Plane Crash Survivor: 'An Aura Was Leaving Their Bodies'

In October of 2000, music producer John Diaz was wrapping up a long business trip in Asia, eager to return home to his wife and two children. A typhoon had battered the region, but Diaz's flight -- Singapore Airlines #006 -- was still scheduled to take off amidst torrential rain. Diaz boarded the aircraft, along with 158 other passengers, but disaster struck before they even got in the air: The plane exploded after accidentally turning down the wrong runway, colliding with concrete barriers and construction equipment.

Diaz was one of 96 passengers that survived the crash. Speaking with "The Oprah Winfrey Show" several years later, he recounted the horrors he witnessed that day.

"There was all this spray of jet fuel, which was like napalm. And whatever it hit -- a person or [object] -- it ignited like a torch," Diaz said. "It looked like a Dante's Inferno, with people strapped into their seats and just burning."

Diaz managed to escape the flaming wreckage, and in the midst of the terrifying chaos, he says he noticed something strange about the passengers whose fate was far different than his own.

"It seemed a bit like an aura was leaving their bodies," Diaz said. "Some brighter than others... I thought the brightness and dimness of the auras were how one lives one's life, so to speak."

The experience made a profound impact on him.

"It gave me a kind of new spirituality in a sense that I believe life continues on," Diaz said. "I want to live my life so my aura, when it leaves, is very bright."

That "Oprah Show" interview took place nine years ago, and in the time since, Diaz has faced several additional life-threatening hurdles, he tells "Oprah: Where Are They Now?"

Struggle with Addiction

"Right after the show, I had trouble with my legs after the plane crash," Diaz says.

He was prescribed medication to help manage his pain issues, and, as Diaz admits, he soon became dependent on the drugs. "I was on a lot of different opiates," he says. "You become an addict no matter what."

His addiction soon seemed to spiral. "In 2010, I decided to go down -- incredibly stupidly -- to Tijuana. I had a prescription for this drug called Soma, which is [a] very kind of light muscle relaxer," Diaz says.

Though he says he had a prescription, Diaz was arrested in Tijuana for buying drugs illegally.

"They originally threw me into cell, 8-by-13-foot cell, with 34 other men," he recalls. "You really had to fight for your life just about every minute of the day."

Eventually, Diaz was free to return to the U.S. "We ended up using the Mexican legal system to get me out of the prison," he says. "After close to three months, they dropped all the charges and let me go."

Battling Cancer

Upon returning home, Diaz began to get back into what he calls "a normal routine," going to the gym, and taking better care of himself. That's when he received shocking news.

"I went in a few weeks ago for a physical, where I was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia," Diaz says. "I was in chemotherapy two days later."

According to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, many people with CLL, a type of blood cancer, live good-quality lives for years with medical care. Diaz says he had no idea how dire the condition of his health was.

"I didn't realize nearly where I was with this," he says. "My organs were failing, my vision when I checked into the hospital was starting to fail. I was moments away, they told me, from the point of no return."

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