This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with Vincent Tolman, a Texas man who narrowly escaped death. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I died on the bathroom floor of a Utah Dairy Cream on a cold night in January 2002.
My friend and I had taken a dodgy supplement we had bought online, but the moment we consumed it, we knew something was wrong. We rushed to the closest restaurant in the hopes that some food would make us feel better.
Instead, I started to feel extremely nauseous, so I locked myself into a bathroom cubicle. Suddenly, an ice-cold chill came over my body, rushing over my thighs and into my chest. Then the world began to spin.
I collapsed, and the next thing I knew, I was looking down at myself from above. The world felt like it had no ceiling, and I watched, calmly, as paramedics rushed into the bathroom and worked over the body.
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