Andrew told Soft White Underbelly about his near-death experience after suffering a terrifying 100ft fall13:57, 09 Jul 2026A man who suffered catastrophic injuries after plummeting off a cliff says he had a bizarre near-death experience (NDE) involving an "interrogation room" and "spirits". Andrew, from Kingston, New York, fell 100ft in an accident at Kaaterskill Falls in upstate New York, on Spruce Creek in the eastern Catskill Mountains.‌He said he, his brother and their friends often visited the "beautiful" spot, which he described as a "very sacred place" accessible via a half-mile walk through the woods.‌In his account, he told Soft White Underbelly on YouTube: "It's a beautiful site and you can climb up the left side and come down the right side. It was kind of like a, not really a beaten path, but it wasn't too dangerous.‌"You know, I've done that hike with little kids before. To me, it didn't pose too much of a danger, and I had done it probably 10 times."But that would all change on July 10, 2009. He and his friend decided to hike up to the spot, but on the way down, Andrew was met with what he termed a "switchback" on the trail.‌Rather than "walking the extra 20ft", Andrew, a former American football player who briefly played for the Detroit Lions, opted to get down on his backside and slide to the next trail, a distance of some five to 10 feet. But he slipped and hit his head.He said: "I kept falling and I fell off probably a 10ft lip of the side of the mountain, and then kept going. And then I fell off a much, much larger cliff, part of the side of the mountain."My buddy watched it happen. And he said, at one point, kind of like when a baseball player slides into second, and his feet catch, and he stands up.‌"As I was sliding, my feet caught and I turned basically to him and fell backwards off the cliff or off the side of the mountain."Andrew estimates that the fall was "100 plus" feet, but it wasn't a straight descent. Instead, he bounced down the side of the mountain, accompanied by rocks and vegetation.‌Once he hit the ground, Andrew lost consciousness and claims he had two "mystical" experiences. He explained: "One of them was my point of view, was in the sky."And I remember seeing the tops of the trees. And looking up at the blue skies, I could see what looked to be like, if you think of a tornado forming and you flipped them on their sides."But it was light and they were kind of whipping back and forth. They looked like two whips of light, and they met and then was redirected in my direction."‌He added: "You know it was almost like violent light and all I could feel was complete love, forgiveness. There was an essence of seeing an old friend or coming home."His second experience was akin to being in an "interrogation room" , where he was lying down in a place with "spirits or guardian angels".‌Andrew says it appeared that two of them were crying, while another was more "stoic". They assured him that they were going to get him through it. But they did give him one chilling message – "this has to happen".Asked to clarify what "this" meant, Andrew confirmed that it meant the accident. Once he opened his eyes, he questioned whether he was alive. Fortunately, there was a doctor hiking nearby.Andrew, who was airlifted out, suffered a shattered right shoulder, torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in the knee, cracked pelvis, collapsed lung, and broken vertebrae.Article continues belowIncredibly, just 56 days after the incident, Andrew, who now works at a private school, drove himself back to college to finish his degree.