Edmond Pastor Talks About Escaping Death Three Times

An Edmond pastor escaped death not once, not twice, but three times. And Thursday morning, he is sharing his story only with our News 9's Justin Dougherty.

We've all heard of a cat having nine lives. Well, First Baptist Church preacher Blake Gideon is now living his fourth life. He's defeated death three times, and the most remarkable, the time he was lost at sea for hours.

"I am severely afflicted, Lord gives me life through your word," said Blake Gideon, an Edmond pastor.

Pastor Blake Gideon's present appears to be peaceful, but examined closer it may simply just be the calm after the storm.

"Never in a 1,000 dreams would have imagined this is where I would be," said Gideon.

Twenty years ago young Blake Gideon was "the wild west." Growing up in Hugo, he was into the rodeo but considered himself more than just a cowboy.

"I would consider to be an outlaw. Very rebellious against any type of authority," said Gideon.

His outlaw ways led him to the Gulf of Mexico working on an offshore drilling site like this one. One stormy night, Gideon and his crew were moving the rig, when a cable on their boat snapped.

"And it hit me in the back of the legs and it picked me up and threw me over the side," said Gideon.

The cable threw him into the ocean 350 feet out from shore. His crew tried to save him.

"No matter how hard I tried I just couldn't get to those life rings," said Gideon.

Stopping the boat wasn't an option either. It would be easier to stop a freight train.

"Was just out there floating. For two hours and not knowing what was going to happen next," said Gideon.

Gideon said he accepted death when all of a sudden, a boat appeared over the waves like a rising sun, a new hope. He was saved. But even with him being in the water for two hours, it was no baptism. He continued on his broken path and stared death in the face two more times.

A major car wreck had him hospitalized, and not long after, his partying ways consumed him one night and he ended up in a comma -- an incident Gideon calls shameful because he was an outlaw without a cause.

"And out of the blue I just started thinking about those three times I almost died. I mean just sitting on the couch and started thinking and asked myself the question, 'Blake, if you'd have died any of those three times where would you have gone?'" Gideon asked himself.

Minutes later, Gideon went to his preacher's home. And a month later, Gideon himself was preaching -- something young Gideon would have never believed.

"If you go back at the yearbook when I graduated, it would say 20 years from now Blake Gideon would probably be a bouncer in a honkie tonk," Gideon said.

Now he may not be at a nightclub, but he is protecting a more sacred house.

"Who I am today is not determined by my past, who I am today is determined by Christ," said Gideon.