Man who drowned in lake for 15 minutes reveals what he saw and ‘ultimate truth’ about dying

'I knew everything, there was nothing I did not know'

In 1955, Andy Petro was having a picnic with some mates by a lake in Michigan, just days before they were all set to graduate.

Whilst they were all playing games by the lake side, Petro noticed a group sitting on a floating raft in the water.

As he swam out to the raft though, he started suffering from pain in his abdomen. Petro then was unable to move his legs, and felt himself slipping beneath the surface, sinking deeper into the cold water.

Recalling the harrowing ordeal in an interview with Dorothy Shelton last year, Petro said: "Everything is screaming in my body, I'm dying, I finally admit that I'm dying and then all of a sudden there's a voice in my head. I don't know who the voice is, but it says, 'Andy you need to stop it and rest for a while.'"

He said the voice told him: "Andy, you really need to rest, relax and let go. You need to let go."

Petro then claimed that when he did "let go", he had an outer body experience.

He said: "At one point I'm in my body, the next point I'm in this tunnel... and I'm warm, I'm happy, I can breathe again, I'm filled with joy and unconditional love. It was such a change from complete terror to complete ecstasy."

Petro recalled looking down and seeing his own body at the bottom of the lake, and being drawn to a bright light, finding himself in a "giant sphere" instead of the tunnel.

"And the light is next to me," he continued. "I don't see it but I know it's there and the light and I begin to communicate about all these events and all of my lives.

"Nothing was confusing, I could understand all the lifetimes. When I focused on one particular screen I would relive it."

He then heard voices telling him he was loved, saying it was the "most fantastic feeling as a human that I could ever imagine."

"There are thousands and millions and trillions of other lights just like me and they say in one chorus, 'welcome home Andy' and at that point I was absorbed into the light, I became the light," he said.

"I was a piece of the light and it's the most fantastic feeling as a human that I could ever imagine.

"I knew everything, there was nothing I did not know."

After 10-15 minutes, he eventually woke up on the side of the lake, coughing up water.

He said being "stuffed back into my body" was "the most horrible feeling I could ever imagine."

I didn't want to be there, I still don't want to be here, I'm just doing what I've got to do," Petro said.

"All I cared about was being in the light. I'm still waiting to get back home. I'm doing the best I can to feel joy whenever possible.

"What I'm choosing to do is help people feel better about themselves and help get them to know that there is a home, I've been there and I'm ready to go back."