He Died for 55 Minutes--Then Lived!

0:00 Welcome to the Ignite with Barry McGuire podcast. How would you like to have the time of your life for the rest of your life? How would you like to defeat fear effortlessly, knowing for sure God is hearing and answering your prayers and directing your steps and making everything work for good? This is exciting. Here's the question. How would you like to ignite your life? Stay tuned. Hi everybody, welcome back to Ignite. I have a great podcast here for you. I mean, this is really exciting. Sometimes I interview people that I don't know all that well. I know something about them. Right now, I'm interviewing somebody that we are close. Donny Oshesky.

0:41 Donny, welcome to Ignite. Barry, thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here, man. I tell you, we are good friends. The Lord has blessed me knowing you. You have more energy and you love to share the gospel. And you showed me different ways to do that. Well, we're soulmates. We've lived different lives, but we have the same Lord and Savior and joy that just never stops. Two entire different stories. You and I were at church yesterday morning together. We were at a party last night together. We were at a birthday party the night before we hang out together. So I would not be having you on this show today if it was not for the fact that I know your story.

1:27 And I know your story is real. In fact, I shout your story. I tell your story often. So, folks, you're in for a bit of a treat today. We all have challenges in our lives. I'm very vocal about the things that have happened in my life, losing my daughter and dying in the hospital, all that kind of stuff. But Karen and I have never lost our joy. And that comes from a lot of years of putting things in perspective. But we both, Karen and I talk about it quite often. We thank God for every bad thing that's happened in our lives. Every one of them. Some of them he allowed, some of them he provoked. And I'm not even sure which is which.

2:10 I do know this. Every one of them, we've come out stronger in our faith with more joy. and understanding God's plan for our lives. And so often, in fact, every time I talk to somebody who has a lot of joy, I ask them a question. Have you had some deep pain or hurt in your life in the past? And every single time they say yes. I'm not saying that means 100% always, always, always. I can tell you in my sampling, I talk to you, it is true. I've had a lot of pain in my life. We thank God for the good stuff and the bad stuff. Rejoice. And again, I say rejoice.

2:50 And Donnie's doing that. Listen, all things work together for his joy. I mean, it's amazing. That is it, isn't it? It really is. I look at you. I've known you for a few years. It appears to me that you're having more fun than you've ever had in your life right now. Hands down, hands down. When I woke up, the Lord, I realized how deep his love was for me. And it was like, he loves everybody the same. But I realized how deep his love was for me. And it was amazing. Yeah. So I don't hesitate to share.

3:30 It is the same, folks. The story we're going to tell you right now is profound love, miracle-working love that in Donnie's life, but his love is the same for all of us. It's a matter of, and you can dip into it a little bit, or you can just get a bowl full and go for it and take it out of the fire hydrant. Donnie has done that. Let me go back a year, a little more than a year, a year and a couple months. Our daughter, Nicole, some of you know, started to create a car show for Teen Challenge, Raise Money for Teen Challenge. It's called the Benedict Castle Carbillage. Concor, the headquarters for Southern California Teen Challenger in Riverside, California.

4:13 And the headquarters is actually a castle. More than 100 movies have been filmed there, Hunchback and Notre Dame, what have you. Nicole came to me. one day about 11, 12 years ago and said, it's a great place for a car show. I said, what? I'd always been there at night and been at meetings. I'd never looked at the grounds. So she walked me around that property during one Sunday morning. And she said, can't you just see these cars here? These, all these terrace lawns all the way around this castle. And so she created this Benedict Castle Concours, which we're now 10 years of having these shows. And I think we raised $350,000, something like that, a month or so ago.

4:53 But for that event, a year ago, the night before Saturday, there's a gala, Benedict Castle Concours Gala. And everybody gets dressed up in their fight area, and it's a packed house. And we have lots of fun. And Donnie and his wife, Pammy, sorry, Pammy's not on the, but if we had Pammy on there, we had to have Karen on and then they wouldn't need you and me, Donnie. Our wives would take over. Pammy is a house of fire. I mean, she's just a breath of fresh Cheryl's eye. But Pammy and Donnie were some other friends, the Boyds, and driving out through the 91 freeway to get out there, a lot of traffic. And he no sooner stepped out of his car and Donnie basically dropped dead.

5:37 He had a heart attack and within moments was down. Yes. We get the call. There's a steep incline, we just arrived. We ran up that hill in about 60 seconds and Karen was in high heels. And she was ahead of me. And we get up the top and they got you on the gurney and they're working on you. And they say you're gone. Mike Brewer, probably the most famous car guy in the world, comes from England to be our emcee. And he was a paramedic earlier on in his life and he said to me, Barry, he's gone. I know death.

6:18 He was gone. And we knew that. And the group was there, all prayer warriors. We came together, Pammy with us, your wife. And we all raised our hands, and we just started praying, shouting to God out loud, just calling on his name. Save him, bring life into, don't let him die. I don't remember what we said, but we were just reckless abandoned, crying out to God. And those watching, We have a lot of witnesses that witnessed all that. And those witnessing that said that when we ended that prayer with an amen, your heartbeat came back. Amen.

6:59 The power of prayer. The power of prayer. But it wasn't over. He got in the ambulance and he died again in the ambulance. And they brought him back again. And now we're into the gala. And Ron Brown is up speaking, who's the director of Southern California Teen Challenge. And at that very moment, they were working fiercely, and Don, and you can explain this, because they told you you weren't awake at the time, but I think they worked on you for like 25 minutes. They never do that. A total of 55 minutes, this man was dead. A total of 55 minutes, he was without a heartbeat, okay?

7:41 At that last time, when there was no hope. Ron Brown praying this Holy Ghost prayer. And brought us all in tears. We're praying for Donnie. And at the very time that prayer ended, I got a text that said, he's back. He's back. Praise the Lord. Amen. You can't make this stuff up. So, long process. How long were you in the hospital? You went there, and then they flew you to Cedars-Sinai. How long were you in the hospital, Donnie? I'd like to stop for one second and say one thing about the nurse. It was a male, black nurse that did not stop working on me.

8:23 The doctor actually left the room to go tell Pam I was dead and give her the time of death. And the guy said, Doctor, he's back! And the doctor turned around and came back and I was back. I mean, he was, I was dead and he was going to go tell my wife I was done. And so, boom. So from that point, I was in the hospital. It was touch and go for hour to hour, day to day, week to week for the first five weeks. I was in there a total of seven weeks in Cedar Sinai. Wow. Yeah. Wow. I died. I was in Riverside Hospital for three days.

9:06 They couldn't do the surgery that needed to be done. So through some friends that knew somebody, they got a helicopter and they transported me over to Cedars-Sinai. Man. Helicopter. I was delivered there, and it was seven full weeks. I don't remember a word, anything happening. People were there praying for me. No. Around the clock, people reaching out around the world, thanks to you. There was prayers from everywhere going out for me. I do not remember one thing of that seven weeks. Yeah. Now, they told me some stories. They said one day the doctor said, Donna, you ready to go into a surgery?

9:48 In about an hour, I'm going to take you. And I sat up and I said, doctor, can I pray for you before you do the surgery on me? Okay. There's other stories. And Pam and Jeanette and Tim and the rest of my family have— They heard everything. I wasn't there. But think of the witness that would make to the doctor. Here's that dead guy sitting up wanting to pray for me. So, but seven weeks. And, of course, your wife, Pammy, as precious as she is, she never lost her joy. She just kept sharing with everybody. Jeanette Boyd right beside her, going with her every day through that period of time.

10:33 We got the reports on a daily basis. And it didn't sound good. You know, it didn't sound good. No. Pammy was so confident that I... It's kind of funny now. But I have seen some people, they keep praying, saying it's gonna be fine, gonna be fine, gonna be fine, then there's a death, and the wife is left in the aftermath of everybody saying it's gonna be okay, and then it wasn't okay, and then they end up not handling that well with God afterwards. And so I wanted to... have a conversation with Pam just to prepare her. I wasn't saying you're going to go one way or the other. And so I had that kind of conversation with her. We're praising God no matter what. We don't know what God's plan is.

11:14 We're praying. But just in case, I want you to have the same joy afterwards that you have right now, even if we lose him. There's no question about that. He's in God's hands. I understand that. And she lived that. And she never lost her joy. And there's no difference from the joy that she has now and the joy that she had then. I mean, she just, she models. You know, the people that are beside us when we're going through those problems, there's a bigger challenge on them than there is us. We're not necessarily cognizant. They're living with it 24-7, right? You know, God created Adam in the beginning, put him to sleep, pulled out a rib because Adam needed a helper.

11:56 And Pam is my helpmate and was beside me prayerfully. I don't know how she slept in our bed for seven weeks without me. asked beyond. She's just a blessing. We watched her joy Donnie. I mean we watched her joy never falter. Her joy never faltered. She was serious. She was asking the questions. She wasn't frivolous about it. But her joy was solid. She modeled how we should all live our lives in the times of trouble, right? I mean we probably should have just had me on a subject and talk about that side of the story.

12:40 But you finally get to rehab, I'll never forget going over to the rehab in Long Beach and we expected this carriage beside me over here, we can't remember going there expecting to see this invalid Dottie. And we walk in and you're standing and an hour later you were still standing, laughing, telling stories. That was right after you got out of bed. I'd like to interject one thing. When I finally remembered, the first thing I remember after seven weeks in Cedars-Sinai is them putting me in the transport vehicle to move me over to Beatside, where my physical therapy was going to take place.

13:29 And in that, it was an hour and a half drive, but when I got in there, I shared the good news of the gospel with the kid in the back. It was a 23-year-old young man. The other guy was driving. He couldn't hear anything, but I shared Jesus with this kid. I talked to him about his future and what he's doing. Is he going to do it? And the whole time I witnessed to that young man. I don't know who he is to this day, but maybe you'll see the podcast and remember. But yeah, they delivered me there. I weighed 157 pounds. I couldn't stand on the scale the first day to even weigh myself. I was that weak. It was incredible.

14:09 I couldn't walk. I was in a wheelchair delivered. And they thought I was going to be in rehab for... month and a half, two months minimum. And thank God God, for my precious wife. She saw the food they were trying to feed me immediately and said, I'm cooking for him. Don't feed him any of that stuff. She started feeding me lunch and dinner, brought it over every day, cooked it every day for me. Got to put some weight on that guy. And brought it over to me. So within two and a half weeks, I was released from that place. So when you guys came over to visit, I'd maybe been there, I don't know, a week or a few days, but in a wheelchair, and, And I did stand up for standing there.

14:53 I stood there on my feet. I wanted to. It was awesome. Thank you for our visits. It really is. And you know, just a bit of an axiom, whatever you want to call it. When we're at the top of our game, I have a problem with this on a regular basis, actually. Well, if I had Barry's beautiful wife, and I had his business, I had his cars, I'd be smiling too. Like, that's why I'm smiling. They don't know that when I was dying in the hospital, I was committed to moving every doctor. Everybody walked through a door closer to Jesus. And it kept my mind off of the pain and on the focus of who's coming through that door next.

15:35 I'm just saying this, folks. When you're in the struggle, don't waste it. Don't waste your struggles. They don't expect you to have joy in the midst of your struggles. They don't expect that. That doesn't match up with anything else they've seen. And when you have joy— In that rehab center, there wasn't one nurse that came in, one person that bedpanned, whatever it was that I didn't share Jesus with. And, you know, it was— It was amazing. And so many people, I mean, they were amazed. What, this guy's just recovering? He's talking about Jesus? Man, there must be something there.

16:16 Only one person came. It was a late-night nurse that came in, and it was like 3 in the morning. And to— was there and I said, oh, I couldn't sleep when I was there. I was missing my wife thinking my wife's 20 miles away and I can't be home with her. It was terrible. It was gut wrenching to me. Every hour was painful. But this nurse came in and I asked her, do you know Jesus? She said, oh, yeah, I know. And we just boom. It was awesome. I'll never, never, ever forget that. We just talked about the Lord. She stayed there for 15 minutes. But it was great. That was like an angel. God sent that person when you needed it. You needed that touch from God.

16:56 He blessed you with that. That's how he works. So when you live for his purpose, at your weakest moments, At your weakest moment of your life, literally, your focus was on living for his purpose to move, as we say, move everybody every day closer to Jesus. Share your faith. And when you did that, I mean, we've talked about this, but you're living proof that when you live. not not focus on your pain and you're dying that's not the preoccupation your preoccupation is in moving people close when you live for his purpose he makes everything good and he sends the nurse at three o'clock in the morning to comfort you when you need the comfort and he gives you two and a half weeks instead of three months in rehab i mean look at your life it's it shouts the message god's real Every step of the way, then I started in-home rehab, and the people that came to in-home rehab, they had both, me and Pam there, to witness to, to talk to, and they expected that to be longer than it was.

18:05 I graduated that, and they were kind of in unbelief, each one of them, and then they signed me off to go to in-house rehab. And that was a story in itself. I won't go into all the details of that. But I had a cognitive person because I was supposed to be brain messed up. My speech, it was a little bit messed up. But most people couldn't really see. Oh, no, you seem to be pretty good. You're pretty good. Well, cognitive lady was supposed to work on me for 10 weeks. And at the second session, I told her, oh, yeah, I just finished doing my mortgage, nine hours studying for my mortgage exam to redo my license.

18:48 And I took the test and passed the test as well. She said, what? Nine hours on the computer to take it? She goes, you know what? You don't need to come back anymore. After three visits, you're done. Go on. I work with a cognitive lady, and she gave me some things to read. She goes, your R's are a little messed up, your S's. So read this over and over and over. I'll see you next week. And then I did that, and she goes, okay, now read this over and over and over. And I did, and I came back, and she talked to me, and she goes, I don't need to see you anymore after the third visit. She was right out of here. Folks, this is a man who was dead. for 55 minutes. He was dead for 55 minutes.

19:29 He was gone. They never should have kept working on Donnie like they did. That one faithful man you talked about. He's key. Yes, yes. Why? Oh, I'd love to meet him. That was the Holy Spirit. Just, it was God directed. God was not gonna, you were never in any danger of God losing you because he had too much work for you here. He had plans for you and you're fulfilling that now. But think of what he's been through. And folks, I just say in the moment here, if you're in the hospital, A lot of you that listen to our podcasts are in hospitals or rest homes, or you have a friend, a dear one, a mom or dad. And how often the ones who are suffering are living focused on their pain.

20:15 And that's the only thing about it is their pain. God help me with my pain. Not realizing that you're at this very moment with the greatest influence you've ever had in your life. When you take your thought off your pain and you start moving everybody every day closer to Jesus, it changes everything. Oxycontin wouldn't work on me. They couldn't come up. They gave me stuff I never heard of before. And really dangerous stuff they were giving me. They just had to stop my pain. They couldn't stop my pain. But you know what? I kept my focus off that because I would just focus, who's coming through that door next?

20:58 Amen. Awesome. And it got me through it. And you know, out of it, they said, you're going to have withdrawal problems, all the drugs we gave you. I didn't have any, none. I was immediately set free from that. All that worked together for good. Why? Because I lived my life. I did long before, decades before. I did during, and I certainly have since. Live every moment of my life for God's purpose. Not my purpose. Not selling car wax. Not driving cars. No, I live, no matter where I am, I focus on moving everybody every day closer to Jesus. So, Donnie, you've been doing that for a lot of years, but now you do it. Then you are on steroids. I guess it's kind of supercharged.

21:38 I mean, because when I woke up, I just felt how deep. Everybody asked me, did you see anything? Did you see Jesus? Did you Todd? You know what? The only thing I woke up knowing how deep God's love was for me. And the other thing, the one dream, I don't know if I can even, if I should even talk about it real quick on here. The one thing I remember, I was in heaven's holding cell is what I call it. It was just an octangular room and there was people sitting on the other side of me and on my side. And I was gripping onto a blonde chair Imagine my wife.

22:21 She's a blonde. And there was other – and they just were just blobs on the other seat. There was a couple across from me. There was another single and a single. And then in my row, there was a single and a single. And then me in the corner clutching on to my wife. And at the end of this corridor or heaven's holding cell, I heard a voice. And the voice told me, I remember the voice and I remember clinging on. The voice said, hold on, hold on for one hour. And I clutched tightly and everybody went out the door and the door closed. except for me. Wow.

23:01 It was empty. So that was the door to heaven, and they didn't let me in. Man, man. Thank God. You know, I actually prayed when I was in that situation. I go either way. I said, God, I'm between. I mean, I'm excited about heaven. I'm really excited about heaven, but I also see you working miracles in my life. You're giving me a ministry. I'm really excited about what's going on, what you can do perhaps with me. So I don't know which way you want me to go. I'm good either way. But just in case, I'm going to start moving everybody. If I'm going to die, I'm going to die trying to lead as many people to you as I possibly can.

23:44 And that was what drove me for two and a half weeks in that hospital experience. I've been there with you. Just be busy about the Father's business. It's that simple. And we love doing that prior to my death, prior to your sickness and all the things. Yeah, you're right. People think, oh, look at those guys. They have everything. They don't have a clue what you all went through to get there and got there. I'm blessed to know you a little bit better, and you've opened up and shared some things with me. And it's like... Man, if people just knew. But you're just amazing because you never not share. You taught me one great thing, and I use it all the time. And I try to find one occasion sometimes.

24:24 Time moves on. Can you just pick out some random, spontaneous conversations you've had and how you get to share your faith throughout every day? I was just going to say, you know, every time I go out to eat, it's an opportunity to witness. And I learned it from you, Barry. And it's so awesome. So simple. You know, the waiter or waitress that comes up to the table, you know, either before or during, whenever you find the right time. You say, we're going to pray for our food when you bring it over to our table. You know, so while we're praying, is there anything we can pray for you? And you look them up right in the eye and just ask them, can we pray for you? And they look like...

25:06 They're like melting and say, and some of them let up with some deep stuff. Some say, wow, you know, hey, I'm getting married in two months. I say, oh, great. What's your fiance's name? Oh, Peter. OK, Susie and Peter. Lord, would you please? And I might pray right then on the spot. Sometimes they don't let them go away. And I pray for them after they're gone. It just depends. But what a blessing just something like that is. The people I come in contact with, you know, at all the rehab centers, that was great all through that. Now I run into back to the gym. Yeah, I'm not where I was when I dropped, but I've gained 20 pounds of muscle back since I died.

25:50 But now you have a new purpose when you go to the gym. Oh, my gosh. Yes. I share all the time. It's just another place just to share the good news of the gospel with everybody I come in contact with. And nobody gets mad. I shared one time, I forget, it was a month ago. I was going to check out my new office building and... A guy said, hey, I'll show you around where your office is going to be. And we walked through there. Great guy. Had five kids. We found out about his life. He'd been there for seven years. And he lived in the area for nine years. And life was going really well for this guy. And, you know, I thought, there's a 50-50 chance this guy's a Christian.

26:33 He's a really great guy. Really nice. I mean, one of his ways to show us where my office is. Show us where we're standing next to the door where my office is. And we're getting ready to part ways. And I said, you know, excuse me. Can I ask you one question? Do you know Jesus? Oh, geez. I'm a Lutheran. Yeah. Ha, ha, ha. And he walked away. That was the end of the conversation. But I'm going to start working next door to him. We're going to move into our office in a couple of more weeks. So I'll get to go visit him. Yeah, it's a process. You know, you sow some seeds. I call it, you know, just putting out chum. We're fishers of men. Yes. And when you deep-sea fish, you throw out chum, trying to attract fish to come up your chum line.

27:15 And Karen and I have chum lines out all over the place with 30, 40 of them. People are coming up. And some of them, they take 30, 40, 50. I had one took 50 years. And he was dying on his hospice bed before he finally called me. He'd never shown any interest for 50 years. And I just kept chumming. And after 50 years, he called me from his hospice bed. And I led him to the Lord in about 12 minutes. And I tell people, I led him to the Lord in about 12 minutes. Wow. Actually, it took me 50 years, but then a 12-minute prayer, you know. So I know what you speak. How about just spontaneously on the street or stores or anywhere? I mean, it just comes out of you so effortlessly.

27:58 One thing I'd like to just simply share about the Benedict Castle when we were there for that last time, that day of the car show, me and Tim Boyd, Tim and Jeanette, some of our best friends, me and Tim, the girls were at a T inside, and me and Tim were walking around looking at the cars. And some gal, young little Oriental gal came up, and we started to have a conversation. And we shared the Bible with her. We shared. And she said, well, and Tim questioned her. And she said, well, I'd like to be a Christian. And Tim said, do you want to pray right now? And Tim prayed for this gal right there on the spot.

28:42 Wow. And she accepted Jesus on the spot right then. It was her idea. We just shared the gospel. And she said, I want that. Isn't that amazing? Boom. Yeah. We never know where people are in their continuum. It may take 20 interactions with them before somebody receives the Lord. And when we're engaging somebody without knowing who they are, knowing their background, we may be number one or we may be number 20. They may be going to church. They may be anti-church, whatever it is. So our goal is to move them with our limited knowledge. We just want to move them closer to Jesus. And then on occasion, you get the one that's at that 20th position that they've been interested in reading, and they're ready.

29:22 And you happen to be the one that gets to lead them across the line. And that, of course, is the best thing of all. And it happens with amazing regularity. Yeah. I don't know how much time I don't want to go over or whatever. I tell you what, we're running out of time, and I know you have some more stories. Could you hold over and we do another podcast? Could we do that right quick? I would love to. My pleasure. Okay. Folks, that's all for part one. And come back. We'll do a part two just for you. All right? God bless. If you enjoyed today's podcast, please let us know. Subscribe now to continue receiving my podcast and add your comments to help us attract more viewers.

30:04 See you next time on the Ignite with Barry McGuire podcast.