15 Celebrities And Their Near Death Experiences

What is a Near Death Experience? Known as an “NDE” in some circles, this medical miracle happens when a person resists death's pull to the other side. The heart stops and the brain slows, while all the other bodily functions slowly cease. Oftentimes an out-of- body feeling is reported, and a bright light accompanies the sensation of ascension. All this can happen quickly, too; so fast you might not know it's happening until after you come back. The time spent in this deadly state can vary. While the death itself is often short-lived, like Sharon Stone's brief touchdown on the other side, sometimes the journey back is a long one, like Ozzy Osbourne's death-defying vacation in and out of an 8-day coma. Yes, even celebrities can come close to death! We might think of them as Gods rather than as regular people, but even they are not immune to the perils of life. In fact, celebrities have some of the most interesting Near Death Experiences in the world!

15 Tracy Morgan

This star of 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live had a horrifying crash back in 2014 that took away his ability to walk. After losing consciousness, he says he saw his father urging him to go back to the living world. When he came to, the brain injury they told him he'd suffered left him stuck in a hospital working towards recovery for many months. While this was a near death experience for Morgan, his mentor and friend who was also in the car with him wasn't quite so lucky. James McNair, unfortunately, passed on during this accident, leaving Tracy Morgan emotionally near death as well as physically. He contemplated suicide until making a miraculous physical recovery and having an important philosophical shift. He reports having felt a change in himself after coming back to life. Now he says he tells people he loves them and has a new understanding of the importance of taking care of each other here on Earth.

14 Liam Hemsworth

Hungry for danger in his personal life as well as his private life, this star of the Hunger Games had his real life near death experience when he was a child. While participating in his favorite sport, he never suspected it would be the one thing that would almost cause his death! Active and eager, Hemsworth enjoyed surfing the waves when he was young. A dangerous sport already, he felt firsthand the fear it can evoke when the cord of the surfboard wrapped around his body. Rather than offering more protection this caused him to lose his cool and nearly drown! The water was only half his body height, but the weight of the surfboard and lack of mobility was still enough to keep him tethered below the surface of the water. While he hasn't spoken about the feeling of what beyond-the- realm of life feels like to him, we can only assume he's glad to be alive today.

13 Sharon Stone

Famous from classic movies like Basic Instinct and Total Recall, her near death experience is much less dramatic than her acting. However, her experience is still one of the most interesting ones. Hers is one of the more rare things that could happen to someone in their lives: an exploded brain aneurysm. These arterial explosions develop in the brain over a period of time and often go unnoticed. While not inherently harmful, the rate of fatality is at nearly 40% of all people who end up having them rupture. Stone describes her rupture as akin to a shot in the head, with great enough force to knock her off her feet. She describes her ascent into the great beyond as spiraling into a brilliant white light, where she met and talked with friends. The effect was short-lived, though, as she soon returned to her body, though the damage was lasting.

12 Leonardo DiCaprio

We couldn't write up a list of celebrities without including Mr. DiCaprio. The famed star of movies like Wolf of Wall Street, The Revenant, and Inception, he's said to have experienced near death many times over. A bit of a daredevil, one of DiCaprio's most interesting experiences happened while he was filming a documentary on climate change. While diving in the beautiful waters of the Galapagos Islands, DiCaprio felt a moment of panic. All of a sudden he had gone from breathing regularly through his oxygen tank mouthpiece to gasping for air… Underwater! With no oxygen left to swim to the surface, he began to panic. The pressure of the water started to close in on him when his diving partner, Edward Norton, came to the rescue. Norton, who had a fully functioning tank of air, aided in DiCaprio's ascent to the surface. Norton stayed calm in the intense situation. He and DiCaprio alternated turns using the working air tank until they broke the surface of the water.

11 Johnny Cash

While not a very cheerful man, he is a spiritual one. Cash held spirituality in high regard, which is interesting to consider when he's had two near death experiences! The first time Cash nearly passed on was when he was attempting to commit suicide. On a large amount of illegal drugs, Cash went exploring deep into a cave with the intention of ending his life. While he didn't end up dying, he did nearly pass out after getting quite deep into the earth. He reports feeling God guiding him out into the open air again. His other near death experience came 20 years after that. After a double coronary bypass surgery, Cash caught pneumonia. The virus got so bad that he was on the brink of death, going so far as to travel towards a peaceful light. Luckily he came back, with his music developing into a much more gospel-oriented style.

10 George Foreman

It should be no surprise that this world champion heavyweight boxer has had a near death experience or two. This is one of the most bizarre experiences, as it seemed to have come out of nowhere. Foreman had just finished a huge fight with his opponent Jimmy Young. The fight took 12 rounds to reconcile, and afterward, he felt an incredible sense of hotness overtake his whole body. Foreman describes his experience as out-of-body, moving towards a brilliant white light after hitting rock bottom in a pit of terrible darkness. He describes the pit as an abyss, or void, with no sense of escape. Luckily, he came back to himself soon after and was diagnosed as having intense heatstroke. After this experience, Foreman said that it was God who pulled him out of the darkness and because of that he decided to change his life path and become a Christian Minister.

9 George Lucas

More of a legend than a celebrity, his near death experience had nothing to do with stars, space, or Indiana Jones-style adventures. In fact, this experience was what changed him from being a lazy punk kid to being a hard worker, with more passion and drive than anyone else. This adventure-seeking teen (at the time) had a penchant for car racing. He had no interest in movies or film and was dead set on becoming a professional race car driver. He was out one night practicing this skill when the car he was driving was broadsided and flipped over. This single moment in time nearly killed him, and for three days he was living in limbo in the hospital. Thankfully, he did come back to consciousness and began a spiritual quest to figure out what his purpose in life was. This spiritual quest involved reading a large amount of science fiction. And this, as well all know, was how he began the long road to creating Star Wars.

8 Ozzy Osbourne

Is anyone surprised Ozzy had a near death experience or two? This wild rocker is often referred to as one of the founding fathers of heavy metal. With such an extravagant and hardcore lifestyle, one can imagine the predicaments he's gotten himself into. His most dramatic, and arguably his most famous near death experience consists of his 2003 accident on the outskirts of London. Ozzy and his bodyguard decided to go on a ride one day around the estate of his Victorian era styled palace. The ground was uneven and made driving at high speeds tricky, despite the fact that they were on an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) bike. Hitting a rough patch, Ozzy crashed and hit the ground at an incredibly high speed. His heart stopped beating and his bodyguard reports having to restart Ozzy's breathing cycle twice before getting him into a hospital bed. He stayed in the hospital in a coma for 8 days before coming back into consciousness, at which point he reported having seen a white light… And “No f--king angels!”*

7 Kanye West

Los Angeles traffic is insane. Full of freeways and loosey-goosey speed limits, the driving situation there is already not great for your average Joe, let alone celebrities who might be overtired or on an influence. With the amount of stories that come out about ridiculous pop stars, movie stars, and other celebrities causing havoc in LA, it's no surprise there's at least one big name with a car-related near death experience. Car crashes are difficult to place blame on because they're typically a situation in which more than one person is involved. However, Kanye's crash is a clear cut case of negligence on his part. While driving down the road, he ended up falling asleep at the wheel. Crashing earned him his near death experience back in 2002. He says the experience was as if the universe was telling him that whatever it's given him, it can still take it all away.

6 Elizabeth Taylor

This classical beauty and talented actress isn't what we'd consider “celebrity” in our contemporary culture, but her story is so good we had to include it. How often nowadays do we hear about people dying on the operating table? The technology is better, the doctors are faster, and we have the best medical staff at attention during surgery. But back in the late 50s, the progress hadn't advanced that far. Resurrections were few and far between, even for the celebrities of the time. However, Elizabeth Taylor was lucky enough to come back after actually being pronounced dead! She died during a back surgery, at which point she reports striding down a tunnel and seeing a brilliant light near the end. This light contained her dead husband, who was urging her to let herself come back to life. She tried to stay with him, committed to him even after his death, but he pushed her to come back and join the living. Reluctantly, she did and found her statement of death on the wall. She had been legally dead for five whole minutes!

5 Travis Barker

If you were a teenager in the 90s and/or early 2000s, you probably had a crush on one of the bada$$ members of the band Blink-182. Everyone's favorite pop punk band, they were the artists behind hits like “What's My Age Again?” and “I Miss You”. These rockers were high-energy to the core, and it's no surprise that at least one of them has had a terrifying near death experience. Travis Barker is the drummer of Blink-182, and his story is enough to make anyone go head over heels; just like what Barker did when his plane started to plummet to the Earth, twisting and turning with all of its passengers still inside. Back in 2008 Barker was on a flight when it horrifically crashed down in South Carolina. Four of the other passengers on the flight died, while Barker was lucky enough to survive with only second and third degree burns.

4 Eminem

Whether you think he's a Rap God or a bad influence on the youth of today, Eminem has many stories. Listening to any of his songs will give you an idea of the type of world he's been surrounded by for most of his life. While it might be unfair to assume he's got experience with drugs just because of his writing, drug abuse has brought him close to death at least once. His addiction caused him to overdose on methadone. The amount he'd taken was the equivalent of 4 bags of heroin! The man is lucky to be alive, though it wasn't until later that he realized that. After being sent home, recovered from his overdose, he ended up going back to the drugs. A little under a month passed and he started using again. The scary part is that he relapsed back into doing the same amount of drugs that he'd overdosed on before! He realized that he didn't want another near death experience, and then worked to get clean.

3 Gerard Butler

Another surfing accident? You bet! Surfing is one of the most dangerous sports out there. You're at the mercy of the water, tethered to a board and crashing into the waves more often than you're riding them. If something goes wrong (which it often does), you might just be the unlucky soul who ends up near death! Gerard Butler, a still-up-and-coming Scottish actor wasn't lucky when he was on set one day during the filming of Chasing Mavericks. He says he sunk under the waves, getting pulled down deeper and deeper due to the sheer force of the water. The rapid fire waves tossed him around, dragging him over a reef of rocks. Because of the injuries he sustained and the force of the ocean, he wasn't able to save himself. A safety patrolman took him to the hospital, where he was brought back to the land of the living and treated for all the injuries he'd sustained.

2 Isla Fisher

This beautiful and bewitching star of The Great Gatsby movie is another actor who had to put up with nearly dying for the sake of their movie. Unlike surfing, however, her near death experience involved a magic trick gone wrong. One that nearly cost her her life! She was working on set filming for the movie Now You See Me, and there's a magic trick sequence in which she had to be underwater. This magic trick left her stuck, drowning, for 3 minutes before she got any sort of help. While the struggle certainly got her some compliments on her realistic acting, Fisher was not impressed. The work they caught on film wasn't her remarkable acting talent coming out, but her really trying to stay alive. She kept fighting even though she knew there was no escape. We can only hope her next movie doesn't involve any more underwater magic!

1 Kelly Rowland

Ever wonder what happened to Destiny's Child? This member ended up getting lost at sea! Although it sounds like something out of a bad movie, this was all too horribly real. What started off as an innocent adventure turned into more than she'd bargained for. Rowland was out on the water on a whale watching trip when all of a sudden the boat went off course. Veering wildly and unable to be controlled, the ship couldn't keep straight. The captain tried everything to get it back in line with their map, but when the storm started it was very nearly impossible. Due to the bad weather they experienced, Rowland and the captain ended up going on a wild ride. Eventually, they did make it back to shore, but Rowland remembers praying to make it back safe. While she's reported no change in her behavior since her near death experience, we bet she's a little more nervous about boats and bad weather now.