Tricia Barker’s near-death experience

Step 1

Spring 1994 · Tricia’s account

Tricia is a 21-year-old student who doesn’t believe in any of this

Tricia Barker was a student at the University of Texas at Austin. She was a few weeks away from graduating, and she wanted to go to law school.

She says that back then she was very rational and didn’t believe in God. She called herself an agnostic. An agnostic is someone who thinks there is no way to know whether God exists.

That Sunday morning there was a 10K race in Austin. Tricia was going to run it.

Step 3

That day and that night · Tricia’s account

She waits about 17 hours for someone to operate on her

The hospital was short of neurosurgeons, and Tricia had no health insurance. She had to wait about 17 or 18 hours for a surgeon to agree to operate on her.

Before she went into the operating room, she said a half-hearted prayer: “Oh God, if there’s a God, please help me. I’ve got to walk.”

Then they operated on her spine.

Step 4

During surgery · Tricia’s account

Tricia says she leaves her body and sees the surgeons operating on her

Tricia says that suddenly she was outside her body and very calm. She could see the whole operating room around her at once. She could also see her body lying open on the table.

Behind the surgeons she saw huge beings of light, about eight feet tall. She says they were sending light through the surgeons’ hands into her body. Without words, they told her she would walk and run again.

Then she saw the heart monitor go flat.

Step 5

Right afterward · Tricia’s account

She passes through the walls and sees her stepfather get a candy bar from a machine

Tricia says she didn’t want to watch them try to revive her. So she went through a couple of walls and came out in a hallway with a vending machine.

“I saw my stepdad get a candy bar out of the machine.”

In 2020 she said she barely knew her stepfather and that she wished him a good life. In later interviews she adds that she found it funny, because he was very strict about healthy eating and made fun of people who ate candy bars.

It is the only thing Tricia says she saw outside the operating room.

Step 6

Afterward · Tricia’s account

She sees her grandfather, young again, and he asks if she wants to go on

Tricia says she rose into the night sky and felt connected to everyone she had ever known. She heard very simple messages. One said that love is the only thing you take with you, and another, that you should be like a child.

She saw moments from her life. She saw what she had done well, and where she had judged other people unfairly. Then she came to a place of green hills. Her grandfather was there. He had died of leukemia. He looked about 35.

Her grandfather asked her if she wanted to go on, and she said yes. A voice told her she would go back and become a teacher.

Tricia didn’t want to be a teacher. And then she felt herself thrown back into her body.

Step 7

Waking up · Tricia’s account

When she wakes up, she is told they almost lost her

Tricia woke up with metal rods in her back. She was given blood transfusions. She says she asked the surgeon how long she had been dead. She says the surgeon answered that they had almost lost her for a couple of minutes.

She spent many days in the hospital and nine months in a plaster body cast.

When she left the hospital, she went to her mother and stepfather’s house to recover.

Step 8

Weeks later · Tricia’s account

Tricia asks her mother about the candy bar, and her mother confirms it

Once she was feeling better, Tricia told her mother that her stepfather had gotten a candy bar. She also asked how long they had been waiting.

According to Tricia, this is what her mother told her. Her mother and Tricia’s father were divorced. That day they were on their knees praying, because they felt Tricia had died. Then the stepfather came in with a candy bar. He made a joke, because the mood was so serious. He shared the candy bar with them, and they went back to praying.

Tricia’s question already mentioned the candy bar. Her mother confirmed the candy bar, but she wasn’t the one who mentioned it first.

Step 9

2019 to today · Tricia’s account

Tricia becomes a teacher and tells her story in a book and in interviews

Tricia became a teacher in Texas. In 2019 she published a book about her experience, Angels in the OR.

She has been interviewed many times since then. She says that Janice Holden, a well-known NDE researcher, took an interest in the candy bar. We have found nothing Holden has published about the case.

One question remains: how did Tricia know about the candy bar if she was in the operating room?