Act 1 — “The Unexplained”

Rickie Lee Bradshaw (my father) with nurse Annie McNally (my mother)
St. Francis Hospital, Peoria, IL, 1977

Transcript from, “The Unexplained”

Original air date: June, 1981

Fade up. From within the forest shade, camera faces a river. The footage is old. The serene moment in nature is shaped with the dull, interlaced edges typical of primitive video. Even though I’m watching a QuickTime file on my MacBook Pro, a white triangle in the corner of the screen reveals the video was at some point digitally captured from a VHS tape. Far off screen, a sparrow cries out, as my dad in blue jeans, a windbreaker, and a knapsack, walks into frame with a slight limp, across the sandy boulders that line the riverbank. His face is obscured from the camera, as he looks out towards the water. A woman’s voice-over breaks in.

VO: Rickie Bradshaw’s death experience still has doctors amazed…

Rickie takes a seat on a boulder, still facing the river

VO: Rickie feels it was his positive encounter in death that inspired his return to life.

Cut to my dad, early 20s, in a wicker mesh dining room chair. He’s pale and frail with an 80’s hairstyle worn low on the ears and bangs inexplicably cut straight across his high forehead.

RICKIE: November 14th, 1975, I was working at a grocery store in Peoria, Illinois. And… I… Um…