Gloria Polo Ortiz — Near-Death Experience from Lightning Strike

May 5, 1995 — Bogotá, Colombia Public lightning-survival testimony

Event date

May 5, 1995

Polo consistently dates the lightning strike to May 5, 1995, at the National University of Bogotá.

Public testimony type

First-person NDE account

The spiritual content is preserved through her own talks, book, and distribution websites.

Physical event in the file

Lightning strike with severe burns

The public file consistently includes the strike, the death of her nephew, and Polo’s survival after extensive injuries.

Later public record

Book, talks, and ministry site

Her story is mainly documented through her own testimony channels and Catholic publishers or distributors.

One of the widely circulated full-length recordings of Gloria Polo’s testimony is embedded below so readers can assess the public form of the account directly.^[2]

Primary-source file

Official ministry site Gloria Polo - Testimony

Polo’s site preserves her current public platform, book catalog, and distribution structure for the testimony.

gloriapolo.us Official book page Gloria Polo: Standing Before God, The Judgment

This official product page preserves the title and current presentation of her book-length testimony.

gloriapolo.us Text version of testimony Michael Journal - The testimony of Gloria Polo

Michael Journal preserves a full English text of Polo’s first-person account and remains one of the most cited public versions.

michaeljournal.org Book distributor note Lightning, death, judgement and conversion

This catalog page preserves the public distributor claim that her testimony is shared with diocesan approval in Bogotá.

michaeljournal.org

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Who She Is

Gloria Polo Ortiz is a Colombian dentist. At the time of the event she was pursuing postgraduate studies at the National University of Bogotá, Faculty of Dentistry. She was married; her husband was present at the time of the strike. Her nephew — also a dentist, approximately 23 years old — was walking with her.^[1]

She currently works as a Catholic speaker and author. Sources tied to her testimony say it has permission to be shared publicly from church authorities in Bogotá. In plain terms, that means she has permission to give the testimony in Catholic settings. It does not mean the church has issued a formal ruling that every spiritual detail in her experience was supernatural.^[1]

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The Physical Event

Date and location: May 5, 1995, approximately 4:30 PM, on the grounds of the National University of Bogotá, during a rainstorm.

A lightning bolt struck Polo and her nephew as they shared an umbrella near trees. Her nephew died at the scene. The bolt entered through Polo’s right shoulder. According to her account and subsequent treatment, the strike caused massive damage: severe burns, organ injury, cardiac arrest, and a prolonged fight to survive.^[1]

She was transported to hospital. Doctors, by her account, told her family she could not survive and recommended discontinuing life support. Her sister — a physician — intervened to continue treatment. Polo underwent multiple surgeries to remove burned tissue and remained in intensive care for an extended period.

She survived. By her own account, the only lasting visible sign was a slight limp. So the page has two layers from the start: first, a dramatic physical event in the outside world, and second, Polo’s much more personal account of what she believes happened to her soul while she was near death.

Gloria Polo file

1. Event Lightning strike The outward event is a reported lightning strike, severe injuries, and survival in Bogotá in 1995.
2. Testimony Near-death experience The inward spiritual content comes from Polo’s own later narration of judgment, purgatory, and encounters with Christ and Mary.
3. Public trail Books and talks The testimony survives publicly through her own ministry site, book, and devotional recordings.

Open full graphic

Gloria Polo’s file has two different layers that readers should keep separate: a claimed lightning survival in the outside world, and a later first-person spiritual testimony about what she says happened inwardly. Site explainer graphic

What the public file can actually show The strongest outward layer here is the lightning-survival story itself; the detailed spiritual content remains Polo’s own first-person account rather than an independently documented hospital file.

That distinction matters because readers can treat the bodily event and the near-death testimony as related but different kinds of evidence.

Michael Journal text version Open source

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Publicly documented chronology

• May 5, 1995: Polo places the lightning strike at approximately 4:30 PM during a storm on the grounds of the National University of Bogotá.^{[1] [3]}
• The same account says her nephew died in the strike while Polo survived after cardiac arrest, severe burns, and prolonged hospital treatment.^{[1] [3]}
• In the years after recovery, her testimony circulated in book form and in public talks through Catholic publishers and missionary distributors.^{[1] [3] [4]}
• Her current public record remains centered on her own ministry and book-distribution site, which continues to present the same testimony under the title Standing Before God, The Judgment.^[2]

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The NDE Claims

While unconscious or clinically compromised, Polo says she experienced the following inwardly:^[1]

• A full life review before a scene she identifies as a divine judgment
• Witnessing souls in purgatory
• Approaching the entrance to hell
• Receiving instruction from Christ about moral matters — specifically naming abortion, contraception, New Age practices, and neglect of Sunday Mass as gravely serious
• An apparition of the Virgin Mary
• An encounter described as occurring in the light of the Eucharist

She says she came out of the experience convinced that God had spared her life so she could change and warn other people.

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Documented facts and open questions

Claim	Status
A lightning strike occurred at the National University of Bogotá, May 5, 1995	Plausible; institution and date are specific and checkable; independent confirmation not found in sources reviewed
Her nephew died in the strike	Self-reported; consistent across all sources; no contrary evidence found
She sustained severe injuries and survived	Consistent with published medical survival record; no physician is named in any source; no medical records are published
She underwent multiple surgeries and ICU admission	Self-reported; medically plausible given described injuries
She retains a slight limp	Consistent across years of testimony; observable in person
The NDE content (life review, purgatory, hell, Mary apparition)	Entirely unverifiable; private interior experience

Documentation notes

Polo’s testimony is openly religious and didactic. It is being shared as a conversion story and warning message, not as a neutral hospital report. The church permission attached to it means she has permission to share the testimony publicly in Catholic settings. It does not mean the Church has separately certified every spiritual detail as historically verifiable.

Publicly accessible sources identified so far do not include hospital records, named physicians, or released medical files. So the lightning strike and survival are treated here as the outward event described by Polo, while the life review, purgatory imagery, and encounters with Christ and Mary are treated as the inward content of her testimony.

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References

1. Polo Ortiz, Gloria. Struck by Lightning: Death, Judgement and Conversion. First-person testimony distributed through Catholic apostolate channels. A public English text version is available at Michael Journal: https://www.michaeljournal.org/articles/roman-catholic-church/item/the-testimony-of-gloria-polo
2. ”Testimonio Gloria Polo Completo.” Public video version of Polo’s testimony used here as a representative example of how the account is presented in live Catholic devotional settings. Embedded from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtEsuX6UrTE
3. Gloria Polo official site and official book page. Current public ministry and product record for the testimony. Available at: https://gloriapolo.us/site/ and https://gloriapolo.us/site/index.php/products/books/153-pre-order-gloria-polo-standing-before-god-the-judgment
4. Michael Journal book-distributor page. Public catalog note preserving the summary claim that Polo’s testimony is shared with approval from her diocese in Bogotá and her spiritual director. Available at: https://www.michaeljournal.org/subscription-boutique/books/product/lightning-death-judgement-and-conversion