The question regarding what exactly happens to us when we die is one that has been posed for as long as history has been recorded and beyond.
The truth is that in spite of all our astonishing advances as a species, we’re no closer to knowing for certain what awaits us when we shuffle off our mortal coil than we were back when we were living in caves. How could we be? If someone could return from death to tell the rest of us then… well, that would defy all we know of the process of life in the first place.
And yet there is a gray area within the bounds of the subject at hand. That is to say a scenario where an individual can technically be died before being summoned back to life after being revived.
Over the years we’ve read many accounts from people who have experienced this rather harrowing turn of events, and plenty of them differ tremendously.
Suffice to say there’s not much in the way of common ground where recollections from people who have died for a number of minutes is concerned. Some people report having gone on a sort of spiritual journey; others simply recount how it all faded to black.
One woman who died for a reported 17 minutes has now gone on record to recall seeing something she never imagined. Victoria Thomas said she was in the middle of a workout at a local gym when she suffered sudden cardiac arrest.
Thomas, 35 at the time, said she turned to a friend and informed them she was feeling “slightly dizzy”, like all the energy had been “drained from her body”.
The woman, from Gloucester, UK, told the Daily Mirror: “I’d only just said it when I suddenly collapsed on the floor.”
The now-41-year-old had gone into cardiac arrest, leaving her unresponsive and unable to breath. Paramedics arrived at the gym minutes later to begin CPR, but despite determined efforts to restore her to life, they couldn’t find a pulse.
While all this was unfolding, Victoria claims to have had a bird’s-eye view of what was going on – effectively floating over her own body.
“When it happened, it went black and there was nothing, then I became aware of looking down on my body,” she said of her experience. “I was floating near the roof and was looking down at myself on the gym floor.
“I didn’t see a light, or feel peaceful, I was just watching myself, and I could see some yellow machines around me.”
Then, 17 minutes after paramedics began life-saving measures, Victoria’s heart began beating again.
“The minutes ticked by, but they refused to stop trying,” Victoria told the Mirror. “I was so young, fit and healthy and it had come completely out of the blue.”
Following her revival, Victoria was rushed to a nearby hospital where she spent three days in a coma. Surgeons fitted her with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, a device meant to monitor and regulate cardiac rhythm.
Years later, Victoria was diagnosed with Danon disease, which the Cleveland Clinic describes as a rare genetic disorder which is ‘inherited’ and can impact patients in various ways. However, it mostly wreaks havoc on the heart, muscles, retina and brain.
After a 2022 checkup revealed that the mom’s heart was operating at just 11% (a figure associated with patients suffering from heart failure who are nearing the end of their life), Victoria underwent a successful heart transplant in 2023.
