own body on the ground, the experience was “very peaceful.”
He said: ‘I wasn’t panicking or anything like that. I was there.
After three minutes, medical staff brought him back and sent him for a skull X-ray after his head bounced off the ground.
His second near-death experience came just six years later, in 1982, while tubing on the Guadalupe River in his home state.
Abbott said: “Normally it’s a slow moving river, but it wasn’t slow.” It was 20 feet above flood stage, but we went ahead and did it anyway, because we were young and dumb.
‘I hit an area of turbulence, went down to the bottom of the river and ran out of air, and I had X-ray vision, I can’t explain it any other way.
Finding the bottom of the river, Abbott dove back to the surface.
Abbott said: “I saw a hand and instinctively grabbed it and he lifted me up.” And when I came to I was spitting out water and I looked inside, surprisingly.
Tim when he was young (Tim Abbott, supplied)
‘The strangest part of this story is that I met the guy who saved my life. He was from my hometown, 400 miles away, and he happened to be in the same place at the same time I was with other friends.’
In both experiences, Abbott said, he had a feeling of “infinity.”
He said: “I knew I wasn’t in my body, and I was down there looking at me like you were watching someone in a movie, you know, something you’d see on TV.”
But Abbott said the experiences totally changed his views on religion and life and death.
He said: “I think once you’ve opened that window, or you’ve opened the door to what happens in the afterlife, you carry it with you as a kind of marker, or you’re able to be in touch with things that you can’t.” . I understand it quite a bit.
“After all that, some strange stories have happened to me and I feel like everything is connected.”
Since his two near-death experiences, he has felt a presence watching over him and has come to believe it is his late grandmother, Theresa Rigby.
He said: “I was born and raised as a Lutheran Christian, and now I tend to embrace something similar to that, but I believe in reincarnation after going through these things.”
Since his experiences, Abbot has spoken to other people who have gone through similar things and they too feel that the experiences have opened their minds to other phenomena.
Abbott said: “Some of these people have taken it to levels that are far beyond anything I’ve ever experienced.”
‘It put me on a path or a journey to discover what the secret of life is. What is the answer to this? Is there really one God, or is there one God who has many names?’
‘I think that practically no one knows what happens when we die, but we have many clues left to solve everything. Some people have great abilities that allow them to be a conduit for things we don’t fully understand yet.
Abbott says the experiences changed his life and views forever (Tim Abbott, supplied)
Abbott has written rock, country, Americana and blues, and says many songs have themes of life and loss.
Abbott said he has tried to convey his experiences through his music in the decades since and also strives to live “the right way.”
He said, “I think we are the good side of humanity.” It’s just that we’re all supposed to be here for a reason and we’re all supposed to help each other.
“Much easier said than done, of course, in today’s chaotic world, but I believe there is a higher power at play.
“There is so much disorder in our everyday lives that it is really difficult for us to find these true meanings in life – unless maybe you have some crazy experience that happens to you, that affects you and makes you look both inward and outward to see. what are the answers.’