There are few people on Earth who can claim to know what might happen to us after we die half so well as Dannion Brinkley.

The former US Marine was declared dead for 28 minutes after being struck by lightning back in 1975, before ultimately returning to his body and making a full recovery.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are less than one in a million. Which is to say you have to be extremely, extremely unlucky to have it happen to you.

But, of course, it’s not impossible. Technically, every time there’s a storm there’s a minute chance of someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time and being hit by lightning. Brinkley knows that better than anyone.

The businessman, athlete and veteran had been holding a phone to his ear when lightning struck on September 17, 1975, traveling down a phone line and through the phone he was talking, straight into Brinkley’s body.

“It went into the side of my head above my ear, it went down my spine,” he said, via 8 News Now.

“It welded the nails of the heels of my shoes to the floor. It threw me up in the air, I see the ceiling, it slams me back down, a ball of fire comes through the room and blinds me. I am burning. I am on fire. I am paralyzed.“

But here’s where it gets really interesting…

Brinkley can recall actually leaving his body after the horrifying incident, and he didn’t return to it until after it had been taken to the morgue… some 28 minutes later.

So what happened while he was away? Well, it didn’t all just fade to black, apparently. In fact, he’s since spoken about the traumatic experience to offer insight into exactly “what happens when you die”.

Brinkley recalled that he had the feeling of floating along with the ambulance as it transported his body to hospital, while he watched from above his body as doctors pronounced him officially dead.

He added that his consciousness journeyed through what he described as a tunnel, before encountering a spiritual being formed of light in a ‘Crystal City’.

Speaking in an interview with T&H – Afterlife on YouTube, Brinkley said that he witnessed a replay of his entire life in a ‘360 degree panorama’.

“You watch it from a second person point of view,” he explained.

“In the life you just reviewed, what difference did you and God make?”

Needless to say, Brinkley has his skeptics, but to this day he’s stuck to his word regarding his experience. Not only that, but he’s actually had two other near-death experiences to help shore up his beliefs.

In 1989, while undergoing open heart surgery, Brinkley recalled being “reunited with his angelic instructors”, and said he learned how to “use his new psychic and spiritual gifts to aid the dying and the desperate.”

He then underwent another near-death experience while having brain surgery.

“When you learn you don’t die, when you learn you’re a spiritual being, you’re not going to go to hell, that’s enough to inspire you to change,” he explained, per 8 News Now.

What do you think happens after you die? Let us know in the comments.