BATON ROUGE – A motorcyclist killed after crashing into debris on I-12 was riding a life of second chance – he had died and been resuscitated before. The 51-year-old believed he’d been to heaven six years before his deadly crash Tuesday morning on the interstate.

“I was gone,” Ronnie Trahan told a newspaper in Vermilion Parish. He lived there in 2012, and that’s where and when he died the first time. His heart stopped.

Emergency workers believed Trahan had been dead for about 45 minutes, he told the newspaper.

"[The doctor] basically worked on me for 45 minutes to an hour. He was just working on a corpse,” Trahan recalled.

Trahan recovered and later moved to Denham Springs.

This time, he died shortly after the 9 a.m. crash on I-12 near Sherwood Forest Boulevard. His bike hit a piece of lumber.

“He died doing what he loved to do,” his mother told WBRZ after the crash as the family was mourning together. Trahan was fond of riding motorcycles.

His startling life experience was at the tops of their minds as they gathered after the crash.

       >Watch more from the family and hear the amazing story on WBRZ News 2 at 10:00 Tuesday.

Years before he died on I-12, Trahan discussed the first time he believed he’d died – and his belief he’d seen the gates of heaven.

“I remember a big, tall angel, about 20 feet, with a sword,” Trahan told the newspaper six years ago. “And there were a bunch of people dressed in black with crosses on their backs. They were all in a circle going counter-clockwise, going up and up. I was in the circle and I just floated up.”

Police described the crash on I-12 in Baton Rouge Tuesday as a freak accident.

No one was ticketed, and it’s unlikely anyone will be able to trace the debris to a negligent hauler.

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