A man who was pronounced clinically dead for more than 11 hours has spoken about what he believes he experienced in ‘heaven’—and the frightening moment he says he encountered something sinister beyond it.
Jim Woodford, a Canadian pilot and businessman who has described himself as not being religious, said his near-death experience began after he accidentally took too much prescription medication while parked alone in a field, watching the sunset. He shared his account with 100 Huntley Street.
According to Jim, his lungs seized and he passed out. He says his body wasn’t discovered until the next morning, by which time rigor mortis had already set in.
He was taken to a hospital in Fredericton, New Brunswick, where he was declared clinically dead.
Jim says doctors warned his wife, Lorraine, that even if he survived, he would likely be left in a vegetative state. He remained unconscious for 11 hours—and when he came around, he says he remembered what happened in striking detail.
He claims that at the exact moment he died, the chronic pain he’d been living with abruptly disappeared.
In his telling, he got out of his truck feeling as if he had the body of a 20-year-old again. When he looked back inside the vehicle, he says he saw a person slumped over the wheel—then realised it was him, with blood pouring due to haemorrhaged lungs.
Jim says he then began rising above the ground—an unsettling sensation for someone with flying experience. He estimates he reached roughly 1,200 feet before being drawn toward what he describes as a 60-foot golden ring in the sky, passing through it into a bright tunnel and moving at what he guessed was “Mach 1 or 2”.
On the other side, he says he emerged through a portal coated in mist and stepped onto grass that seemed to glow from within, blade by blade. He describes flowers as having colours beyond anything he’d seen on Earth—shades he believes don’t even have names in any language. To him, sound and colour appeared intertwined: sound had colour, and colour had sound.
Looking into the distance, Jim says he saw what he took to be a holy city, with golden streets, expansive green areas, and crowds of people who appeared free of pain. He claims new arrivals were being guided by relatives, as if being shown around like visitors in a major capital.
He also says three angels approached him. In his recollection, the shortest was around 10 feet tall, and the tallest was about 15 feet.
Jim claims they had violet eyes—and that none of them blinked.
He believes one of them was his guardian angel, assigned to him since birth. He says the expression on the angel’s face was pure relief. But Jim insists the scene didn’t remain peaceful for long.
As he stood there, taking everything in, he says the landscape changed when he looked to his left: the vibrant green grass turned brown, then appeared scorched, then black—before it fell away into a canyon-like drop.
From within that chasm, he says he initially noticed what looked like a distant campfire. Then, he claims, it revealed itself as a huge door grinding open with a screech, as if dragged by ancient hinges. What emerged, he says, was enormous—humanoid in shape, but completely engulfed in flames.
“This thing came so rapidly up,” he said. “It was surrounded by cloud and darkness and a smell of decay.”
Jim says he could hear screaming that didn’t seem to come from the being’s mouth, but from inside it—leading him to describe it as though it had “swallowed souls.”
Then it called him by name, telling him: “Jim come to us. We have been waiting for you. This is your time with us.”
Jim claims he refused to face it, turning away and lifting his hands as he shouted, “God, help me.” He says three points of light came together into the angels, who then fired a bolt of light over his shoulder. The creature, he claims, screamed and retreated back into the pit “like a rat running for cover.”
After that, Jim says he encountered a figure he believes was Jesus, seated on a hillside reading from a book. He describes a golden light flowing from him and moving through the flowers, making them bloom even more as it passed.
When the figure turned toward him, Jim says he dropped to his knees.
He claims Jesus held up a hand, preventing him from coming closer, and told him: “James, my son, this is not yet your time. Go back and tell your brothers and sisters of the wonders we have shown you.”
Jim says he pleaded to stay, even promising he “won’t be any trouble”—a line he now says he regrets. He claims Jesus smiled, but that the angels carried him away anyway.
He says he woke in the ICU shouting so loudly it drew nurses to his bedside, and that his organs began functioning normally again within minutes.
According to Jim, the first thing he said to Lorraine was: “Lorraine, I saw Jesus and Jesus has horses and I’m back.”
He says he has since filled seven journals with notes about what he remembers, and has written a book describing the experience in full, titled Heaven: An Unexpected Journey.