As Benjamin Franklin famously noted in 1789, there are two inevitabilities in this world: death and taxes. While the fear of death is some people's greatest phobia, it's a sad reality that we'll all shuffle off this mortal coil eventually.
The question is, what happens after we die?
With the world of science moving at a rapid pace, researchers are becoming increasingly obsessed with unlocking the secret of whether there's life after death and what happens when we take our final breath.
There are even AI-powered 'death clocks' that can supposedly predict when we're going to pass away, but in reality, no one knows when the grim specter of Death will come knocking on our door.
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Despite various religions talking about the afterlife and where we go when our bodies no longer contain our souls, some scientists claim there's simply nothing as we cease to exist.
Movies like Flatliners have explored the horrors of what could happen when we die, but apparently, one woman claims to have experienced it herself in real life.
As reported by The Mirror, fitness buff Victoria Thomas was 35 at the time and started to feel unwell after a gym class. Saying that all the energy had 'drained from her body', Thomas is said to have been experiencing a cardiac arrest.
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Speaking to the outlet, Thomas explained: "I said to my friend that I didn’t feel like I had any power or energy, like it had just drained from my body. I was also feeling slightly dizzy. I’d only just said it when I suddenly collapsed on the floor.”
Medics rushed to the scene and attempted to administer CPR, but as the minutes ticked on, they couldn't find a pulse. Thomas' heart stopped for 17 minutes before they could bring her back to life, with Victoria sharing the harrowing idea of what she saw next: "I was floating near the roof and was looking down at myself on the gym floor. My first thought was that my legs looked really fat."
In a bizarre turn, Thomas says that a photograph taken just before she collapsed showed that her legs were actually swollen.
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Thomas then reveals whether she experienced a supposed afterlife: "I didn’t see a light, or feel peaceful, I was just watching myself, and I could see some yellow machines around me."
Now aged 41, Thomas thanks medics for continuing to help her: "They never gave up on me. The minutes ticked by, but they refused to stop trying. I was so young, fit and healthy and it had come completely out of the blue."
After being rushed to Bristol Royal Infirmary, she spent three days in a coma and had her heart fitted with a defibrillator. Despite not having a history of heart problems in her family, her heart stopped and was restarted by the defibrillator several times over the next few months. It turned out that Victoria was suffering from a rare condition called Danon disease that affects less than a million people worldwide. She gave birth to her son and thankfully received a heart transplant.
In terms of an afterlife, it seems Thomas' experience didn't quite have her making it to the Pearly Gates.