Dennis and Dawn Ritter: His Heart Stopped Three Times. What He Experienced Changed Their Faith Forever: Page 272
The Unfolding
Northwestern Media
4.9 • 867 Ratings
🗓️ 6 March 2026
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dennis died three times. What he experienced while his heart stopped changed the way he—and his family—would live the rest of their lives.
Dennis spent his life trying to outrun the heart disease that ran in his family. He exercised. Ate well. Stayed disciplined. Then one day, without warning, he collapsed from a massive heart attack. His heart stopped three times. Dennis says during those moments he experienced something almost impossible to describe. It was an overwhelming sense of love and peace.
While doctors fought to save him, his wife Dawn stood in the hospital hallway praying, clinging to Scripture, and surrendering her husband's life to God. When Dennis came back, everything changed. They didn't just get survival. They got bonus time. A deeper intimacy with God. And a new understanding of how God had been preparing them long before this moment.
Show Notes:
Book Dennis mentioned: https://www.amazon.com/90-Minutes-Heaven-Story-Death/dp/0800759494
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Page 272 of the unfolding is the story of Dennis and Dawn Ritter. |
| 0:05.9 | He had some type of experience when his heart stopped, where he felt such an incredible love. |
| 0:12.9 | I think when I woke up and I said, there's a part of me the wishes I hadn't come back. |
| 0:17.2 | So God used all that to give me the strength and the hope for the future. |
| 0:22.4 | God's story has been unfolding. |
| 0:25.9 | Since the beginning of time. |
| 0:29.0 | He invites you to be a part of it. |
| 0:32.5 | Wow. |
| 0:34.6 | Another page in the unfolding. |
| 0:38.8 | Have you ever looked back and realized God was preparing you for something you didn't even know was coming? |
| 0:45.2 | Hey, this is Meredith Foster. |
| 0:47.2 | Dennis Rittert was having a completely normal day, a little discomfort in his chest, nothing alarming, until 45 seconds after he walked into the |
| 0:55.8 | emergency room, his heart stopped, not once, three times. And during those moments when his |
| 1:02.3 | heart wasn't beating, Dennis experienced something that was hard to describe. He experienced |
| 1:08.0 | an overwhelming love, a peace so deep that when he came back, part of him wished he |
| 1:14.6 | hadn't. But this isn't just a story about a near-death experience or surviving a heart attack. |
| 1:20.3 | It's a story about a lifetime of preparation that Dennis and his wife Dawn didn't even know |
| 1:26.6 | was happening about prayers prayed in |
| 1:28.9 | hospital hallways, about what it feels like when the fear of death loses its grip, and about |
| 1:34.9 | discovering that when God says, I love you, it's not theoretical. It's personal. I think it was like |
| 1:43.4 | a March 30th, 2007. And I went into work and it was like a March 30th, 2007. |
| 1:45.7 | And I went into work and it was just a regular day when I started, but I was having a little |
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