We all love to hear stories about near-death experiences. After all, they’re a great mix of ordinary life with the things that a lot of us struggle to explain, and one of the most incredible examples of this comes from a man named Gabe Poirot. He suffered a skateboard crash that left him unconscious for nearly three weeks. During that time, he was in a coma, and when he finally woke up, he told people that he had spoken to Jesus face-to-face. Here’s what he said.
Poirot’s story begins with an ordinary outing that went horribly wrong. He was skateboarding with his friend John when the board caught something in the road. Bear in mind, he was traveling close to 30 miles per hour at the time. He was then thrown into the air & slammed onto the pavement headfirst, knocking him unconscious immediately. Sadly, he wasn’t wearing a helmet.
John immediately rushed to his side and realized how serious the situation was. He found his friend unresponsive & bleeding. Soon after, emergency responders arrived to transport him to a nearby hospital. They discovered that he had suffered a severe traumatic brain injury.
The vice chief of surgery at the hospital, Dr. Forrest “Dell” Moore, told the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) that Poirot’s injuries included subdural bleeding, brain contusions, & swelling inside his skull. It doesn’t take long for these sorts of injuries to become life-threatening because they cause pressure to build inside the brain. As such, doctors placed him on life support and induced a coma to stabilize him while his brain recovered. But something unusual happened to Poirot during that time.
Apparently, he experienced something entirely different. He said that he felt his consciousness separate from his own body and, in his own words, it felt “like a hand right out of the glove.” He said he found himself looking down at [his] own body, but it wasn’t [him].”
Poirot also claims to have heard his friend praying after the accident happened. He also mentioned feeling as though he had been “suctioned up by […] this tunnel of light.” However, he said he didn’t feel scared at the time, but rather entirely calm & peaceful. He also mentioned seeing a “city of pure glory, pure light, pure love” and that Jesus “was there waiting for [him]. Seeing Him changed everything.”
Near-death experiences like these have been discussed multiple times in medical literature. Dr. Bruce Greyson, a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, has studied such incidents for decades, and he stated in his book After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal About Life and Beyond that many near-death experiences involve people feeling like they’re floating above their bodies. Some of them claim they feel as though they’re traveling through a tunnel.
Unfortunately, Poirot’s conditions worsened, and doctors became worried that he might not survive, let alone recover. This led to his loved ones, as well as other Christians on social media, coming together to pray for him. Poirot claims he saw this.
He said, “I literally saw the prayers of the saints, the sons and daughters of God. I saw them from heaven’s perspective. They were gathered up into this bowl, this golden bowl, every single one of them. And literally, they are presented to the throne room of heaven, and all of heaven stands at attention because our prayers are the Father’s priority.”
He then went on to say, “I literally saw these bridges that were being formed. And sure enough, the bridges gathered, and then Jesus united himself with them, and they got bigger. And bigger and bigger. And as everyone was on the earth, I saw the prayers of those like Ginger [his friend]. I saw her praying over my body. I saw my parents and my family and my friends, and I saw those prayers go right into the heart of Christ – it was those prayers that I was actually sent back on.”
It took eighteen days for Poirot’s condition to eventually change, and the doctors gradually reduced the medication they were giving him to keep him unconscious. He then started to show signs that he might wake up.
Miraculously, he woke up, and doctors were surprised by how quickly he recovered after such a serious injury. Dr. Moore told reporters that patients who suffer such serious brain damage usually face a long recovery procedure or permanent damage, yet Poirot had neither. He actually left the hospital within days of coming out of his coma.
However, he did explain that the moment he woke up was rather confusing, and that he felt “so out of place.” He said that it felt strange to be back in his own body after having such an incredible experience. Poirot said, “We are here on the credit of his grace. He has such an amazing plan for all of our lives, and people don’t understand the amount of actually crazy situations the Lord has saved them from, and they have no idea.”
