Those who claim to have had a near-death experience are often met with eye rolls and sighs of scepticism.
As they often have no evidence to back up their accounts of what they went through, a lot of people find it hard to believe.
But luckily for this bloke, a photo corroborated exactly what he saw when he had a brush with death as a teenager.
Advert
Zach Tavcar was undergoing treatment for leukaemia as a 14-year-old when he had his bizarre experience.
Others have claimed to have 'swapped souls' with aliens or that they were brought back from the brink by a 'spiritual guide' - but according to Zach, he felt like he was surrounded by 'liquid love'.
The life coach and personal trainer explained that after being diagnosed with leukaemia, which is a cancer of the blood that affects bone marrow, doctors put him on a steroid called prednisone.
This medicine is used to treat a wide range of health problems, according to the NHS, and works by reducing inflammation and 'calming down' your immune system.
Speaking to YouTuber Shaman Oaks, Zach explained that although prednisone is 'helpful for treatment', it also 'causes the bones to become a little brittle'.
As a result of this, he suffered a number of small fractures in his spine while he was in hospital and medics sent him off to get a back brace to give him some support.
Zach, who is based in Reno, Nevada, said he attended the appointment with his dad and his younger brother, who was four at the time, but he began to 'feel a little fuzzy' while the brace was being fitted.
"I was probably there about 15 minutes, and this fuzziness just started getting heavier and heavier and heavier and heavier," Zach said.
"I was kind of rushing at this point to get to my dad's truck, which is probably about 50, 60 yards away. I finally take a seat.
"I'm like, 'OK, just calm down, just relax, you're gonna be OK'. And I looked at my dad [who was] probably about 30, 40 meters away, and I said, 'Dad, I'm going to...' And then I went black."
Zach explained that he then opened his eyes to find that he was in a tunnel filled with 'luminescent, goldy, silvery, white, flowing energy', while he also spotted a 'shadowy figure' who was wearing a trench coat.
He continued: "I just was enamoured in this space, like, whoa, what is this? Feeling completely at peace. No concern, no worry. I didn't even think of my body.
"One minute I was there and the next minute I was in this beautiful tunnel. So I looked forward and the shadow figure is just kind of waiting for me. Immediately I thought to myself, 'Oh, that's grandpa!'"
He explained he then had an 'inaudible conversation' with his dad's late father, who had died seven years earlier.
"He just told me, everything's gonna be OK, you're gonna get through everything, you just have to keep going'," Zach said. "It felt like we just were in this space for forever."
But the then-teenager says he was suddenly 'sucked back' into his body, to find that he 'couldn't move' due to passing out after the brace appointment.
Zach said: "I opened my eyes and there's my dad [with a] terrified face, just like, 'Whoa, what the heck?' And my little brother, who's just four years old, is just terrified as could be."
He decided to keep the details of his near-death experience to himself for a couple of weeks, as he didn't want to panic his 'worry wart' father.
But he later recounted the strange tale to his dad, recalling how he had seen his grandfather in the 'tunnel of light' - and inevitably, the parent had some questions for his son.
Zach added: "Immediately, his eyes kind of opened and went the other way. And he goes, 'What did he tell you? What did he say? What did he look like?'
"And I go, I don't know, but he was wearing a trench coat. I was like, 'That is weird'. I've never seen grandpa wear a trench coat before, because I only knew him until I was seven."
Months later, Zach claimed that his dad stumbled across a picture of his grandfather in Prague in his late twenties... looking the 'exact same' as he did during his near-death experience.
"So that was my validation that what I did experience was very real," Zach said. "I think [my dad] was surprised by that too, because I don't think [my grandad] really was a trench coat wearer.
"He was a professional man. He was a chemist and stuff like that. So I think he wore more professional suits, not a trench coat.
"But in his younger years, when he was this young, dapper man, he was wearing this big trench coat."
Zach went on to 'conquer' his leukaemia before becoming a mind-body-spirit coach and a certified exercise physiologist, while he also shares videos online about 'spiritual awakenings'.
Olivia Burke