- Vincent Tolman was thought to be dead after being found in the bathroom of a Dairy Queen.
- The paramedics put him in a body bag and drove him to the hospital.
- Tolman told Insider the experience has made him no longer afraid of death.
This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with Vincent Tolman, a Texas man who narrowly escaped death. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I died on the bathroom floor of a Utah Dairy Cream on a cold night in January 2002.
My friend and I had taken a dodgy supplement we had bought online, but the moment we consumed it, we knew something was wrong. We rushed to the closest restaurant in the hopes that some food would make us feel better.
Instead, I started to feel extremely nauseous, so I locked myself into a bathroom cubicle. Suddenly, an ice-cold chill came over my body, rushing over my thighs and into my chest. Then the world began to spin.
I collapsed, and the next thing I knew, I was looking down at myself from above. The world felt like it had no ceiling, and I watched, calmly, as paramedics rushed into the bathroom and worked over the body.
I describe it as "the" body because I didn't recognize myself at first. The person I saw didn't look like me: his face was bright purple and had specks of yellow in it. It looked like a fake dead body.
I watched as emergency services tried to resuscitate the man, but shortly after, they stopped and gave up. They zipped him up in a bright yellow body bag and carried him into the back of an ambulance.
I kept following the man as the ambulance drove off. About 45 minutes into the journey to the hospital, a medic who was on his first week on the job decided to try to feel for a pulse one more time.
After several minutes of checking, and re-checking, the medic later said he felt a faint pulse on my leg. He jumped into action and started feeding oxygen into the lungs and hooking up a defibrillator.
There were no results after the first shock wave. But after the second round, he got one heartbeat, and after the third round, he got a steady heartbeat. It was faint, but it was steady and it was enough that it was sustaining life.
When they wheeled the body into the hospital it started seizing and vomiting. In an effort to restrain the arms and legs, they strapped them all on a bed.
Suddenly, I felt someone strapping my left arm and it hit me: the body was, in fact, my own. It felt so gut-wrenching. How could I have been watching my own death this whole time?
I was in a coma for three days, officially declared brain dead by the doctors. They told my family that I had little chance of survival.
But in those three days, I believe I traveled to "the other side." I was met with feelings of love and saw divine beauty, all of which I describe in my book.
But I knew, deep down inside that it was not my time yet. So three days later, I opened my eyes in the hospital. Physically, I was completely fine. I was even described as a "miracle" by my neurologist.
Although I was raised in a religious family, I was never a big believer. But I came back from my near-death experience with a deeper understanding of what our purpose is on earth.
I try to live every day with a sense of gratitude and happiness. I know life is here to teach us many lessons.
Also, I am no longer afraid of death.
In fact, when I find out that someone has died, I envy them because I know they have gone to a place that is far more superior to where we are now.
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