A man who had three near-death experiences has opened up about what he saw while on the edge of life.
Imagine being struck by lightning, declared dead, taken to the morgue - only to wake up nearly half an hour later with a vivid story of what lies beyond this life.
That’s exactly what happened to former US Marine and businessman Dannion Brinkley, and he’s been sharing his extraordinary journey ever since.
Back in 1975, Brinkley was on the phone when a bolt of lightning hit a nearby pole and traveled straight into his body through the line.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are less than one in a million. But that year, Brinkley became the one in a million.
“It went into the side of my head above my ear, it went down my spine,” Brinkley told KLAS. “It welded the nails of the heels of my shoes to the floor. It threw me up in the air, I see the ceiling, it slams me back down, a ball of fire comes through the room and blinds me. I am burning. I am on fire. I am paralyzed.”
What followed was something even more surreal.
Brinkley said his soul temporarily left his body. He described floating alongside the ambulance that rushed his body to the hospital and watching from above as doctors pronounced him dead.
Twenty-eight minutes later, inside the morgue, he woke up.
“I am burning. I am on fire. I am paralyzed,” he recalled in an interview with 8 News Now.
During that otherworldly time, Brinkley said he traveled through a tunnel, encountered a spiritual being of light, and entered what he called a “Crystal City.”
There, he experienced a complete replay of his life in a “360-degree panorama.”
“You watch it from a second-person point of view,” Brinkley explained in a YouTube interview on T&H – Afterlife.
That’s when the being of light posed a single question: “In the life you just reviewed, what difference did you and God make?”
It took him two years to fully recover and learn to walk again - but Brinkley’s brush with death didn’t end there.
In 1989, during open heart surgery, Brinkley had another near-death experience. This time, he claimed to be “reunited with his angelic instructors,” who showed him how to “use his new psychic and spiritual gifts to aid the dying and the desperate,” according to the publisher of his first book, Saved by the Light.
Then came a third experience, during brain surgery. Each time, Brinkley said his soul separated from his body, and each time, he returned with even more spiritual insight.
While his story has sparked skepticism, it might have some scientific backing. Dr. Sam Parnia, associate professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health, noted to The New York Post: “There are signs of normal and near-normal brain activity found up to an hour into resuscitation.”
Parnia added: “We were not only able to show the markers of lucid consciousness — we were also able to show that these experiences are unique and universal. They’re different from dreams, illusions, and delusions,” referencing findings from the NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
As for Brinkley, he’s using his incredible experiences to help others come to peace with death. He now works as a hospice volunteer, counseling terminally ill patients - particularly fellow veterans.
“When you learn you don’t die, when you learn you’re a spiritual being, you’re not going to go to hell — that’s enough to inspire you to change,” he told 8 News Now.
And when asked what he ultimately believes about the afterlife?
“Nobody dies. It never happens. It’s not a part of the nature of reality,” Brinkley said.