'I was left for dead for 7 hours – what I saw proved death is an illusion'

A woman who had a near-death experience after suffering a roughly 60ft horror fall has revealed the startlingrealisation she had as she lay there dying for seven hours. Erica Tait, a psychotherapist who hails from New Jersey, US, opened up about a near-death experience she suffered in September 2015 while she was on a hike on The Palisades, a series of steep cliffs that run along the Hudson River.

Erica, who was just 22 at the time, claimed she woke up with a "strange feeling" in her stomach that morning, but simply "brushed it off" and embarked on a solo hike along the cliffs.

As she hiked, she stumbled upon a waterfall towards the end of the cliffs. Erica noticed that the falls had dried up, so, having previously climbed up them, the self-described "daredevil" decided that she could also climbdown.

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However, once she started to climb down the roughly 60ft descent, Erica quickly found herself in trouble. She was stuck on the rocks and was forced to stay there for 20 minutes, hoping that somebody would come and rescue her.

Erica told The Other Side NDE on YouTube that she looked around, trying to find an exit route but was unable to find one. At that point, with her arms shaking, she noticed there was a rock beneath her foot, but it was coated in wet moss.

She opted to take a "leap of faith" and placed her foot on the rock, but it would be one of the final moments she remembered, as her foot slipped on the stone and she let go.

Erica fell about 60 feet onto large boulders, breaking her ribs, pelvis, spinal cord, and arms and puncturing her lungs, meaning she was also suffocating, and then slipped into unconsciousness.

Yet, Erica somehow woke up and managed to retrieve her phone from her backpack and call emergency services before once again falling unconscious, while police scrambled to find her.

She said that she was stuck there for seven hours in a. It would be at this point that Erica would have her near-death experience.

Erica said: "The first thing I remember is separating from my physical body, and so I remember looking at my body and recognising that I am not that; I am not. There's something separate from my physical being.

"And in that, I learned that I don't die, that there actually is no death. There's something that actually survives death, and some people can call that a soul or a spirit or consciousness.

"But that was really profound because at the time, all I ever believed in was what I could sense with my five senses, but this was proof that there's actually something more than just the physical."

Erica said she experienced a life "review", whereby she subconsciously witnessed her entire life. She also shared that she previously suffered from trauma and now learned that she was "causing more harm" to the people around her than "relieving".

She claimed that in those moments, she learned about karma and "cause and effect", adding that she went through what she described as an "honest assessment".

It would prove to be an experience that would lead to a "huge heart expansion" and a "deep compassion" for suffering in the world. It also resulted in her coming to learn about what she described as our "true purpose".

Erica then had a "white light experience", something that was an "unspeakable amount of love and peace" and gave her the profound insight that "every single cell, every atom" is created by "one energy", and we're all "one thing" and "fully connected".

Incredibly, after seven hours had elapsed, an off-duty firefighter (who'd allegedly had an "intuition" about her whereabouts) hiked to her location. She was ultimately stretchered off on army boats, which had come down the Hudson River.

Erica spent roughly a month in the hospital, in rehab for a month and then in bed and a wheelchair for six months, but, despite the traumatic experience, she added that it led to a deep "spiritual awakening".