I was with another 9 year old girl and we were on a private residential pier trying to catch tadpoles. I had a jar with a string around it, and I tossed it into the water as hard as I could. The string was too short to reach the water, so I thought if I tried harder it would reach the water. I fell into the river with it. It was maybe an eight foot drop to the water. Thinking back, the shock that I was falling may have made me catch or hold my breath somehow or I expelled it all when I hit the water. I disappeared under the water and was lying on the bottom of the river. I think I was semi-conscious, and don’t know how long I was lying there because it seemed like a long time.
Then, the ‘movie’ started. My life was flying past my eyes. I don’t know how long the movie was, but it seemed quick. Yet, I could associate every single detail with the events I saw. It was like I saw a summary of my life, but somehow it was very detailed. I knew every time I was ‘bad.’ Then, I wanted my mother. At that point, I saw myself lying on the bottom of the river, and knew I was under water. I started my struggle to reach the top. I’m not sure how I got to the top because I couldn’t swim. I saw my girlfriend who had run to get help from a middle-aged couple who lived in the nearby house. The pier was still too high for my reach. I fell under again. I tried and reached the top of the water. Again, I tried to grasp the slimy column, but fell in. When I tried to surface the next time, I was near the slimy column but this time, there were hands there to try to pull me up to the pier.
The couple had saved me as I let the water roll out of my lungs. This all must have happened fairly quickly. There’s no explanation how I was under water all that time, and then several times more. The kind couple took me to their house, put me in a bathtub, and gave me their son’s clothes to wear in order to go back home.