0:00:03.539,0:00:06.615
You know, we wake up in the morning,

0:00:06.615,0:00:09.135
you get dressed, put on your shoes,

0:00:09.135,0:00:11.647
you head out into the world.

0:00:11.647,0:00:15.898
You plan on coming back, getting undressed,

0:00:15.898,0:00:18.123
going to bed,

0:00:18.123,0:00:19.877
waking up, doing it again,

0:00:19.877,0:00:23.025
and that anticipation, that rhythm,

0:00:23.025,0:00:25.295
helps give us a structure

0:00:25.295,0:00:28.883
to how we organize ourselves and our lives,

0:00:28.883,0:00:32.363
and gives it a measure of predictability.

0:00:32.363,0:00:34.751
Living in New York City, as I do,

0:00:34.751,0:00:41.990
it's almost as if, with so many people doing so many things

0:00:41.990,0:00:45.340
at the same time in such close quarters,

0:00:45.340,0:00:48.579
it's almost like life is dealing you extra hands

0:00:48.579,0:00:50.105
out of that deck.

0:00:50.105,0:00:54.773
You're never, there's just, juxtapositions are possible

0:00:54.773,0:00:59.776
that just aren't, you don't think they're going to happen.

0:00:59.776,0:01:02.119
And you never think you're going to be the guy

0:01:02.119,0:01:03.749
who's walking down the street

0:01:03.749,0:01:07.171
and, because you choose to go down one side or the other,

0:01:07.171,0:01:10.331
the rest of your life is changed forever.

0:01:10.331,0:01:16.059
And one night, I'm riding the uptown local train.

0:01:16.059,0:01:19.555
I get on. I tend to be a little bit vigilant

0:01:19.555,0:01:21.672
when I get on the subway.

0:01:21.672,0:01:24.718
I'm not one of the people zoning out with headphones

0:01:24.718,0:01:26.101
or a book.

0:01:26.101,0:01:28.907
And I get on the car, and I look, and I

0:01:28.907,0:01:31.491
notice this couple,

0:01:31.491,0:01:34.979
college-aged, student-looking kids,

0:01:34.979,0:01:36.776
a guy and a girl, and they're sitting next to each other,

0:01:36.776,0:01:39.425
and she's got her leg draped over his knee,

0:01:39.425,0:01:43.585
and they're doing -- they have this little contraption,

0:01:43.585,0:01:45.343
and they're tying these knots,

0:01:45.343,0:01:47.180
and they're doing it with one hand,

0:01:47.180,0:01:51.144
they're doing it left-handed and right-handed very quickly,

0:01:51.144,0:01:53.392
and then she'll hand the thing to him and he'll do it.

0:01:53.392,0:01:54.593
I've never seen anything like this.

0:01:54.593,0:01:57.977
It's almost like they're practicing magic tricks.

0:01:57.977,0:02:02.296
And at the next stop, a guy gets on the car,

0:02:02.296,0:02:06.274
and he has this sort of visiting professor look to him.

0:02:06.274,0:02:08.394
He's got the overstuffed leather satchel

0:02:08.394,0:02:11.704
and the rectangular file case and a laptop bag

0:02:11.704,0:02:14.216
and the tweed jacket with the leather patches,

0:02:14.216,0:02:16.193
and — (Laughter) —

0:02:16.193,0:02:19.016
he looks at them, and then

0:02:19.016,0:02:22.032
in a blink of an eye, he kneels down in front of them,

0:02:22.032,0:02:23.697
and he starts to say,

0:02:23.697,0:02:25.766
"You know, listen, here's how you can do it. Look,

0:02:25.766,0:02:28.385
if you do this -- " and he takes the laces out of their hand,

0:02:28.385,0:02:31.696
and instantly, he starts tying these knots,

0:02:31.696,0:02:36.357
and even better than they were doing it, remarkably.

0:02:36.357,0:02:39.437
And it turns out they are medical students

0:02:39.437,0:02:41.549
on their way to a lecture about the latest

0:02:41.549,0:02:44.775
suturing techniques, and he's the guy giving the lecture.

0:02:44.775,0:02:46.383
(Laughter)

0:02:46.383,0:02:48.797
So he starts to tell them, and he's like,

0:02:48.797,0:02:51.305
"No, this is very important here. You know,

0:02:51.305,0:02:53.585
when you're needing these knots,

0:02:53.585,0:02:55.177
it's going to be, you know, everything's

0:02:55.177,0:02:58.930
going to be happening at the same time, it's going to be --

0:02:58.930,0:03:02.567
you're going to have all this information coming at you,

0:03:02.567,0:03:04.063
there's going to be organs getting in the way,

0:03:04.063,0:03:06.098
it's going to be slippery,

0:03:06.098,0:03:07.408
and

0:03:07.408,0:03:10.166
it's just very important that you be able to do these

0:03:10.166,0:03:13.536
beyond second nature, each hand, left hand, right hand,

0:03:13.536,0:03:16.364
you have to be able to do them without seeing your fingers."

0:03:16.364,0:03:18.734
And at that moment, when I heard that,

0:03:18.734,0:03:25.806
I just got catapulted out of the subway car into a night

0:03:25.806,0:03:28.940
when I had been getting a ride in an ambulance

0:03:28.940,0:03:33.431
from the sidewalk where I had been stabbed

0:03:33.431,0:03:37.750
to the trauma room of St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan,

0:03:37.750,0:03:39.739
and what had happened was

0:03:39.739,0:03:42.948
a gang had come in from Brooklyn.

0:03:42.948,0:03:45.571
As part of an initiation for three of their members,

0:03:45.571,0:03:47.275
they had to kill somebody,

0:03:47.275,0:03:50.662
and I happened to be the guy walking down Bleecker Street

0:03:50.662,0:03:51.959
that night,

0:03:51.959,0:03:56.396
and they jumped on me without a word.

0:03:56.396,0:03:58.721
One of the very lucky things,

0:03:58.721,0:04:01.729
when I was at Notre Dame, I was on the boxing team,

0:04:01.729,0:04:06.377
so I put my hands up right away, instinctively.

0:04:06.377,0:04:09.929
The guy on the right had a knife with a 10-inch blade,

0:04:09.929,0:04:13.222
and he went in under my elbow,

0:04:13.222,0:04:17.689
and it went up and cut my inferior vena cava.

0:04:17.689,0:04:19.409
If you know anything about anatomy,

0:04:19.409,0:04:21.117
that's not a good thing to get cut,

0:04:21.117,0:04:24.275
and everything, of course, on the way up,

0:04:24.275,0:04:26.165
and then — I still had my hands up —

0:04:26.165,0:04:28.654
he pulled it out and went for my neck,

0:04:28.654,0:04:32.859
and sunk it in up to the hilt in my neck,

0:04:32.859,0:04:35.583
and I got one straight right punch

0:04:35.583,0:04:37.354
and knocked the middle guy out.

0:04:37.354,0:04:39.567
The other guy was still working on me,

0:04:39.567,0:04:41.432
collapsing my other lung,

0:04:41.432,0:04:47.412
and I managed to, by hitting that guy, to get a minute.

0:04:47.412,0:04:49.505
I ran down the street and collapsed,

0:04:49.505,0:04:52.552
and the ambulance guys intubated me on the sidewalk

0:04:52.552,0:04:55.025
and let the trauma room know

0:04:55.025,0:04:56.643
they had an incoming.

0:04:56.643,0:04:59.642
And one of the

0:04:59.642,0:05:03.583
side effects of having major massive blood loss

0:05:03.583,0:05:05.430
is you get tunnel vision,

0:05:05.430,0:05:07.243
so I remember being on the stretcher

0:05:07.243,0:05:11.248
and having a little nickel-sized cone of vision,

0:05:11.248,0:05:12.797
and I was moving my head around

0:05:12.797,0:05:14.153
and we got to St. Vincent's,

0:05:14.153,0:05:15.796
and we're racing down this hallway,

0:05:15.796,0:05:18.064
and I see the lights going,

0:05:18.064,0:05:24.792
and it's a peculiar effect of memories like that.

0:05:24.792,0:05:28.971
They don't really go to the usual place that memories go.

0:05:28.971,0:05:34.175
They kind of have this vault where they're stored in high-def,

0:05:34.175,0:05:38.660
and George Lucas did all the sound effects. (Laughter)

0:05:38.660,0:05:43.156
So sometimes, remembering them, it's like,

0:05:43.156,0:05:46.880
it's not like any other kind of memories.

0:05:46.880,0:05:49.552
And I get into the trauma room,

0:05:49.552,0:05:52.574
and they're waiting for me, and the lights are there,

0:05:52.574,0:05:57.869
and I'd been able to breathe a little more now,

0:05:57.869,0:06:01.348
because the blood has left, had been filling up my lungs

0:06:01.348,0:06:03.314
and I was having a very hard time breathing,

0:06:03.314,0:06:06.356
but now it's kind of gone into the stretcher.

0:06:06.356,0:06:09.660
And I said, "Is there anything I can do to help?"

0:06:09.660,0:06:11.432
and — (Laughter) —

0:06:11.432,0:06:14.746
the nurse kind of had a hysterical laugh, and

0:06:14.746,0:06:16.994
I'm turning my head trying to see everybody,

0:06:16.994,0:06:20.810
and I had this weird memory of being in college

0:06:20.810,0:06:23.722
and raising,

0:06:23.722,0:06:27.779
raising money for the flood victims of Bangladesh,

0:06:27.779,0:06:30.236
and then I look over and my anesthesiologist

0:06:30.236,0:06:31.769
is clamping the mask on me, and I think,

0:06:31.769,0:06:33.830
"He looks Bangladeshi," — (Laughter) —

0:06:33.830,0:06:37.315
and I just have those two facts, and I just think,

0:06:37.315,0:06:41.029
"This could work somehow." (Laughter)

0:06:41.029,0:06:43.307
And then I go out, and

0:06:43.307,0:06:45.083
they work on me for the rest of the night,

0:06:45.083,0:06:50.096
and I needed about 40 units of blood to keep me there

0:06:50.096,0:06:53.141
while they did their work,

0:06:53.141,0:06:57.365
and the surgeon took out about a third of my intestines,

0:06:57.365,0:07:00.784
my cecum, organs I didn't know that I had,

0:07:00.784,0:07:03.155
and he later told me one of the last things he did

0:07:03.155,0:07:06.500
while he was in there was to remove my appendix for me,

0:07:06.500,0:07:08.723
which I thought was great, you know,

0:07:08.723,0:07:11.886
just a little tidy thing there at the end. (Laughter)

0:07:11.886,0:07:16.204
And I came to in the morning.

0:07:16.204,0:07:18.020
Out of anesthetic, he had let them know

0:07:18.020,0:07:21.508
that he wanted to be there, and he had given me

0:07:21.508,0:07:24.703
about a two percent chance of living.

0:07:24.703,0:07:26.615
So he was there when I woke up,

0:07:26.615,0:07:28.776
and it was, waking up was like

0:07:28.776,0:07:34.993
breaking through the ice into a frozen lake of pain.

0:07:34.993,0:07:37.096
It was that enveloping,

0:07:37.096,0:07:41.268
and there was only one spot that didn't hurt

0:07:41.268,0:07:42.741
worse than anything I'd ever felt,

0:07:42.741,0:07:44.147
and it was my instep,

0:07:44.147,0:07:47.893
and he was holding the arch of my foot

0:07:47.893,0:07:51.761
and rubbing the instep with his thumb.

0:07:51.761,0:07:54.697
And I looked up, and he's like,

0:07:54.697,0:07:55.818
"Good to see you,"

0:07:55.818,0:07:59.754
and I was trying to remember what had happened

0:07:59.754,0:08:01.472
and trying to get my head around everything,

0:08:01.472,0:08:05.529
and the pain was just overwhelming, and he said,

0:08:05.529,0:08:08.905
"You know, we didn't cut your hair. I thought

0:08:08.905,0:08:13.277
you might have gotten strength from your hair like Samson,

0:08:13.277,0:08:16.060
and you're going to need all the strength you can get."

0:08:16.060,0:08:19.769
And in those days, my hair was down to my waist,

0:08:19.769,0:08:22.641
I drove a motorcycle, I was unmarried,

0:08:22.641,0:08:27.950
I owned a bar, so those were different times. (Laughter)

0:08:27.950,0:08:30.210
But

0:08:30.210,0:08:33.182
I had three days of life support,

0:08:33.182,0:08:36.963
and everybody was expecting,

0:08:36.963,0:08:41.456
due to just the massive amount of what they had had to do

0:08:41.456,0:08:43.284
that I wasn't going to make it,

0:08:43.284,0:08:45.329
so it was three days of

0:08:45.329,0:08:48.156
everybody was either waiting for me to die or poop,

0:08:48.156,0:08:49.752
and — (Laughter) —

0:08:49.752,0:08:52.711
when I finally pooped, then that somehow,

0:08:52.711,0:08:56.118
surgically speaking, that's like you crossed some good line,

0:08:56.118,0:08:57.158
and, um — (Laughter) —

0:08:57.158,0:09:00.423
on that day, the surgeon came in

0:09:00.423,0:09:03.615
and whipped the sheet off of me.

0:09:03.615,0:09:05.276
He had three or four friends with him,

0:09:05.276,0:09:07.678
and he does that, and they all look,

0:09:07.678,0:09:09.559
and there was no infection,

0:09:09.559,0:09:12.429
and they bend over me and they're poking and prodding,

0:09:12.429,0:09:14.526
and they're like, "There's no hematomas, blah blah,

0:09:14.526,0:09:17.396
look at the color," and they're talking amongst themselves

0:09:17.396,0:09:20.319
and I'm, like, this restored automobile

0:09:20.319,0:09:23.510
that he's just going, "Yeah, I did that." (Laughter)

0:09:23.510,0:09:26.534
And it was just,

0:09:26.534,0:09:29.670
it was amazing, because these guys are high-fiving him

0:09:29.670,0:09:31.730
over how good I turned out, you know? (Laughter)

0:09:31.730,0:09:35.251
And it's my zipper, and I've still got the staples in

0:09:35.251,0:09:36.487
and everything.

0:09:36.487,0:09:38.702
And

0:09:38.702,0:09:41.313
later on, when I got out

0:09:41.313,0:09:46.925
and the flashbacks and the

0:09:46.925,0:09:51.430
nightmares were giving me a hard time,

0:09:51.430,0:09:53.112
I went back to him

0:09:53.112,0:09:57.005
and I was sort of asking him,

0:09:57.005,0:09:59.186
you know, what am I gonna do?

0:09:59.186,0:10:03.794
And I think, kind of, as a surgeon, he basically said,

0:10:03.794,0:10:05.520
"Kid, I saved your life.

0:10:05.520,0:10:08.170
Like, now you can do whatever you want, like,

0:10:08.170,0:10:09.836
you gotta get on with that.

0:10:09.836,0:10:11.668
It's like I gave you a new car

0:10:11.668,0:10:13.960
and you're complaining about not finding parking.

0:10:13.960,0:10:17.561
Like, just, go out, and, you know, do your best.

0:10:17.561,0:10:22.367
But you're alive. That's what it's about."

0:10:22.367,0:10:28.148
And then I hear, "Bing-bong," and the subway doors

0:10:28.148,0:10:34.387
are closing, and my stop is next, and I look at these kids,

0:10:34.387,0:10:36.256
and I go, I think to myself,

0:10:36.256,0:10:37.818
"I'm going to lift my shirt up

0:10:37.818,0:10:39.435
and show them," — (Laughter) —

0:10:39.435,0:10:41.664
and then I think, "No, this is the New York City subway,

0:10:41.664,0:10:45.295
that's going to lead to other things." (Laughter)

0:10:45.295,0:10:49.337
And so I just think, they got their lecture to go to.

0:10:49.337,0:10:53.298
I step off, I'm standing on the platform,

0:10:53.298,0:10:56.162
and I feel my index finger

0:10:56.162,0:10:58.341
in

0:10:58.341,0:11:02.044
the first scar that I ever got,

0:11:02.044,0:11:05.158
from my umbilical cord,

0:11:05.158,0:11:08.396
and then around that, is traced

0:11:08.396,0:11:10.892
the last scar that I got

0:11:10.892,0:11:13.269
from my surgeon,

0:11:13.269,0:11:18.583
and I think that, that chance encounter

0:11:18.583,0:11:22.472
with those kids on the street with their knives

0:11:22.472,0:11:24.905
led me

0:11:24.905,0:11:28.030
to my surgical team,

0:11:28.030,0:11:32.105
and their training

0:11:32.105,0:11:34.221
and their skill

0:11:34.221,0:11:37.641
and, always, a little bit of luck

0:11:37.641,0:11:40.612
pushed back against chaos.

0:11:40.612,0:11:44.666
Thank you. (Applause)

0:11:44.666,0:11:53.610
(Applause)

0:11:53.610,0:12:00.030
Thank you. Very lucky to be here. Thank you. (Applause)