A former US Marine who claims to have died three times says he now knows what really happens after death.
Dannion Brinkley, 75, from Nevada, described surviving three separate near-death experiences (NDEs) and insists, “nobody truly dies.” Once a skeptic, he says his first brush with death came in 1975, when he was electrocuted after lightning struck a telephone pole.
“It went into the side of my head above my ear, it went down my spine. 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,” Brinkley told KLAS.
He said paramedics later declared him dead, but 28 minutes later he woke up in a morgue. During that time, he recalled traveling through a tunnel, reviewing his life, and encountering 13 “silver-blue spirit beings” in a “crystal city” who showed him visions of Earth’s future.
Brinkley said his second NDE came in 1989 during open-heart surgery when his heart gave out while battling pneumonia. He described floating out of his body and being reunited with his “angelic instructors,” who, he claims, helped him discover “psychic and spiritual gifts to aid the dying and the desperate.”
His third experience occurred in 1997 during brain surgery. “So, 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 said.
Following his experiences, Brinkley co-founded the Twilight Brigade, a program with the Veterans Administration that ensures no veteran dies alone. He also launched the Brinkley Center Foundation, which offers grief and caregiving support, and authored several books including Saved by the Light, At Peace in the Light, and The Secrets of the Light.
Scientific studies suggest that common elements of NDEs, such as tunnels of light, out-of-body sensations, or life reviews, may be linked to brain activity at the point of death. Research has shown spikes in neural activity seconds after cardiac arrest, indicating the brain could still process information after clinical death.
