A former amateur bodybuilder has shared his harrowing experience of being clinically dead for 45 minutes.
In 2003, Vincent Tolman, who was 25 at the time, collapsed in a restaurant bathroom after consuming an excessive amount of Gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB), which he was using for weight loss.
Tolman recounted that he and a friend were sourcing their supply from a company in Thailand. They soon sensed something was amiss with the batch, prompting them to eat something to counteract the effects.
“My buddy was starting to pass out as he was driving,” Tolman told Coming Home’s YouTube channel. “I was shaking him awake.”
The dosage they ingested was toxic, causing Tolman to suffer a severe seizure and choke on his vomit.
This incident led to him ‘dying right there on the bathroom floor’, he stated in a TikTok video.
As paramedics arrived to help, Tolman described feeling as though he was observing the scene from above, similar to watching a film in a theatre.
“But what’s weird is it didn’t feel like it was me at all. Even though I was sitting there looking at my own dead body, I couldn’t recognise it. It would almost be like going to a real movie and seeing someone dressed like you and looking like you on the movie, but you’re like ‘That’s not me’,” he explained in a TikTok video.
“So I had no idea that what I was watching was my own death.”
Tolman then felt an intense spiritual connection with everyone in the restaurant, able to access ‘every single thought they had, including the cook’.
His body was bagged and placed in an ambulance. Tolman claims he overheard a medic’s self-critical thoughts, saying: “He was saying things like, ‘Why didn’t you try harder?’ and as he was doing that I actually saw light, a real light start glowing from inside this rookie medic.”
Subsequently, a ‘really strong voice’ declared him not dead, as the light within the medic grew ‘way brighter’.
Another medic reaffirmed the initial prognosis, prompting the younger one to ‘break protocol’ and attempt resuscitation.
“As I realised they were transferring the body from the ambulance into the hospital, that was the first reckoning that I had that what I was watching was my own death,” Vincent further recalled.
“Because as they were doing all of that I felt them strapping me. I kept looking down like, ‘What the hell, how come I can’t move my arms?’ and that’s when I realised that what I’d been watching was me.”
Tolman was in a coma for three days. During this time, he claimed to have been guided through the afterlife and shown ‘all the bad things’ he had done from the perspective of those affected by him.
He later wrote a book recounting his experience, titled “The Light After Death: My Journey to Heaven and Back.”
In the aftermath, Vincent acknowledged the difficulty of coming to terms with his experience and trying to rebuild his life.
In a conversation with The Daily Mail, he mentioned how his experience led him to value ‘principles’, such as authenticity, stating: “Every moment that we are not being authentic, it’s a moment wasted. And so it’s very important for us to be as authentic as we can.”
His ordeal also diminished his fear of death, noting: “When that day comes, I am very much looking forward to it.”