Man who was declared 'dead for 45 minutes' details how it felt 'witnessing his death'
Dan Seddon
Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Images
An ex-amateur bodybuilder has revealed what it's like to endure a near-death experience after being declared dead for 45 minutes.
In 2003, a then 25-year-old Vincent Tolman collapsed in a restaurant toilet after taking way too much of the drug Gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB) for weight-loss purposes.
According to Tolman, he and his friend were made to outsource their supply from a company in Thailand, but they soon realized that 'something was different about this', so they decided to grab some food to help themselves.
"My buddy was starting to pass out as he was driving," he told Coming Home's YouTube channel. "I was shaking him awake."
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The batch he'd taken turned out to be 'toxic', and they'd taken a huge dosage, which led to him experiencing a violent seizure and choking on his vomit.
This led to him 'dying right there on the bathroom floor', he said in a TikTok video.
As paramedics rushed to save him, Tolman says he was 'looking at everything from above' as if he were watching a movie 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 video posted on TikTok.
"So I had no idea that what I was watching was my own death."
Tolman suddenly experienced an overwhelming spiritual connection to 'everybody in the restaurant' and was able to tune into 'every single thought they had, including the cook'.
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His body was placed in a body bag and put in the ambulance, where he claimed he could hear one of the medics 'berating himself', adding: "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."
Then, Tolman said, a 'really strong voice' proclaimed him to be not dead as the light in him started growing 'way brighter'.
The second medic repeated his prognosis even louder, and that's when the younger one 'broke protocol' by resuscitating the body.
"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 spent three days in a coma, where he claimed he was led through the afterlife and shown 'all the bad things' he'd done throughout his life from the perspective of those 'impacted by my actions or my words'.
He later authored a book about his experience, titled "The Light After Death: My Journey to Heaven and Back."
Following his ordeal, Vincent admitted that he had a 'very hard time picking up the pieces of what this was and trying to figure out life'.
Speaking to The Daily Mail, he said his experience forced him to embrace 'principles', like authenticity, as he continued to say: "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 experience also lessened his fear of dying, adding: "When that day comes, I am very much looking forward to it."