In an exclusive interview with the Chicago Daily Herald, Republican Senator Mark Kirk recounts how he saw three angels at the foot of his bed just before he woke up after suffering a massive stroke last year.

According to the Herald, the incident occurred after the Senator suffered an ischemic stroke on January 21, 2012, which was caused by a blocked artery. Doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago put him into a drug-induced coma and performed several surgeries on him, including a procedure that removed a 4-by-8 inch portion of his skull to allow his brain to swell and heal.

Just before waking up from this coma, Kirk says he saw three angels standing at the foot of his bed.

“You want to come with us?” they asked him.

“No. I’ll hold off,” he replied.

Recalling the incident a year later, as he prepares to return to the Senate to resume his official duties after a grueling year of recovery, he remains unsure as to whether it was a dream, a side effect of medication, or a near-death experience.

One thing he’s sure of, however, is the fact that he is a changed man as a result of the stroke and all that happened to him in its wake.

I would say that I definitely became much more religious,” Kirk told the Herald. “They say there are no atheists in foxholes, and this stroke put me into a very deep foxhole. Yet, that feeling of faith sustained me, so I have no feelings of anger or regret.”