Ioan Gabor from Oradea, Romania lived through three clinical deaths!
For 30 years the story of Ioan Gabor from Oradea, Romania amazed the medical world around the globe. Having fallen into a pool of boiling water mixed with hydrate of sodium, and then having been pulled out from 12 feet under by a miracle, his legs had lost their flesh. Mr Gabor is now able to walk again and in the place where there was once just bare bone, flesh and skin are now growing again. This event, which marked his life as well as the lives of hundreds of others around him, as well as the events that followed, came to the attention of the Department of Health, whose experts were left speechless. The communist regime at that time kept the miracle from being publicized by the media; moreover, they tried hard to silence the victim because medical science could not scientifically explain the miraculous outcome of his accident.
Born on August 2nd, 1939 in Sancrai, Cluj, in the country of Romania, Ioan Gabor had always been somewhat peculiar to those around him. “From childhood I started hearing a Voice, not in a dream, but while wide awake. When the Voice would come I would not be able to move at all, but I would feel really good inside,” relates Mr. Gabor. On hearing of his peculiar experiences, his parents, his siblings, and his kindergarten classmates would laugh at him.
They even nicknamed him “The Dreamer.” In spite of all this, he was very sure that what he heard was real. Those around him were not able to comprehend since the things he heard as a child were to have their fulfillment at a later time. He graduated from the Officer’s School, got married and settled in the city of Oradea. Then some years later, he became a Christian, and his life drastically changed when he completely gave his life to God through water baptism. In 1974, he heard the same Voice again saying repeatedly, “In two years something will happen to you and you’ll become a person like no other before you.”
His first thought was that maybe some big promotion would come his way and in this way, he would be uniquely recognized and rewarded. A bit later the same Voice told him, “They cast pur [or lots]. The lot fell on you because your brother cannot suffer this now.” These words were repeated to him in his ears three times, which caused some panic within him because now he was certain that a serious message was being conveyed to him. The Voice continued, “A great disaster shall befall you which will bring you close to death.” These words convinced him that no promotion was coming his way, but rather death. He was now convinced that in two years he would be a dead man. “I could not keep this a secret, but told everyone. I first told my wife about it,” remembers Ioan. His wife, Adriana Gabor, being at odds with her family because of their faith, was feeling that God would take away from her even this last hope in her life. The Gabors had three children: a two months old girl, a one-and-a-half-year-old boy, and a six-year-old boy. To her, the death of her husband meant that God had turned His face from them.
Mr. Gabor continued to tell his family and friends of the fate awaiting him, but they didn’t believe him; instead they mocked and belittled him. However, he began to prepare for his death. “I tried to resolve my financial situation first. I was earning a good living, so I paid off my apartment, and I bought whatever was necessary for the house so that my wife would be able to raise the children on her own,” recalls Ioan Gabor. About eight months before the accident, he heard the same Voice (annoying by now) repeating the same thing, “Your deadly disaster is coming soon.” By now, Mr. Gabor had been relocated to Arad to work at the Chemical Plant of the municipality. His family stayed back in Oradea. One month before the accident, he took his vacation and came back home to say goodbye to all his loved ones.
On the snowy morning of January 29, 1976, having prayed for an hour, Mr. Gabor heard the same Voice once more, “Your disaster is at hand.” These words caused him to act quickly to give his resignation at work. His next thought was to hurry home immediately where he could drop dead peacefully. However, as he was frantically rushing, Ioan Gabor fell into a 12-foot-deep pool where boiling water mixed with hydrate of sodium was kept. This water was used to disinfect the pools. As he fell, the water level reached to his waist. He started crying out in desperation as he felt his legs burning. He tried to move a couple of times, after which he realized that it was all over for him. He cried out saying, “ Oh Lord, have mercy on me and save me.” Then he felt a strong hand pick him up and set him on the edge of the pool. After crawling on his belly a few feet through the snow, he was noticed by some of his coworkers who quickly took him to the main hospital. “I knew it was going to be horrible, but I also knew I was not going to die because I felt God’s strong hand picking me up,” explains Mr. Gabor some 30 years later.
After arriving at the hospital, while the doctors were removing his pants, his flesh began falling off his legs to reveal bare bones. The tibia and the perineum were completely exposed in both legs. Upon seeing this, the doctors present were convinced he would be dead in a few hours’ time. And because of that, the doctors refused to give him water to drink so that his suffering would not be prolonged. His diagnosis was “2nd, 3rd, and 4th degree burns to both legs, hips, buttocks, and right forearm. “After seeing me, the doctor asked if I had children. Having learned that I had three minor children, he replied, ‘It would have been better had you not had them!’ After the doctor left, one of Ioan’s roommates took pity on him and gave him water. “On the next day, having seen I was still alive, the doctor realized that someone had given me water and rebuked me. Around 9 am, on the same day, I went into a coma. I first lost my sight, then my conscious. Through a miraculous intervention, my brother (who was also a doctor) was informed of my condition. Upon my brother’s arrival at the hospital, my eyes were still open, but my lips were black in color. “On the same day, he started looking for a coffin,” reminisces Mr. Gabor.
Because Ioan could not be touched, the doctors covered him with a metal frame over which they applied a white sheet. Ioan Gabor suffered for eight months in the ICU of the hospital in Arad, not able to move or talk. He was being fed intravenously and later with a teaspoon. After lying on the bed without moving for so long, Mr. Gabor’s spinal cord had rotted, a phenomena known in the medical world as invading localized cellulite. In addition, because of his shivering, he got bilateral bronchitis, and he reached the point where he would spit blood. Moreover, he had complications to his legs—his calves, his thighs, and his buttocks got infected. Altogether, they led to blood poisoning with pulmonary effects. From a human prospective, without a doubt, his 4th degree burns along with all the complications, would lead to his perdition.
His case reached the ears of the minister of health, Professor Dr. Eugen Proca, who came to pay Mr. Gabor a visit. After his visit, the local doctor in charge was to report on his condition every other day. Because the minister of health took such an interest in this case, he provided Mr. Gabor with medicine from overseas. The aid of this superior medicine was minimal, however. Once one comes down with blood poisoning, according to medical knowledge, his death is very near. Yet, Mr Gobor stubbornly refused to die and fought to hang on to life. Realizing that in spite of all the complications he was suffering, Mr Gabor remained conscious, the doctors admitted that this case was way over their heads since they could not make sense of it. “It’s a wonder that he’s still alive and conscious,” exclaimed the specialist after checking on his condition.
During his eight months in the ICU, Mr. Gabor noted the presence of a youngster with bright eyes. “I never questioned who he was because I knew him and I knew he was staying with me. But no one else could see this person. When I talked to them about him, a doctor who knew my condition declared that this person was my guardian angel. “Only then did I ponder that,” relates Ioan Gabor. During this same time, he underwent three clinical deaths. “They declared me dead, they disconnected me from the machines, and they covered me with a sheet. This is the procedure when one dies in the ICU—they let the dead lie there for a few hours, and then they take him to the morgue in order to give the bed to another patient.
When I was pronounced dead, out of my body came another body, a spiritual body. I would stand in the corner of the hospital room in my spiritual body, and I would see everything they did to my physical body. When I came back into my body, I told them everything they had done to my body—how they unplugged the machines that were keeping me alive, and how they decided to move it behind the door, everything. They replied, “But you were on the bed, dead under the sheet.” Then I explained to them how I was standing in the corner watching everything they did. In the spiritual world, there is this awareness; you are not limited in your senses; there you know everything. You cannot say that you just close your eyes and it’s over. I could see as far as Cluj (a 300 km distance). In one minute, I watched my entire life, everything I ever did since I was a child, how I couldn’t wait for my parents to leave the house so I could misbehave…You see absolutely everything you thought, everything you said, and the premonitions you had. You relive everything. I got married; I could hide from my wife and my wife from me, and we could hide from the children, but you can’t hide from God. Even though it’s written in the Bible that we shall be judged according to all that we have done. had I not lived this trauma, I would have never understood what it really meant to come face to face with your past, even if someone had told me. I became aware of this only after I had been declared dead.
Another miracle which is difficult for us humans to comprehend is that in the Bible we find that a day is equal to one thousand years. I used to not believe this. I could believe that one day could be equal to a week, a month, or a year, but not a thousand years. And yet, then, in one minute, I saw my entire life run before me up until 1970 when I became a follower of Jesus. I saw many evil deeds I had done which I never wanted to see again. This was up until the moment I repented, meaning I was born again; for repentance is not repentance until we change on the inside.”
“Then for a moment, I saw a white hand bearing the mark of nails on it and hanging on the cross. And I heard a voice, a very soft voice, which said to me, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ has cleansed you of every sin.’ And all my past just disappeared from before my eyes. Then I was passing through another place, where there was so much light… it was there for just a moment. I can’t relate how wonderful it felt. The Light covered me and spoke to me. It was beyond any comprehension. The Light said to me, ‘Why are you so amazed? Here no evil can be done.’ As I was gazing at it, I noticed two young men on my left, my grandfather and one of my brothers. And this is the interesting thing. My grandfather died when I was 3 weeks old, so there was no way I could have recognized him. But there, I was aware of who he was. When you look at someone there, you know who he is and what he is thinking, and he knows the same about you. They were all young, around 17 years old; their bodies were white, bright, shining, and their faces are even brighter…. The happiness found there cannot be explained in words. In the distance, as far as one could see, there was a sea of young people, all of the same age regardless at what age they died, whether young or old. All these people were singing three songs at the same time in parallel…Then I decided I wanted to stay, but the young person who was always by my side in the hospital looked straight at me and I felt he was telling me I needed to go back. I didn’t want to. Then he motioned with his head and we went back together,” Mr. Gabor tells us. Realizing he was trying to breathe, the doctors put him back on the breathing machines where he had suffered three clinical deaths.
Several years later, he understood what the voice which he had heard two years prior to the accident meant—it foretold the three clinical deaths—and the foretold sufferings eight months prior to the accident meant the eight months he was to suffer in ICU. During his ICU stay, Mr. Gabor saw more than 117 people die. “I had never seen anyone die before, but watching them die, I realized why people in general fear death. Right before dying, their facial appearance showed great terror, as if they wanted to escape death, but they could not. There were also people who could not let themselves die. The nurses would counsel them, telling them it was because they needed to confess their sins in order to accomplish their death. On his death bed, an 80-year-old man confessed how he had killed his grandmother when he was young in order to get her inheritance.”
Ioan Gabor was released from the hospital on August 26, 1976. His medical records contained the notes of Dr. Mircea Uduluc, the primary plastic surgeon. They conveyed all of the medical assertions mentioned in this testimony. For one and a half years, he was spoon fed by his wife. For four years after the accident, Ioan Gabor was bed-ridden. Even though the doctors had insisted on having his legs amputated in order to save his life, he refused the procedure. After four years, his scars started to break open allowing skin and hair to come through, and he was able to get up from the bed. This miracle amazed the medical world, leaving medical experts speechless. “This isn’t possible. This is the miracle of the 20th century—to have skin and hair grow on a 3rd degree burn without a transplant,” said his plastic surgeon, Dr. Nagy, from the main hospital in Arad. His last wound healed 17 years after the accident, and now both of his legs are covered with flesh. The scars have been going away over time, and the flesh and skin parts have been expanding daily.
Having learned that Mr Gabor did not die, the medical experts called him up for a visit. At the meeting, there were medical specialists from around the world, and none could explain the miracle. When the minister of health, Dr Proca, saw him he exclaimed, “Is it you? I can’t believe my eyes. How come they didn’t amputate your legs? Your case has reached the medical world everywhere. What should I tell them? How should I explain it?” Then he got to his feet and exclaimed again, “I never believed there was a God, but now I have to believe there is something, whether a God or something else.”
The Gabor case, however, did much to disturb the political authorities of the time, too. The secret police called him in and ordered him to close his door and not let anyone in anymore. His phone and his entire apartment were tapped. They even tried to expatriate him to Austria. Because the political regime could not make sense of his healing phenomena, the secret police suspected his association with aliens. In spite of all this, Ioan Gabor stayed in Romania and his case reached the entire globe. His story was printed in the pages of all major medical journals in the Western world as well as in the worldwide media. In Romania, however, his case was kept silent. The local D.A. investigated Ioan Gabor’s work-related accident at the Chemical Plant in Arad. Mr. Stefanut Petru, chief investigator from Arad, was in charge of the case. What the investigators could not explain was the finding of only one set of tracks in the snow. This discovery complicated the work because no one could explain it. On January 9th, 1976 it was determined that the case had to be closed since no one could be found responsible for the accident of Mr. Gabor.
Looking back now, Mr. Gabor is convinced all this happened as a means to stop or hinder the persecution of Christians started by the communists. At the same time, God was trying to reveal His Will to those who were living in darkness. Despite what he had to go through, Mr. Gabor, assures us that he has been a happy man. “I have a peace in my soul and harmony in my family, which I wish to all families.” He says that he prays for Romania and believes in a maximum of seven years, Romania will reach a high standard of living both economically and spiritually. Those who want to know more about Ioan Gabor, may contact him at 0114.0259-445.320 or via mail at Str Italiana Nr. 22, Bloc Y3, Sc. C, Apt 46, Oradea, Bihor, 3700, Romania.
By Octavian D. Curpas
Phoenix, Arizona, USA, 2011
