The question of what truly happens when we die has fascinated humanity since the dawn of time. Despite all our technological and scientific breakthroughs, we remain no closer to a definitive answer. Death, by its very nature, doesn’t allow for easy explanations—after all, no one can simply return to describe the experience without defying the rules of life itself.
And yet, there exists a peculiar gray area: the moments when someone technically dies but is later revived. Accounts of these near-death experiences vary widely. Some describe serene, almost spiritual journeys; others recall nothing but a void.
Victoria Thomas’s story stands out as a striking example of what happens in that liminal space between life and death.
At 35, Victoria was in the middle of a workout at her local gym in Gloucester, UK, when her body suddenly gave out. She later explained that just moments before, she’d turned to a friend and admitted she felt “slightly dizzy,” as if all her energy had drained away.
“I’d only just said it when I suddenly collapsed on the floor,” Victoria recalled.
Paramedics arrived swiftly and began CPR, but Victoria had already gone into cardiac arrest. For 17 long minutes, she had no pulse, wasn’t breathing, and was effectively dead.
Yet during those harrowing moments, Victoria experienced something she never expected.
“When it happened, it went black and there was nothing,” she told the Daily Mirror. “Then I became aware of looking down on my body. I was floating near the roof, watching myself lying on the gym floor. I didn’t see a light or feel peaceful—I was just… watching. I could even see the yellow machines around me.”
Despite the odds, paramedics refused to stop trying. Seventeen minutes later, her heart started beating again.
“I was so young, fit, and healthy,” Victoria said. “It came completely out of the blue.”
She was rushed to the hospital and placed in a coma for three days. Surgeons later fitted her with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, a device designed to regulate dangerous heart rhythms.
Years afterward, doctors diagnosed Victoria with Danon disease—a rare inherited condition that primarily damages the heart, muscles, retina, and brain. By 2022, her heart was functioning at just 11%, the level typically seen in patients nearing the end of life.
But in 2023, Victoria underwent a successful heart transplant. Today, at 41, she’s alive to tell her story—one that challenges what we think we know about death and consciousness.
Her experience didn’t offer heavenly visions or glowing tunnels of light. Instead, it revealed a strange, detached awareness—a moment suspended between life and death that science still struggles to explain.
