Gabe Poirot says he met Jesus Christ during an 18-day coma and emerged with what he calls a spiritual gift.
Poirot, who was 20 at the time, cracked his skull in an accident on October 25, 2021, suffering a traumatic brain injury that left him medically dead before resuscitation, he recalled in an interview. His brain remained non-responsive for nearly three days, then doctors placed him in a medically induced coma for 15 additional days, pushing his unconscious stretch well past the 14-day threshold that Cleveland Clinic cites as typical for comas.
Medical staff had prepared intensive therapy arrangements expecting severe permanent impairment. “They had prepared a therapy spot for me that was going to do everything in my life because, again, they were expecting that if I did survive, I would be a mental vegetable,” Poirot shared. He passed every assessment instead. “I’ll never forget going to that place and passing all the tests and they were quite speechless. They even told me they’d never seen a case like mine. And yeah, it just speaks of the miraculous grace of God.”
While relatives prayed at his bedside, Poirot experienced something entirely different. He described waking groggy at first, with memory returning gradually. “The first day was really groggy, but as the days passed my memory returned and I remembered my sisters and my dad and my mom,” he said. His emotional state clashed sharply with his family’s relief. “It was actually very ironic because they had been grieving me and they were so happy I was back, but I wasn’t necessarily feeling that way,” Poirot continued. “I was happy to be breathing but I was wondering why my family were being so dramatic. I never experienced an ounce of pain, or grief, or sorrow because, as soon as the accident happened, I was called up to be with Jesus and he was full of light and love.”
The encounter, as Poirot tells it, came with an aftereffect: an ability to receive divine messages about strangers. He pointed to biblical precedent for such phenomena. “Scripture writes of this and the gifts of the Holy Spirit include prophecy, word of knowledge, and healing miracle,” Poirot said. “The Holy Spirit is actually poured out and available to any believer out there,” he added. “And we all actually have the opportunity to speak with God and have a relationship with him.”
He offered one concrete example from roughly two years ago in Denver. A hotel check-in employee he had never met became the subject of an unexpected revelation. “I heard the words that his dad had just died and that. God wanted him to know that he didn’t take his dad. He loves him. And that even though it was tragic, it was not the end of the story,” Poirot recounted. “I actually I told him that and he was a big, burly guy, and he bawled his eyes out because it was the truth. His dad had just died and he was really struggling with it.”
Poirot has since documented his account in the book “18 Days in Heaven,” which became the outlet bestseller and is available through Amazon.
The physical recovery itself defied medical expectations. Poirot described his injured brain as being “like mashed potatoes” before complete healing, a transformation that left specialists without explanation by his account.