Alive Again

iHeartPodcasts
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  • LIFE SCIENCES
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That which doesn’t kill us… Hosted by award-winning filmmaker Dan Bush, Alive Again is a weekly series featuring extraordinary stories from people who faced death—and came back changed. From near-death experiences to near-fatal accidents and moments of profound crisis, each episode dives into the transformation that happens on the other side of survival. Told in their own words, these first-hand accounts explore not just what happened in the moment, but how everything changed after: perspectives, priorities, purpose. Some stories are miraculous. Others are brutal. All of them are unforgettable. Our mission is to find, explore, and share these stories to remind us all of our shared human condition. If you’ve ever wondered what happens when you don’t die– this show is for you. * If you have a transformative near-death experience to share, we’d love to hear your story. Please email us at aliveagainproject@gmail.com

  1. 45 | Overtime: A Conversation With Dr. David Fajgenbaum

    2 DAYS AGO

    45 | Overtime: A Conversation With Dr. David Fajgenbaum

    Today’s guest is Dr. David Fajgenbaum, survivor, scientist, physician, and disease hunter.  Dr. Fajgenbaum is a world-renowned physician-scientist, bestselling author, inspirational speaker, and survivor on a mission to save lives by using AI and relentless hope to unlock hidden cures. At 25 years old, Dr. David Fajgenbaum was told he had hours to live. A rare immune disorder called Idiopathic Multicentric Castleman Disease was shutting down his organs. He received last rites. He said goodbye to his family. And then — against all odds — he survived. Not once. Five times. With no effective treatments available, he turned my desperation into determination— As both patient and scientist, David made a radical decision: if no cure existed, he would chase one himself—even if it meant experimenting on his own body.  What followed wasn’t just recovery. It was transformation. In this episode of Alive Again, David recounts what it feels like to grieve everyone you love all at once — to prepare for death while still conscious. He describes the strange emotional flip from despair to overwhelming gratitude when the chemotherapy began to work. And he shares the moment everything changed: when the world’s leading experts told him there were no more options. So he decided to become his own. Drawing on his training as a physician-scientist, David began studying his own blood, searching for a clue. What he found was hiding in plain sight — a decades-old transplant drug sitting on pharmacy shelves that had never been tried for his disease. That drug, an mTOR inhibitor called sirolimus, put him into remission and has kept him alive for over a decade. But the story doesn’t end with survival. David went on to help launch the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network and later co-founded Every Cure, a bold initiative using artificial intelligence to systematically match existing drugs to diseases they were never intended to treat. His mission: to find cures hiding in plain sight — not just for himself, but for anyone running out of time. This is a conversation about urgency, agency, grief, and gratitude. About what happens when hope turns into action. And about how living in “overtime” can clarify what truly matters. For more information on Dr. Fajgenbaum and his work and writing, visit his website. For more about his book got to Chasing My Cure, and click here for more about  Every Cure  Story Producer: Dan Bush If you have a transformative near-death experience to share, we’d love to hear your story! Please email us at aliveagainproject@gmail.com We’d love to hear your story!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    1h 12m
  2. 44 | Fourteen Bullets

    24 FEB

    44 | Fourteen Bullets

    On May 5, 1994, South Australian police officer Derrick McManus was shot 14 times in under five seconds and left bleeding on the ground for nearly three hours while a 40-hour siege raged around him. In this raw conversation, Derrick reconstructs those first seconds, the long climb through surgeries and rehab (including a steel plate in his forearm), and the mental frameworks that kept him calm when survival looked impossible. We talk suffering, meaning, and mortality—and what his ordeal ultimately took, gave, and taught him about human durability. Story Producer: Dan Bush If you have a transformative near-death experience to share, we’d love to hear your story! Please email us at aliveagainproject@gmail.com We’d love to hear your story! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    1h 2m
  3. 43 | Rip

    17 FEB

    43 | Rip

    Zoe Cooper grew up around parachutes—her parents were skydivers—and by her eighth jump she felt like a pro. Then the parachute ripped. Spinning low, she and her instructor had to cut away and free-fall before a reserve could open. As the ground “was coming up impossibly fast,” time slowed. Zoe made a stark bargain—“I was willing to lose both of my legs in that moment”—yet a calm certainty kept breaking through: “today wasn’t my day.” She walked away without injury and with a revelation about fear, survival, and how the mind protects us when it matters most.  This episode, as harrowing as a failed parachute is, is really more about an almost certain life-or-death moment and how one human’s brain responded to the circumstance.  If you have a transformative near-death experience to share, we’d love to hear your story! Please email us at aliveagainproject@gmail.com We’d love to hear your story!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    56 min
  4. 42 | Extraordinary Awakening: A Conversation with Filmmaker Jonas Elrod

    10 FEB

    42 | Extraordinary Awakening: A Conversation with Filmmaker Jonas Elrod

    Filmmaker Jonas Elrod never set out to become a spiritual seeker. While making a documentary in San Francisco, his life was suddenly upended: lights flickered, voices appeared, and a portal opened in the corner of his room. What followed was a series of visions and encounters that would change his life forever — and inspire his acclaimed documentary Wake Up.  In this episode of Alive Again, we revisit Jonas’s extraordinary journey, first captured in Wake Up, and later expanded in his series In Deep Shift, from living an ordinary life to suddenly seeing and hearing angels, auras, and spirits — a shift that doctors could not explain. With his skeptical yet supportive partner at his side, he traveled the country seeking answers from teachers, scientists, mystics, and healers. Wake Up became more than a personal story; it was a call to consciousness, an invitation to look inward for peace and happiness while recognizing that life holds far more than meets the eye.  Jonas describes himself as “a southern writer and director who grew up in Georgia with a deep appreciation for story as a means for change. He fell in love with stories told on porches late at night of fallen heroes, misfit love, and spiritual redemption.” In this conversation, Jonas recounts his extraordinary awakening, the challenges of integrating mystical experiences into everyday life, and why storytelling remains his truest path to healing and connection. If you have a transformative near-death experience to share, we’d love to hear your story! Please email us at aliveagainproject@gmail.com We’d love to hear your story!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    1h 30m
  5. 41 | Angel Falls

    3 FEB

    41 | Angel Falls

    At 26, Taylor Maxson was searching for purpose while working with at-risk youth in Kentucky. After months of exhaustion and stress, he and two friends set out on the Cumberland River for what was meant to be a healing trip into nature. But when their canoe flipped above Angel Falls—a class V rapid known for its deadly currents—Taylor was pulled under, battered against rocks, and certain she would not survive. In this episode of Alive Again, Taylor recounts the terrifying minutes when he nearly drowned and resurfaced, and how the experience led him toward connection, healing, and a new way of living. Story Producer: Kate Sweeney If you have a transformative near-death experience to share, we’d love to hear your story! Please email us at aliveagainproject@gmail.com We’d love to hear your story!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    37 min
  6. 40 | The Bondage of Self

    27 JAN

    40 | The Bondage of Self

    In this unforgettable episode of Alive Again, Charlie Collins shares the moment that changed everything: when he was electrocuted by 12,500 volts on top of a moving train in New York. Legally blind since childhood and long battling self-doubt, drugs, and despair, Charlie’s near-death experience left him burned and broken—but also opened the door to a profound transformation. Through survival, recovery, and surrender, Charlie found meaning, connection, and a calling to help others discover their own light. This is a story about ego death, resilience, and finding light after decades of darkness. And it reminds us: sometimes the near-death isn’t what nearly kills us—it’s what finally sets us free. Story Producer: Dan Bush If you have a transformative near-death experience to share, we’d love to hear your story! Please email us at aliveagainproject@gmail.com We’d love to hear your story!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    39 min
  7. 39 | Maybe It Saved My Life

    20 JAN

    39 | Maybe It Saved My Life

    On a 110° Grand Canyon trek rerouted by wildfire, Drew Seibert collapsed alone—hallucinating a friend, cooling in a cave, and realizing he might die there. He didn’t. A river guide’s sat phone summoned a helicopter, and Drew went home to Atlanta… where a midnight fall in his bathroom broke his neck and stopped his breathing.  Kept alive by his partner’s improvised rescue and then a ventilator, Drew awoke to a new life as a quadriplegic. What followed was the slow, stubborn work of neuroplastic recovery at Shepherd Center: first wrist, first ankle, standing, driving, and the daily discipline of building strength when it would be easier to give up. Along the way, he reimagined purpose—leaving medicine, going to law school, and now advocating for veterans while speaking frankly about autonomy, access to care, and what we owe one another. “You don’t have a lot of choice in the matter,” he says. “Do the best you can to keep heading in the right direction.” Story Producer: Brent Dey If you have a transformative near-death experience to share, we’d love to hear your story! Please email us at aliveagainproject@gmail.com We’d love to hear your story!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    49 min
  8. 38 | Play The Tape Through

    13 JAN

    38 | Play The Tape Through

    At UC Santa Cruz, Brooke Knisley fell more than twenty feet from a redwood while drinking and spent ten days in a coma. What followed was the long, messy work of living with a traumatic brain injury: double vision, memory gaps, relearning daily life, and building white-board systems to keep moving forward. With sharp humor and hard-won clarity, Brooke traces the shift from bar fights and self-numbing to therapy, sobriety, and a steadier kindness toward herself and others—learning to “play the tape through,” when making decisions, and to find joy in the small moments. Brooke is a talented freelance writer specializing in humor, personal essays, and reporting on disability, mental health, and culture. To read more of Brooks insightful and engaging work, visit her website: https://www.brookeknisley.com/ Contains traumatic brain injury/coma, alcohol misuse, and a reference to sexual assault. Listener discretion advised. Story Producer: Nicholas Tecosky If you have a transformative near-death experience to share, we’d love to hear your story! Please email us at aliveagainproject@gmail.com We’d love to hear your story!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    43 min
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About

That which doesn’t kill us… Hosted by award-winning filmmaker Dan Bush, Alive Again is a weekly series featuring extraordinary stories from people who faced death—and came back changed. From near-death experiences to near-fatal accidents and moments of profound crisis, each episode dives into the transformation that happens on the other side of survival. Told in their own words, these first-hand accounts explore not just what happened in the moment, but how everything changed after: perspectives, priorities, purpose. Some stories are miraculous. Others are brutal. All of them are unforgettable. Our mission is to find, explore, and share these stories to remind us all of our shared human condition. If you’ve ever wondered what happens when you don’t die– this show is for you. * If you have a transformative near-death experience to share, we’d love to hear your story. Please email us at aliveagainproject@gmail.com

Information

  • Creator
    iHeartPodcasts
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    47
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    2026 iHeartMedia, Inc. © Any use of this intellectual property for text and data mining or computational analysis including as training material for artificial intelligence systems is strictly prohibited without express written consent from iHeartMedia
  • Show Website
    Alive Again

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