'I Didn't Want to Come Back'

Terry Gilder is a blunt-spoken former electrician and construction-firm owner who is still trying to make sense of the six near-death experiences he remembers. (He doesn't recall what happened during his first NDE: He came into this world stillborn, before being revived.) Now 60, overweight and still casually defying death by puffing away on cigarettes, he has made a new life for himself in the past several years: remarrying and opening up an antiques-and-collectibles store in Wilton Manors, Florida, called Recollections.

In his jam-packed store Gilder is squeezed behind a tiny desk, surveying his kingdom of nearly 300,000 items. But he hasn't been able to understand the purpose of his life or forget the peace of mind he experienced during some of his afterlife journeys.

"I'd like to know what the reason is I'm here," he mutters. "A lot of times, I'm not happy about being here." Naturally, he's somewhat frustrated: He's seen heaven, but now he's stuck behind a desk in Wilton Manors.

He starts ticking off some of his accidents: "I got hit in my ankles by lightning. I was hit in my back, again by lightning. I was accidentally electrocuted on construction jobs twice." He also temporarily died during operations to sew up his stomach and to repair a brain aneurysm. He pauses for a moment in telling his incredible tale of survival and says, "If it wasn't funny, I couldn't talk about it."

By his late 30s, Gilder says he'd faced even more electric shocks - and near-death experiences. He was running his own company, producing reinforced concrete, when he was hit by lightning while in his shop, petting a dog. The bolt hit a nearby puddle and traveled inside to electrocute him and the dog. This time, when he left his body, he says, "I had enough time to make it to the light." But he was free to decide whether he wanted to go all the way to meet the welcoming, loving light or return to his life. In the ambulance, he recalls, "By now, I'm getting concerned. Why am I surviving this sh_t? I couldn't figure out why I was still alive."

Prior to all his strange experiences, he admits, "I had no interest in the supernatural." Even after his initial NDEs, he thought, "The only reason you come back, you put it to being lucky."

Actually, he's more like a walking miracle. As a 28-year-old construction worker, Gilder tried to fix an improperly connected piece of electric fitting known as a bus plug. In the process, he jammed his screwdriver inside and was hurled off a 12-foot ladder, burning his eyebrows and singing his face. Before awaking, he felt himself starting to travel inside a tunnel, heading toward a light, before turning back and returning to his body.

He had a nearly identical experience a few years later doing electrical work at a high school. This time, he got closer to the fabled light before returning to consciousness. But he didn't mention it to anybody, even his wife: "If you started to talk about a light and a tunnel, it looked like you were a lunatic."

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