‘I Woke Up in the Morgue After Returning from Heaven!’

New Zealand native Ian McCormack was in his late twenties and living a carefree surfing lifestyle in some of the most beautiful places on the planet.

One fateful night in 1982 he was night-diving for lobster off the island of Mauritius when he was stung by five box jellyfish, one of the most venomous creatures in the world. One sting from a single box jellyfish can kill a person in under five minutes. Getting stung by five should’ve been lethal. After meeting Jesus in Heaven and receiving a glimpse of the new heavens and new earth, he experienced a dramatic return to his body…

When Jesus comes into you, Christ in you, you cannot help but be changed.

That exchange—you give your heart to Him because you love Him. He gives His heart to you and He gives you His perspective on life. And it is an eternal perspective. I looked back and next to my mom appeared my dad, my brother, my sister, and millions of other people, a sea of humanity. I said, “God, why do You show me all these other people? I only know my immediate family.”

He said, “Ian, because most will not step foot inside a church any longer to hear My name. I want you to go back, tell them what you have seen.”

I said, “But, God, they will not believe me. They will not believe what I have seen. And I do not even know if I love these people.”

He said, “Ian, I love them. I desire all of them to come to know Me.”

I said, “Well, I do not understand that kind of love. I can say I love my mom. I can go back for her. How do I go back down the tunnel into darkness and back into my physical body?”

He said, “Ian, tilt your head, open your eye, and see.” And in a second I was back in my body, tilting my head, opening my eye to find that I was no longer in the emergency room. I was in the mortuary on a slab with a different doctor holding my foot with a scalpel, freaking out as this corpse came alive right in front of him. Both of us were terrified. God then spoke, saying, “I have just given your life back.”

I said, “God, if that’s true, can I look out the other eye?” So I rolled my head to the right and to the left and that doctor was spinning out of his tree.

Three of the nurses had followed me from the emergency room down to the morgue, and as my corpse moved, they freaked out and bashed into each other. I thought, Well, this is not someone coming out of a coma. This is not someone coming out of a near-death experience. They are treating me like I am a dead piece of meat. I potentially could have been dead. I looked back at the doctor. He dropped my foot and wanted to run. He said, “You have been dead for 20 minutes, son. We have done nothing to bring you back.” I could see him almost urging me to tell him what I had seen. I thought, My God, if I tell him I have seen the Lord, they will fill me up with Prozac and send me off to a mental asylum.

My next thought was, God, please heal me. I can feel nothing from the neck down. I have been dead for 20 minutes. I could be on a machine for the rest of my life. Please heal me or take me back to Heaven. Power went through me like electricity, and within three or four hours, my entire body was supernaturally healed. I believe in the resurrection power of Christ and His healing presence. The next day I walked out of the hospital completely healed.

Reflections on Ian McCormack’s Experience

Ian McCormack’s transition back into his body was instantaneous. God told him to tilt his head and open his eye and he was back. Ian quickly realized that he was no longer in the ER. He was now in the morgue. It’s fair to say that his unexpected return gave the doctors and nurses an experience they would not soon forget. Ian had been dead for 20 minutes, and the medical staff hadn’t done anything to try to bring him back.

Although Ian was back in his body, he could not feel anything from the neck down. He boldly asked God to either heal him or take him back to Heaven. Ian felt something like electricity run through his body, and within a few hours he was completely healed and he left the hospital the next day.

As we talked about earlier with Ian’s story, a sting from one box jellyfish can kill you, let alone five. The only explanation for Ian’s healing is a miracle from Heaven.