June 15, 2022 - Reported [here] Robert Palmer decided to share the remarkable stories after the recent passing of a family member, and after listening to the Geelong Advertiser's special podcast investigation into what happens when we die – "Death, interrupted”.

Mr Palmer said he and his father, Ron, had survived near-death experiences at different times in their lives - and both had incredible and unexplainable experiences.

“I found myself up in the ceiling looking back down at my body when I was about 12 years old, in hospital with double pneumonia,” he said.

"I could see the doctor come into the room and all the rest of it. My grandmother later told me I'd died." Mr Palmer said his dad's 1993 death was preceded by an incredible near-death experience in the days before his passing, which was too detailed to have been imagined by "a simple farm boy and career soldier who only ever watched football or the races".

“(Dad) went in for some day surgery, and the supposed expert perforated his bowel and he had three weeks of sort of hell (before he died),” he said. “After he passed on, four different people - from a minister to a policeman to a warden - all gave us the same story that Dad had told him after he had a turn one night. All the same story.

“It was that he's been to heaven.

“How does a simple farm boy be able to tell you of heaven - and describe it as a white, very bright light? It was very warm, you didn't need any clothes', and he was telling four different people about this at different times. "My cousin, a policeman, was visiting and said, 'If it was so good, why did you come back?', and the answer was, 'I was waiting for Normy Goad, but he wasn't there this week'.

“Normy Goad was one of Dad's best mates who nearly lost his life on the Voyager disaster. He said, 'I didn't see anybody I knew'.”

Mr Palmer said his father also had a number of unexplainable premonitions in the days between his botched surgery and death, including knowing his wife would receive a family reunion invitation shortly before she received one - and claiming he had his own "reunion” on the evening he passed.

The Geelong Advertiser's "Death, interrupted" podcast explores what happens when we die, speaking to three locals who were resuscitated after being "dead" for anywhere from three to 45 minutes.