Dean Braxton’s near-death experience

Step 1

May 4, 2006 · Federal Way, near Seattle · Told by Dean Braxton in his book

Dean Braxton goes to the emergency room with kidney stone pain

Dean Braxton was 47. He managed two juvenile courts in King County, which includes Seattle. One worked with young people addicted to drugs, and the other with young people with mental illness. Before that he had spent twenty years in the Air Force, six on active duty and fourteen in the reserves.

He had been an evangelical Christian since he was 17. According to his book, he and his wife, Marilyn, had served as assistant pastors in their church for more than ten years. He said in 2024 that by that time he was already sure he would go to heaven when he died, and that he looked forward to going there.

On the morning of Thursday, May 4, 2006, he arrived at work with a sharp pain in his side. He had had kidney stones four years earlier. He drove home, vomiting along the way, and from there he went to the emergency room at St. Francis Hospital in Federal Way. The doctor found several stones in his kidneys, and one of them was stuck. He also had a urinary tract infection. They gave him antibiotics all night and kept him in the hospital so they could operate the next day.

It was meant to be a simple procedure, like the one four years earlier.

Step 2

May 5, 2006 · At St. Francis Hospital · Told by Dean, his doctor, and the lines he published from his medical reports

Doctors break up his kidney stones, but the infection spreads to his blood

On Friday, May 5, a urologist broke up the stones in both kidneys with shock waves, from outside the body. His report, dated May 6, says there were no complications and that Dean tolerated it well. Dean published those lines in his book.

The antibiotic did not work against the bacterium causing the infection. His ICU doctor, Dr. Manuel Iregui, explained this years later in a feature by CBN, a Christian television network. According to Dean and Marilyn, when the urologist broke up the stones, the infection got into his blood. Dean developed sepsis. Sepsis is when the body reacts badly to an infection, and that reaction damages the organs and puts life in danger.

Dean remembers very little of those hours. They gave him oxygen, but he still could not breathe. They asked him to sign a form so they could put in an IV line, and he signed it. That is the last thing he remembers until they took the tube out of his throat, days later.

Hours later, his blood pressure dropped.

Step 6

At the end of the resuscitation · Dean’s account, in two versions

Dean says that, on his way back, he sees the doctors working on his body

This is how he wrote it in his book, in 2009. On the way back he passed through the darkness again and once more saw the prayers rising. As he came near the hospital, he saw the doctors and a nurse working on his body in the room.

Years later he tells his return differently. In two interviews in 2024 he says that when he entered the room, the doctors had already stopped trying to resuscitate him and were packing up. In both he talks about the death certificate. In one, the doctor was about to sign it. In the other, they were filling it out. And he says that he then went back into his body, the monitor started beeping, and the doctors went back to work.

One of those interviews is in English. In it he explains that doctors usually stop after 30 minutes and that with him they kept trying to resuscitate him for longer. According to what he says there, they worked on him for about an hour and a half, then stopped for about 15 minutes and began packing up. Right after that, he says he was told that last part.

His doctor did not expect him to survive.

Step 7

May 6 to 16, 2006 · In the ICU of another hospital · Told by Dean, his wife, his son, and the emails from his workplace

Dean wakes up in another ICU and says he has seen Jesus three times

Iregui told Marilyn he did not think Dean would survive. He told her they had to pray and wait, because there was nothing else he could do. The next morning Dean was taken by ambulance to the ICU at Tacoma General Hospital. One machine breathed for him and another cleaned his blood because his kidneys were not working. A doctor told Marilyn he might be left with brain damage. His toes turned black from a medication, and the doctors even considered amputating them.

On May 10 they took the tube out of his throat. One of the technicians who removed it was Anthony, a friend of the couple. Dean told him he had seen Jesus. He told his parents and his older brother that he had seen him three times. Gabriel arrived from Dallas soon after and wrote about it in his journal. His father held up three fingers, told him he had seen Jesus three times, and burst into tears.

That same day, Dean asked Marilyn what had happened to him. She writes in the book that he wanted to know every detail and that she told him more than once.

It was Nurses Week, and the hospital staff began calling him “the Miracle Man.” He went home on May 16, after nine days in the ICU. During those days a colleague from his work sent several emails to hundreds of people. The emails say his heart, kidneys, and other organs began to fail, that he was hooked up to machines, and that he recovered very quickly.

Three years later, Dean told the whole story in a book.

Step 8

2009 to today · Told by his book, his website, and his interviews

Dean publishes a book and tells his experience in churches and on television

In 2009, Dean published his book “In Heaven! Experiencing the Throne of God.” It includes what he went through, Marilyn’s account, his children’s journals, the emails from his workplace, and the lines copied from his medical reports. Dean writes that getting those reports was very hard. He also says they looked for a health professional to explain them in writing for the book, and that no one was willing to do it.

The CBN feature has been online since 2012. In it, Iregui said it was a miracle that Dean was alive and talking with no brain damage. And he added that Dean had been “really, really dead for a long time.” He did not say how long.

Today Dean and Marilyn give talks in churches and on Christian programs. Dean’s website says his medical reports show that he died for one hour and 45 minutes. In a 2024 interview he said that during that time no blood or oxygen moved through his body. Dean says his experience taught him to see things with eternity in view.

One question remains: what really happened during that hour and 45 minutes?