North Carolina’s Landon Whitley was only eight when he was riding with his mom and dad in a car that was crushed after it was tragically struck by an ambulance.
In the same crash that killed his father, the boy was pronounced dead three times.
Now 35, Landon claims when he died, he “felt at peace” with his father, whom he saw when he visited heaven. Keep reading to learn more about Landon’s alleged experience in the afterlife!
On Oct. 19, 1997, Landon Whitley, eight, was riding the backseat of his family’s car, with his mother Julie Kemp in the passenger seat and his father Andy at the wheel.
According to Fox News, the family’s Pontiac Sunfire crossed through an intersection, where it was T-boned by an ambulance – “not in emergency mode” – that completely crushed the car and killed Andy.
Kemp – who suffered broken ribs and a collapsed lung – was pulled from the wreckage; the car so badly destroyed that emergency responders didn’t know there was a third passenger.
“They couldn’t see [Landon’s] body because of the damage that was done to the driver’s side of the car,” says Kemp. “Landon was sitting behind his dad.”
And then emergency officials saw a little shoe and “it took a deeper search for [Landon’s] body.”
When they recovered the lifeless boy from the wreck, his mom explained her only child was not breathing.
Medically dead
Landon was medically dead and revived three times that day – once at the scene, once being airlifted to Carolinas Medical Center and one time at the hospital.
“They told me that if he lived, which did not look good…that he would be like an eight-year-old baby, that he would not know how to walk or talk or eat. I was so desperate that [it] was okay. I would take that just to have him, he was all that I had.”
Understanding Landon’s survival was unlikely, Kemp stayed at her son’s bedside for two weeks, only leaving to attend her husband’s funeral.
“I was very disappointed, heartbroken. And while I’m sitting at the funeral…I don’t understand why this happened,” Kemp shares.
To heaven and back
After two weeks on life support, Landon miraculously woke from a coma.
And shockingly, Landon had no trace of brain damage.
Though Kemp was elated to have her boy back, she feared having to tell her son that his father was dead.
“He had scars on his face, his head was full of hurt, and I didn’t want to hurt him anymore,” Kemp starts. “I asked Landon ‘do you know where your dad is at?’ And he said, ‘yes, I know where he’s at. I saw him in heaven.’”
Landon also claims he saw his father’s friend, who died in a car accident less than one month earlier, and the same friend’s son, who crashed his four-wheeler and died years before.
Recalling his experience four years ago, Landon shares in a podcast, “We were all standing in a square, not saying a word to each other…the mere fact that I knew, that I was surrounded by them, I felt at peace, I knew people.” He continues, “And then I remember it being so bright, colorful.”
Deceased siblings
Further shocking his mother as an eight-year-old newly conscious from a coma, he then told her, “I forgot to tell you, I saw your other two kids.”
“I just looked at him, I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but I had two miscarriages before Landon was born. We had never shared that with Landon. He did not know that we had lost two children before him,” Kemp said.
Landon – whose face is still scarred from the near fatal crash almost three decades ago – adds about meeting his deceased siblings, “I knew they were my siblings though no one ever told me about them.”
Heavenly trip
Describing his experience, Landon says it was “almost like a preview of a movie where you only get to see bits and pieces of things.”
The man, now a big brother to Parker, also believes he was in heaven, saw angels and met Jesus.
Landon, who with his mom authored the illustrated children’s book ‘Highway to Heaven,’ has 23 metal plates in his head, a nose reconstructed “with the back part of his skull,” and is blind in his left eye. But he lives mostly a normal life.
His mother, now Julie Kirby Kemp, recently wrote a book, ‘Faith has its Reasons,’ which describes the family’s years of grieving. She also talks about her son’s heavenly experience.
What do you think about Landon’s journey to heaven? Please let us know your thoughts and then share this story so we can hear what others have to say about the afterlife!
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