A real-life story · Orem, Utah, United States, 2003

Vincent Tolman’s near-death experience

In January 2003, Vincent Tolman collapsed in the restroom of a Utah restaurant after taking a gym supplement. He says he was declared dead, zipped into a body bag, and brought back by a rookie EMT on the way to the medical examiner. He later said he had watched it all from outside his body and that a guide named Drake took him to the other side.

No. 24 in the ranking

Since 2021, in a book and in many interviews, Vincent Tolman has said he was dead for at least 45 minutes and woke up three days later. His story has two details worth looking at closely. One is the rookie EMT who, he says, opened the bag when no one expected it. The other is his guide Drake, whom his girlfriend recognized months later in an old photo. We tell it step by step and then look at what can be checked. If you only want the evidence, skip straight to what can be checked. Did he really see what happened in that ambulance?

Step 1

Saturday morning, January 18, 2003 · Orem, Utah · Vincent’s account

Vincent and his friend take a supplement ordered from Thailand

Vincent Tolman was 25 and worked in construction. He lived in Utah County, near Orem, and had grown up in a Christian family. That Saturday he had the day off. He had plans with his best friend, Rob, to grab some food, go to the gym, and see a car show in Salt Lake City.

The two of them had gotten into working out and taking supplements to build strength. On Rob’s kitchen table was a package that had just arrived. It was a liquid supplement Rob had ordered from Thailand because it was sold out in the United States. The label was in a language they couldn’t read. Each of them drank a full capful. Vincent says the product sold in the United States was much more diluted, and that the capful was about twenty doses.

They could tell right away that something was wrong. Vincent felt a cold feeling rising from his stomach. They left in Rob’s car to find something to eat. A few blocks later, Rob’s eyes were closing at the wheel. Vincent told him to pull into a Dairy Queen, a fast-food chain.

Vincent ran to the restroom.

Step 2

That same morning · At the Dairy Queen · Vincent’s account

Vincent collapses in the restroom and says he sees himself from above

It was a single-person restroom, and Vincent locked the door. He fell backward onto the floor and lost consciousness. He vomited, and the vomit went into his lungs and blocked his airway. In the dining room, Rob collapsed onto a table. The manager called 911, and an ambulance took Rob away. Rob recovered.

Vincent says that at that moment he felt a very pleasant coolness, as if he were floating. He says that when his vision cleared, he was looking down at the dining room, as if in a movie. He saw the employees cleaning Rob’s table and could sense what each of them felt. He says he could even hear what they were thinking.

He tried to follow Rob’s ambulance and couldn’t leave the restaurant. Then, on the restroom floor, he saw the body of a young man, swollen and purple. He didn’t recognize him. He thought it was a stranger and felt sorry for him.

No one knew there was anyone inside that restroom.

Step 3

Later that morning · At the Dairy Queen · Vincent’s account

They find him cold, declare him dead, and put him in a bag

According to Vincent, quite a while went by before a customer mentioned that the restroom was still locked and a phone was ringing inside. The manager opened it with the key. An employee touched his wrist and said he was cold. They called 911 again. In his book, Vincent says his temperature was 79 degrees Fahrenheit.

Three EMTs arrived. One of them was new. Vincent says they tried to resuscitate him for a moment, saw that the body was starting to stiffen, and declared him dead. They put him in a yellow body bag, strapped him to a stretcher, and loaded him into the ambulance. They talked with a police officer, filled out paperwork, and set off for the medical examiner’s office in Provo. According to his book, it was already past noon.

Vincent doesn’t always give the same length of time. In his book he says that when they found him, he had been dead for 45 minutes, maybe longer. In several interviews he says about 45 minutes passed from when he was declared dead until his heart started beating again. In his 2026 interviews he talks about at least an hour, and maybe close to two.

The new EMT rode in the back, alone with the body.

Step 4

On the way to the medical examiner · In the ambulance · Vincent’s account

Vincent says a voice tells the rookie EMT “This one is not dead,” and he opens the bag

Vincent says he could hear the rookie EMT’s thoughts. The EMT was sad that he hadn’t been able to do anything. Vincent says a golden light began to glow in the EMT’s chest, like a small sun. Then he felt something rush past him, and a very loud voice said, “This one is not dead.” The EMT looked around and thought he had imagined it. The voice said it a second time, louder.

According to Vincent, the EMT opened the bag and checked for a pulse in the neck, the arm, and the thigh. He didn’t find one. He made a cut in the throat to put in a tube so air could get in. He stuck on the pads of the defibrillator, the machine that gives shocks to get the heart beating again. His two partners up front shouted at him to stop and told him he was going to get fired.

The first shock did nothing. The second brought a single beat. With the third, the heart started beating again. The ambulance turned toward Timpanogos Hospital in Orem, a few blocks away.

Vincent still didn’t know that body was his own.

Step 5

On arrival at the hospital · Vincent’s account

Vincent feels his arm being strapped down and realizes the body is his

In the emergency room hallway, the body began to convulse. A nurse strapped its legs and right arm to the stretcher. When she started strapping the left arm, Vincent says he felt the tug as if it were his own arm, and he pulled hard. The body’s arm came free of the strap. That was when he understood he was watching them resuscitate him.

He says the coolness turned into a bitter cold and he panicked. In an instant he saw all the bad things he had done in his life, and he judged himself. He thought he didn’t deserve to be saved. Then he saw all the good he had done, also from the point of view of the people he had helped.

Then he felt warmth at his back, like the summer sun.

Step 6

While he is in a coma · Vincent’s account

Vincent says a guide with a white beard tells him his name is Drake

Vincent turned around and saw a man with shoulder-length white hair and a long white beard. His eyes were a very intense blue. He wore a white robe. Vincent asked if he was God, and the man laughed and said no. He asked if he was Jesus Christ, and he said no again. Then the man told him, “You can call me Drake. I am your guide.”

Drake gave him a choice. He could go back to his body or go with him. Vincent didn’t want to go back to the pain and the fear, and he chose to go. He says they traveled at enormous speed between galaxies. Along the way, Drake taught him ten principles for living. Some of them are to be authentic, to love everyone, to listen to the inner voice, and to use technology responsibly. They didn’t talk in words. He says the information came into his mind all at once.

In the end they reached a place with grass, flowers, water, and a large white building at the top of a hill. Vincent says everything there was alive and that he had never been so happy. Then Drake told him that what came next was going to hurt, but that it would be worth it.

And Vincent heard his brother’s voice.

Step 7

Monday, January 20, to Tuesday, January 21, 2003 · At Timpanogos Hospital · Vincent’s account

Vincent wakes from the coma, pulls out his tubes, and asks to be discharged

On Monday night, his brother Tyler gave him a blessing at his bedside. It is a special prayer given in their church. Vincent says he heard it as if it were being whispered in his ear and that something pulled him back into his body. He says the blessing was at 9:30 p.m. and that he woke up at 1:11 a.m. on Tuesday.

He felt trapped inside his body. He tore off the wires, the tube in his throat, and the electrodes on his head, and ran down the hallway to the elevator. Two nurses took him back to his room. He remembered nothing from the moment he left Rob’s house.

The doctors wanted to keep him for observation for a few more days. Vincent insisted on leaving. He says they ran tests, a neurologist saw him, and he signed almost forty forms to get out. His father picked him up that same morning, and the next day he went back to work. He says the memories of what he had experienced came back all at once a day later.

It was hard for him to go back to his old life.

Step 8

July 2003 · Afton, Wyoming · Told by Vincent in his book

His girlfriend recognizes Drake in a photo of the town’s founders

The months that followed were hard. Vincent missed what he had experienced and was sad. A psychologist told him his brain had filled in the gaps because of the lack of oxygen. Vincent also says he told a psychiatrist things about the psychiatrist’s own private life that he had no way of knowing. The psychiatrist threw him out of the office. Vincent says that shortly afterward the psychiatrist called him on the phone. He told him it was all true and that he had never told anyone. The psychiatrist is not named in his accounts and has said nothing on his own. In April he met Andrea. He told her about his experience and described Drake to her in detail. They soon decided to get married.

In July they went together to the summer reunion of Vincent’s father’s family in Afton, a small town in Wyoming. That night, the high school was staging the history of the area on the football field, with a stage and a movie screen. Old photos of the first settlers came up on the screen one after another. It was cold, and Vincent got up to leave. Andrea didn’t move. Looking at a black-and-white photo, she asked him, “Is that your guide?”

Vincent says tears came to his eyes, because it was Drake. Under the photo it said “Chrs. D. Cazier,” which reads as Charles D. Cazier. Vincent didn’t understand the name, because his guide was called Drake. The next day he asked his grandmother if she knew who Charles Cazier was. According to Vincent, she answered, “Of course. That’s great-grandpa Drake.” And she added, “That’s what everyone called him.”

He was his grandmother’s great-grandfather. A month later, Vincent married Andrea.

Step 9

2021 to today · Told by his book, his website, and his interviews

Vincent publishes a book and tells his story in dozens of interviews

The first interview we have found in which he tells his experience is from 2021, eighteen years later. In 2022 he published his book “The Light After Death” with the writer Lynn Taylor. Since then he has told it on podcasts, in newspapers, and on YouTube channels, including in Spanish.

Vincent says that after he recovered he tracked down the rookie EMT to thank him and that they had lunch together. In a January 2023 interview he says it was “right after I came back.” He says the EMT was disciplined for breaking protocol and, when they met, was in the middle of transferring to the fire department. In a 2023 interview, Vincent says he told him about the light and the voice. The EMT answered that he didn’t know what he was talking about. According to Vincent, the EMT only told him he knew something strange was going on with him. Vincent has not given his name. He says he would need his permission.

Vincent also says the ambulance company did not give him the EMT’s name or the paperwork, for fear of lawsuits. He only received the ambulance bill. His wife says he showed her the hospital bill. It listed the ambulance, the tube in his throat, and three days on machines.

One question remains: did Vincent really see what happened in that ambulance?

What does the evidence say?

What can be checked

We ask every story the same five questions. They help us find out whether someone saw or knew something they had no way of knowing, and whether that can be shown.

2.5 of 5

Yes
Unconfirmed
No data

Did Vincent Tolman describe what happened in the ambulance before he talked with the EMT who resuscitated him?Only he knows. Vincent has not said when he first told what he saw in the ambulance. He says that, shortly after he recovered, he tracked down the rookie EMT and talked with him about the rescue. The first interview we have found is from 2021, eighteen years later.
Is it known what time Vincent Tolman’s heart stopped?Only roughly. It was the morning of Saturday, January 18, 2003, according to Vincent. The exact time would be in the emergency call records, which have not been published.
Is it known when the rookie EMT gave Vincent Tolman the shocks?Only roughly. It was that same Saturday, on the way to the medical examiner, shortly before reaching Timpanogos Hospital in Orem. In his book, Vincent says the ambulance left the restaurant after noon. The time of the shocks would be in the ambulance records, which have not been published.
Does the EMT confirm what Vincent Tolman says he saw?Only in part, and only in Vincent’s telling. According to him, when they met after the rescue, the EMT told him he knew something strange was going on. But he also told him he knew nothing about the light or the voice. The EMT has not spoken in public, and his name is not known. No one else has confirmed the bag, the cut in the throat, or the three shocks.
Could Vincent Tolman have learned by ordinary means what happened in the ambulance?It cannot be fully ruled out. According to Vincent, he had been given up for dead and was inside the bag when what he describes happened. But he later talked with the EMT who resuscitated him, and the EMT’s partners and the hospital also knew about the rescue. What he says about the bag, the cut in the throat, and the shocks is what anyone who had talked with them would know. It is not known what they told him or when.

Why we ask each question

When did each thing happen?

This is what is known about when each thing happened and when it was told, from the oldest to the most recent:

Saturday, January 18, 2003. Vincent collapses in the restroom of a Dairy Queen in Orem. According to him, he is declared dead and a rookie EMT brings him back in the ambulance. We don’t know the exact time.
January 18 to 21, 2003. By his account, three days in a coma at Timpanogos Hospital. He wakes up early Tuesday morning and leaves the hospital that same morning.
July 2003. In Afton, his girlfriend recognizes his guide in a photo of Charles D. Cazier.
May 2021. The first interview we have found in which he tells his experience.
September 2022. His book, “The Light After Death.”
2023. He says the rookie EMT told him he knew nothing about the light or the voice.
2026. In his latest interviews he talks about at least an hour dead, and maybe close to two.

What is hard to explain

His account of the rescue is very specific. He gives the date, the restaurant, the hospital, and what the EMT did. The ambulance and hospital records could confirm it or contradict it.
According to Vincent, his girlfriend recognized the guide in the photo before he did, from the description he had given her. The local historical society publishes a portrait of Charles Drake Cazier. He is a man with white hair and a white beard, like the guide Vincent describes.
Charles Drake Cazier existed. He was born in 1837, was one of the first settlers of Afton and the town’s first Mormon bishop, and died in 1915.
Vincent says the guide told him his name, Drake, months before he saw the photo.

What remains unresolved

No document about the rescue has been published. The ambulance report, the medical records, and the bills he says he has are all unpublished. We have gone through the Provo newspaper for that week, which reports the incidents in Orem, and it says nothing about the rescue.
The rookie EMT’s name is not known, and he has never spoken in public. According to Vincent himself, the EMT doesn’t remember the light or the voice.
Vincent later talked with the EMT. His account includes the bag, the cut in the throat, and the three shocks. Anyone who had talked with the person who resuscitated him would know that. It is not known whether he told it before he talked with him.
What told him the body was his was feeling his arm being strapped down. That is something you feel with your body, not something you see from outside. At that moment the body was convulsing, so some of what he felt may have reached him from the body itself.
Cazier was his grandmother’s maiden name. According to Vincent, she told him that everyone called Charles Cazier “Drake.” He was one of the founders of Afton, the town where his grandmother lived, and his photo was shown at an event about the town’s history. According to his book, Vincent visited his grandmother’s house in Afton as a child. It is not known whether he heard that name or saw that face there.
In a 2023 interview he says he was brain-dead for three days. Brain death cannot be reversed. What he describes, waking up and leaving the hospital within hours, is a coma.
How long he was dead changes depending on where he tells it. On his website in 2022 it was “over half an hour.” In his book, 45 minutes before he was found. In several interviews, 45 minutes from when he was declared dead. In 2026, at least an hour. No one saw how much time he spent alone in the restroom.

How many people have an NDE?

Vincent Tolman is not a one-off. For more than thirty years, several teams of doctors have asked people who survive a cardiac arrest what they remember. They do it in the hospital, a few days afterward.

Picture 100 of those people:

Each dot is a person. The 18 filled-in dots are the ones who described a near-death experience. That is what the largest study found. It was done in the Netherlands in 2001, with 344 people.

The other 82 didn’t describe one. Many remember nothing of their cardiac arrest.

The figure varies from study to study, because each one asks a different group of people
Where and when	People interviewed	Described an NDE
England, 2001	63	6%
Netherlands, 2001	344	18%
United States, 2002	30	23%
United States, 2003	116	10%
United Kingdom, United States, and Austria, 2014	101	9%
Vienna, Austria, 2023	126	4%
United States and United Kingdom, 2023	28	21%

What these figures don’t tell you

Only some people are asked. In the 2014 study, 330 people survived, but only 140 could be interviewed, and 101 reached the second interview. The rest died later, were too ill, or didn’t respond.
Most cardiac arrests are never counted. These studies run in a few hospitals for a limited time. Outside them, no one keeps track. Also, the 2003 study interviewed 1,595 cardiology patients, not just the 116 with cardiac arrest in the table, and 81 of them described an NDE from an earlier occasion. The study did not count them, because it only counted those from that hospital stay.
Some people keep quiet. In the accounts in our archive, at least 13 people say they kept their experience to themselves for a while. They kept quiet because they weren’t believed or because they were afraid of how others would react.
It depends on how you count. If you count any memory of the cardiac arrest, the numbers go up. If you use a strict scale, they go down. In England in 2001, 7 of 63 people remembered something. But on the scale, only the memories of 4 people qualified as an NDE.

That’s why no one knows the real figure. But every study shows that it isn’t rare. Between 4 and 23 of every 100 survivors who are asked describe an NDE. Vincent Tolman’s case stands out because, according to him, he had already been put in a body bag when a rookie EMT brought him back.

Frequently asked questions

Was Vincent Tolman dead for 45 minutes?

That is what he says, and no published document confirms it. In his book he says he had been dead for 45 minutes when he was found in the restroom. In several interviews he says it was 45 minutes from when he was declared dead until his heart started beating again in the ambulance. In his 2026 interviews he talks about at least an hour. Neither the ambulance report nor the medical records have been published. Here we explain what can be checked.

Who was Drake, Vincent Tolman’s guide?

Vincent says his guide introduced himself as Drake. Months later, his girlfriend recognized him in a photo of Charles Drake Cazier, one of the founders of Afton, Wyoming. Cazier was his grandmother’s great-grandfather. According to Vincent, his grandmother told him that everyone in the family called him Drake.

What did Vincent Tolman take before his near-death experience?

A liquid gym supplement that his friend Rob had ordered from Thailand. Vincent has not said what product it was. He says the label was in a language they couldn’t read. And he says they took a much bigger dose than the one sold in the United States.

Where does Vincent Tolman tell his experience?

He tells it in his 2022 book “The Light After Death,” written with Lynn Taylor. He also tells it on his website and in many podcast interviews and on YouTube channels. A version of his account dubbed into Spanish was published in 2023.

Where this story comes from

The book

Vincent Todd Tolman and Lynn Taylor, The Light After Death: My Journey to Heaven and Back (2022; reissued in 2025)Buy the book

Interviews

“Hombre murió: le mostraron la impactante realidad sobre la creación y porqué estamos aquí” [Man died: he was shown the shocking truth about creation and why we are here], December 13, 2023. Vincent Tolman’s account dubbed into Spanish. The Other Side en Español channelWatch on YouTube
Alex Ferrari, interview with Vincent Tolman, Next Level Soul, March 7, 2023Watch the interview
Two-part interview with Vincent Tolman, Round Trip Death, January 2023. It gives the location of the restaurant and the name of the hospitalListen

Documents

His website, with photos of him in the hospital, the portrait of Charles D. Cazier, and his wife’s accountView
Charles Drake Cazier in the Afton Hall of Fame, with his biography and portrait. Star Valley Historical SocietyView

Learn more

What is a near-death experience?Read
What does science say about near-death experiences?Read
How we check each storyRead

Our archive

Our reading of his book, his website, and his interviews from 2021 to 2026, our search of the Provo newspaper and five weekly papers in the area from January 18 to 25, 2003, and the case’s score on our five criteria, as of November 5, 2026

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