Charlie Webster thinks she spoke to God while she was in an induced coma.
The 33-year-old presenter was put in a deep state of unconsciousness at the beginning of August after she contracted malaria during a 3,000-mile charity cycle ride to Rio, Brazil, and is convinced her spirit started to detach from her body.
She said: "Each day when I was aware I thought I was somewhere else and this day I felt I was in this black room, I was in a dark room and I was having a conversation to death or God or who knows what it was. And they’re telling me, ‘It’s your time now, you’re finished.’ It said to me, ‘It’s time for you to go.’ And I said OK and accepted it, and within a split second I said, ‘No I cant yet. I cant I’ve got too much to do.’ And I feel that I made a decision to stay alive there and then."
And, although she was in a medically-induced coma, Charlie has claimed she could still hear what was going on and tried to communicate with the doctors.
She said: "Even though I was in a coma I could hear things. I was paralysed. I tried to bash my hands so they could see I was still alive. I was just desperate to show I was still here so I bashed my hand and they had to put restraints on me."
After the doctors in Brazil realised she was battling with malaria – a serious tropical disease spread by mosquitoes – she was treated immediately and, when she was well enough, she was moved back to an English hospital in an intensive care plane.
She’s now trying to get her life back on track but is still dealing with kidney failure and post traumatic stress (PTSD) as she remembers vividly her fight to stay alive.
She said: "I’m doing well, my kidneys are still recovering because I had kidney failure. I’m having a bit of PTSD at the moment because I keep having a lot of flashbacks. I just really appreciate being here, it was so overwhelming the amount of support I got."
Charlie first realised she was unwell at the opening ceremony for the Rio Olympics on August 6 but she was initially treated for dehydration and exhaustion.
Speaking on ‘This Morning’ on Monday (24.10.16), she said: "I arrived in Rio and just started feeling really ill, I just started to feel awful inside and I was bleeding from all parts of me. Mum flew over and I was lying there really anxious and my lungs started to collapse and I was on oxygen, and they said [mum] needed to sign a form for them to put me in a coma because my organs were shutting down.
"With the blood poisoning there’s no treatment for it, it was on the fifth day of my coma they found malaria. They thought I wasn’t going to pull through."
Charlie Webster spoke to God in coma
