After a Horrific Crash, His Near-Death Experience Left Him Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell, Until a Blazing Chariot Appeared

Mark Ellis : Aug 29, 2016
God Reports

"The next thing I know everything was bright and golden and yellowish as could be. Then I was whisked away by God..."

[God Reports] After midnight, he was driving home from work on a dimly lit country road outside Cumberland, Rhode Island when he came around a blind curve and saw a driver's worst nightmare, a car careening toward him on the wrong side of the road. (Photo: Michael Fogarty/via God Reports)

"There was nothing I could do," says Michael Fogarty, who was 18 at the time of the accident. He veered to the right to avoid colliding head on and lost control of the car on the dirt shoulder.
 
His brand new Chevy Celebrity hit a tree head-on, then the tail swung around and he hit a boulder, which vaulted the car up in the air.
 
"I landed upside down, bounced up and I flipped around again, spun around and hit a telephone pole."
 
When he hit the tree the engine went through the front seat. "My skull broke the steering wheel in half. It bent the steering wheel to the column," he recounts.
 
The collision with the steering wheel bowed his forehead backward, cracked his skull and punctured his frontal lobe. Springs from the seat went through Fogarty. His jawbone sliced through his optic nerve and blinded his right eye. The top of his skull was also caved in.
 
He didn't have a seat belt on, so he was pinned between the engine and the driver's door. A fire station happened to be at the bottom of the street and paramedics were there within minutes after hearing the loud crash.
 
"I was dead at the scene, so they didn't worry about me losing blood or hurting me," he recounts. "They cut off the back door and my seat to get to me because I was so pinned."
 
Despite the fact that his heart stopped, paramedics revived Fogarty at the scene, stabilized him, and transported him to the hospital.
 
"My spine was detached from my skull," he says. "They had to reconnect it." His right foot was broken in 17 places and he had many broken ribs.
 
"Normally, you don't survive that," he explains.
 
After he entered the hospital, Fogarty went into a coma for the next two-and-a-half days. During the coma he had a remarkable encounter with God. Whether in the body or out of the body, his amazing vision altered his life.
 
"I was sitting on a bench looking at grayness as far as you can see. There were no mountains or clouds. I was seeing miles, but everywhere I looked there was nothing." (Photo by Aimee Herd)
 
He had very little church experience in his youth. Fogarty's parents divorced when he was a one-year-old. His father took him to church until he was about seven, but he only saw his father once in the next decade and never attended church.
 
Despite his sparse Christian background, as he sat on the bench staring at a broad expanse of nothingness, he sensed something or someone was missing.
 
When is he going to get here? Fogarty kept thinking. He sensed the absence of God and it left him feeling empty. "I'm waiting God..." he blurted out, somewhat petulantly. He was miffed that God was not showing up.
 
Then he witnessed a startling sight. "I saw an old fashioned chariot being pulled by horses. It was so bright you couldn't tell what was pulling it. It was glowing from the inside of the cart."
 
Even with his limited understanding, he knew God had arrived.
 
The gray expanse was suddenly transformed. "The next thing I know everything was bright and golden and yellowish as could be. Then I was whisked away by God. I felt..."
 
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