An overflowing crowd heard Don Piper explain how his decision to turn right instead of left on his way home from a 1989 church conference, and the ensuing fatal head-on collision he endured with a semi-trailer truck, is his enduring testimonial of hope and healing today. The best-selling author of "90 Minutes in Heaven -- a True Story of Death and Life" relayed his death-defying tale to an estimated 1,200 people Wednesday night at the Clay County Regional Events Center in Spencer.

While all other drivers and passengers involved in the accident were deemed OK, four EMTs focused their attention on Piper. After not being able to revive his dismembered body, they pronounced the 38-year-old dead on the scene at 11:45 a.m.

His lifeless body was covered with a tarp and left for a hearse to carry away.

When Rev. Dick Onerecker, a pastor from Kline, Texas who'd attended the same conference as Piper, arrived on the scene, he was told there was no one to pray for. But as the persistent pastor continued to ask who he might assist with prayer, he audibly heard God tell him, "Pray for the man in the red car."

Courtesy a prayer chain being enacted, Onerecker's prayers, which turned into the singing of "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," were joined by others traversing the nation and in foreign countries.

Piper, who had died upon impact, recollected that everyone who greeted him in heaven had helped him to get there, including Miss Norris, a next-door neighbor who took him to church as a child. She, Piper said, greeted him at the gates of heaven.

"Everybody in heaven looks good -- without spot, blemish and age," he assured. "...Heaven is everything we think it can be -- and so much more."

As Piper looked heavenward, he told those attending last night's testimonial that he will not forget the sound of wings of angels or the myriad of songs glorifying God being sung at the same time that he could distinguish with his heavenly ears. He also assured that God "answers prayers" and is "still in the miracle business."

Piper then relayed how he continued through the portal and saw a very bright light, which he identified as God. While he recalled wanting to go forward, the music stopped "and it was all suddenly gone." At 1:15 p.m. the day of his fatal accident, Piper heard himself singing "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" with Onerecker.

"Nineteen years later, we're still meeting people who prayed for me that day," he told those gathered.

Piper's healing testimony "about a better place and how to have a better life now" began taking shape during the next 13 months he spent in a Houston hospital bed.

"God can use you to minister to others," he said. "...God can also take your mess and make a message that will help somebody else."

As he admitted to those attending his presentation that he's asked "Why?" thousands of times since, Piper explained his answer to that question today is to tell others that "heaven is real."