Zack Clements seems like your average 17-year-old high schooler. But when he collapsed at his school in Texas and his heart stopped beating for 20 minutes, he woke up with a story to tell.
"I saw a man that had longish kind of ruffled hair with a kind of thick beard, and it didn't take me long to realize that was Jesus," Clements told KTVT.
The thing is, Clements was dead for 20 minutes on May 5. Once his heart started beating again, he was put into a medically induced coma. Sometime during all this, he says he saw Jesus.
And while the story has its critics, Principal Gary Day at Clements' Victory Life Academy is not one of them. He told local paper Brownwood Bulletin: "I believe that totally."
Although that's not too surprising since Victory Life Academy is a Christian school.
In a strange twist, Clements' father told People that he's been accused of giving his son a pill that made him go into what would looked like cardiac arrest. There aren't many details on that claim.
A cardiologist who helped care for Clements told People his heart failed due to a rhythm problem and inflammation. She also said he was "very lucky." She said they were worried he suffered brain damage. But he didn't.
Clements now joins others who claim to have had an otherworldly experience after a medical trauma. Two of the more famous ones led to book deals.
"The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven" and "Heaven Is For Real."
Both of which were later made into movies. (Video via Movieclips)
Although Alex Malarkey, behind "The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven," recanted his story and later said he made it up.
As for Clements, he has since returned home from the hospital. His family currently has a fundraiser page set up to help with medical bills.
