He thought he was calling for help at the top of his lungs, but, though his lips were moving, not a word was heard, Derek Tillotson said.

That was the day almost two years ago when a tractor accident brought him face to face with death, or as such events are known, a near-death experience — NDE.

It was a Sunday afternoon, June 3, 2007, and he had been cutting hay on the family’s E&L Plantation on Bovina Cutoff Road.

Derek, 27, is no novice when it comes to operating farm equipment and is adept on dozers, tractors, combines, cotton pickers, 18-wheelers — “If it’s there, I can run it,” he said, adding that his mother once told someone he could manage anything that had steering wheels or handlebars.

He grew up on the farm and has been farming since he was a youngster. “I was riding in the combine with my grandfather when I was 2 or 3 years old,” he said. He works on the family farm and attends Hinds Community College, where he is majoring in agriculture.

There was nothing different about that Sunday afternoon of the accident that could have forewarned him, for he said, “I had done it a million times.” He was through cutting hay and drove the 12,000-pound 966 International up to the shop to wash it. He shut the engine off, left it in gear and climbed down to start the routine washing.

The tractor began to roll, he said, because the pressure in the transmission leaked off, and although it was still in gear, it was like he had put it in neutral.

“I had the steam cleaner wand in my right hand and was trying to climb up onto the tractor with my left hand,” he said, “I was wet, the tractor was wet, and the whole time it was rolling I was trying to climb up on it. I slipped and fell backward, and the back tire ran across my chest. I remember trying to get up on it, and I remember falling off.”

He fell about 7 feet and, when he hit the ground, it knocked him unconscious. He thinks it was probably about 20 minutes before he came to.

“I knew I was injured, but I didn’t know how bad,” he said. The tractor had a hay cutter on the back, and it ran over him, broke his right arm and dragged him down a hill. Lying on the ground on his back, he used his legs to push himself back up the hill so that he could be seen by anyone driving past, and he could flag them down.

“Once I got to the top of the hill, I tried to stand up and my right arm just folded up on top of my shoulder, and I kind of slumped back,” he said. He heard a car coming and started hollering for help.

That was when his near-death experience occurred, “I knew I was hurt, but there was no pain,” he said. I could move my legs and fingers, and I didn’t hurt anywhere. I had an extreme joy and sense of relaxation.”

He bowed his head, closed his eyes, and, “I said, Lord, if it’s my time to go then please take me now. If not, please send some help.”

There was a lady driving the car he had heard, and she called 911 when she saw him and waited until the ambulance arrived. She told someone that she could see his lips moving, but no sound could be heard.

“My near-death experience probably didn’t last 30 seconds,” he said. He had been sitting up, “but I just lay back and closed my eyes after I said that prayer,” he recounted. “You know everybody (who has had a similar experience) says they see a light at the end of a tunnel. Well, I saw that, or just a darkness with a light shining, kind of like a candle in a dark room. I started toward the light, and the closer I got to the light I could see images emerging. I didn’t know if they were people or what at that time. In my mind, I felt I was walking toward the light.”

When he got 20 or 30 feet from the images, Derek said, “I could tell who three of them were. One was a person I thought of as a granddad to me. The others were my grandmother and my younger brother (all of whom are deceased). There was a tall image behind them, and I assume he was the Lord. I was continuing to walk toward them, and they started to motion me to go back. I asked them, ‘Why?’ They didn’t say anything, and I took another step forward and the tall figure behind them spoke up and said, ‘Derek, go back. Wake up,’ and when I did I immediately opened my eyes and sat up.”

He could hear his father’s truck, heard him jump out, and he was running toward him saying, “Son, son, are you OK? What happened?” and he held Derek in his arms until the ambulance arrived.

Derek had blood coming out of his mouth, his nose, both ears and his right eye socket. They put him on a gurney and took him to River Region Medical Center. His right lung had collapsed and his left one had a 2-inch tear in it. Medical technicians told his parents had he not responded to the command from the tall figure, had he not sat up, he would have drowned in his own blood.

In less than an hour, Derek was taken to University Medical Center in Jackson. It took two weeks to clean the blood from his face, and the doctors put him in a medically induced coma for several weeks while determining what was broken and how bad.

“Just about everything from my belly button to my nose was broken,” he said. In addition to his damaged lung, his face was fractured, two ribs were broken, as were both shoulder blades and his left collarbone and one vertebrae in his back — plus another was fractured. His arm was broken in two places, and his heart was bruised. His ear drums were damaged as was one of his eyes.

Fifty-eight days later, Derek came home. He suffers only the ordinary aches and pains associated with working, and though not as strong as he used to be, he said he is “pretty much 100 percent recovered.”

The event was very much a defining moment in his life, he said, for such an occurrence “will totally change who you are, as a person, everything about you. It changes your attitude, your outlook on life, gives you a more humble spirit, makes you more appreciative of the things you have instead of the things you want.”

The experience has also strengthened his spiritual outlook, he said, and he asked that the UMC chaplain visit every chance he had. Derek also admits he once had a bad attitude and outlook on life, that “I wasn’t worried about anybody but me,” but now, “I do things out of the goodness of my heart and because of the grace of God. It has given me a more humble spirit.”

Men of both science and religion have made studies of near-death experiences and one scientist, Barry F. Seidman, maintains that an NDE is the result of loss of oxygen and chemical reactions. He wrote, “Science will eventually offer a full explanation.”

Derek Tillotson doesn’t have to wait for scientific studies, for he knows what a difference has been made in his life. Now, he said, “I’m not afraid of death because I’ve seen what’s after death. Whether you believe it or not, there is an afterlife. How you live your life depends on what you get out of it in the end.”

Gordon Cotton is an author and historian who lives in Vicksburg.