Man who was 'clinically dead for more than 11 hours' reveals what he saw in heaven
Thomas Bamford
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A man who was clinically dead for more than 11 hours has opened up about what he claims to have witnessed in 'heaven' and the terrifying thing he says he saw on the other side.
Jim Woodford, a Canadian pilot and businessman who describes himself as someone who was never religious, told 100 Huntley Street his near-death experience came after accidentally taking too much prescription medication while parked alone in a field watching the sunset.
His lungs seized, he lost consciousness, and his body wasn't found until the following morning, with rigor mortis already set in.
Jim was rushed to hospital in Fredericton, New Brunswick, where he was pronounced clinically dead.
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Doctors told his wife Lorraine that if he survived, he would likely be in a vegetative state. He was out for 11 hours. When he woke up, he had a lot to say
Jim claims that the instant he died, the chronic pain he'd been living with completely vanished.
He says he stepped out of his truck feeling like he was 20 years old again, before turning around and noticing someone slumped over the steering wheel. It was himself. Gushing blood from haemorrhaged lungs.
He then says he began to rise into the air, something he notes as a pilot he found deeply unsettling. He estimates he reached around 1,200 feet before being pulled through what he describes as a 60-foot golden ring in the sky and into a tunnel of light, travelling at what he reckons was "Mach 1 or 2".
Jim says he stepped through a mist-covered portal onto grass where every blade had its own inner light. Flowers had colours that, he says, have no names in any language we have. Sound had colour. Colour had sound.
Looking further out, he describes seeing what he believes was the holy city - streets of gold, vast green spaces, and hundreds of thousands of people with no signs of pain. He says newly arrived souls were being walked around by family members, shown the place like tourists visiting a capital city.
Three angels came to meet him. The shortest was around 10 feet tall, with the tallest, about 15 feet, according to Jim.
All of them, he says, had violet eyes and none of them ever blinked.
His own guardian angel, he claims, had been assigned to him since birth. The look on his face, Jim says, was one of pure relief. It wasn't all a garden of roses, however.
As Jim stood taking in the view, he says he swept his gaze left and the lush green grass turned brown, then scorched, then black, dropping off into a canyon.
From deep inside it, he saw what he first thought was a distant campfire. Then he realised it was a massive door, screeching open on what sounded like ancient, resistant hinges. What came out was enormous. Shaped like a man, but entirely on fire.
"This thing came so rapidly up," he said. "It was surrounded by cloud and darkness and a smell of decay."
He says he could hear screaming coming not from the creature itself, but from within its body, as though, in his words, 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 says he turned his back to it, raised his hands, and cried out "God, help me." Three points of light converged into the angels, who sent a bolt of light over his shoulder. The creature, he says, shrieked and scrambled back into the pit "like a rat running for cover."
Jim eventually came across a figure he believes was Jesus, reading from a book on a hillside, with a golden light flowing off him and through the flowers, causing them to bloom even further as it passed.
When Jesus turned to face him, Jim says he fell to his knees.
Jesus raised his hand to stop him getting any closer, then 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 begged not to go. He even told Jesus, in his own words, that he "won't be any trouble" - something he says he now regrets. Jesus smiled. The angels carried him away regardless.
He woke up in the ICU with a yell that sent nurses running, his organs reportedly beginning to function normally within minutes.
His first words to his wife Lorraine: "Lorraine, I saw Jesus and Jesus has horses and I'm back."
He has since filled seven journals with what he says he witnessed, and details the full account in his book, Heaven: An Unexpected Journey.