Christen O’Brien is speaking out about a near-death experience that took place nearly a decade ago.
In 2010, O’Brien, then 30 and living in Sacramento, California, sprained her ankle while chasing her dog, but, unbeknownst to her, she developed a blood clot during her recovery.
A few weeks later, she had trouble breathing while out for a walk.
“First it was as if I was getting stabbed every time I took a breath in," she recalled. "The second was my heart was racing unbelievably. And the third was I tasted blood in my mouth. And right then — my body knew. All alarms were going off. We have a problem here.”
O’Brien, who said she had a thought that she was dying, remained on the ground when something unusual happened.
“I was looking up at the clouds as they moved across the sky," she said. "And in that moment, I felt no separation. I felt that the clouds were almost moving through me.”
“I felt no fear or panic,” she told the 3rd hour of TODAY while discussing her experience.
“It rewired me,” she said when asked how the whole episode changed her.