"Floated near the roof watching my body": Woman comes back to life after 17-minute death experience at the gym

Ever wonder what flickers in the void when your heart stops beating?

Near-death experiences are always mysterious and interesting stories to hear because they peek behind life's curtain.

These experiences include everything from floating above the body, watching angels in dreams, and coming back after nearly being buried in a coffin.

One such experience is about a lady who dies in a gym for a couple of minutes and then comes back to life.

Woman "dies" 17 minutes in gym, floats above her body

Victoria Thomas, now 41, from Gloucester, collapsed during a bootcamp at age 35, feeling dizzy and drained. "I’d only just said it when I suddenly collapsed on the floor," she told The Mirror. She suffered cardiac arrest, and her heart suddenly stopped pumping blood.

Paramedics performed CPR for 17 minutes with no pulse. Victoria says she floated near the gym ceiling. "When it happened, it went black and there was nothing, then I became aware of looking down at my body... I was floating near the roof and was looking down at myself on the gym floor. I didn’t see a light or feel peaceful; I was just watching myself, and I could see some yellow machines around me," she shared with The Mirror and LADbible.

Her heart restarted, and she spent three days in a coma at Bristol Royal Infirmary

Surgeons implanted a cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) to correct irregular rhythms if needed. The British Heart Foundation explains, "Your heart has a sinus node... An ICD can take over the role of your sinus node."

The ICD fired multiple times, allowing her to live normally despite no family history of heart disease. "I was so young, fit, and healthy, and it had come completely out of the blue," she said.

Pregnancy in 2021 stressed her heart, triggering further cardiac arrests. At 24 weeks, doctors diagnosed Danon disease, a rare genetic disorder affecting the heart, muscles, retina, and brain. The first case in her family, she pushed past 30 weeks for an emergency C-section; her son Tommy arrived healthy, but her heart function dropped to 11% by 2022.

Listed urgently for a transplant, Victoria received a new heart in April 2023 at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham. Discharged in May, she now plays netball four times a week and hopes to compete in basketball or volleyball at the World Transplant Games in Germany.