WEBVTT 00:00:03.539 --> 00:00:06.615 You know, we wake up in the morning, 00:00:06.615 --> 00:00:09.135 you get dressed, put on your shoes, 00:00:09.135 --> 00:00:11.647 you head out into the world. 00:00:11.647 --> 00:00:15.898 You plan on coming back, getting undressed, 00:00:15.898 --> 00:00:18.123 going to bed, 00:00:18.123 --> 00:00:19.877 waking up, doing it again, 00:00:19.877 --> 00:00:23.025 and that anticipation, that rhythm, 00:00:23.025 --> 00:00:25.295 helps give us a structure 00:00:25.295 --> 00:00:28.883 to how we organize ourselves and our lives, 00:00:28.883 --> 00:00:32.363 and gives it a measure of predictability. 00:00:32.363 --> 00:00:34.751 Living in New York City, as I do, 00:00:34.751 --> 00:00:41.990 it's almost as if, with so many people doing so many things 00:00:41.990 --> 00:00:45.340 at the same time in such close quarters, 00:00:45.340 --> 00:00:48.579 it's almost like life is dealing you extra hands 00:00:48.579 --> 00:00:50.105 out of that deck. 00:00:50.105 --> 00:00:54.773 You're never, there's just, juxtapositions are possible 00:00:54.773 --> 00:00:59.776 that just aren't, you don't think they're going to happen. 00:00:59.776 --> 00:01:02.119 And you never think you're going to be the guy 00:01:02.119 --> 00:01:03.749 who's walking down the street 00:01:03.749 --> 00:01:07.171 and, because you choose to go down one side or the other, 00:01:07.171 --> 00:01:10.331 the rest of your life is changed forever. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:10.331 --> 00:01:16.059 And one night, I'm riding the uptown local train. 00:01:16.059 --> 00:01:19.555 I get on. I tend to be a little bit vigilant 00:01:19.555 --> 00:01:21.672 when I get on the subway. 00:01:21.672 --> 00:01:24.718 I'm not one of the people zoning out with headphones 00:01:24.718 --> 00:01:26.101 or a book. 00:01:26.101 --> 00:01:28.907 And I get on the car, and I look, and I 00:01:28.907 --> 00:01:31.491 notice this couple, 00:01:31.491 --> 00:01:34.979 college-aged, student-looking kids, 00:01:34.979 --> 00:01:36.776 a guy and a girl, and they're sitting next to each other, 00:01:36.776 --> 00:01:39.425 and she's got her leg draped over his knee, 00:01:39.425 --> 00:01:43.585 and they're doing -- they have this little contraption, 00:01:43.585 --> 00:01:45.343 and they're tying these knots, 00:01:45.343 --> 00:01:47.180 and they're doing it with one hand, 00:01:47.180 --> 00:01:51.144 they're doing it left-handed and right-handed very quickly, 00:01:51.144 --> 00:01:53.392 and then she'll hand the thing to him and he'll do it. 00:01:53.392 --> 00:01:54.593 I've never seen anything like this. 00:01:54.593 --> 00:01:57.977 It's almost like they're practicing magic tricks. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:57.977 --> 00:02:02.296 And at the next stop, a guy gets on the car, 00:02:02.296 --> 00:02:06.274 and he has this sort of visiting professor look to him. 00:02:06.274 --> 00:02:08.394 He's got the overstuffed leather satchel 00:02:08.394 --> 00:02:11.704 and the rectangular file case and a laptop bag 00:02:11.704 --> 00:02:14.216 and the tweed jacket with the leather patches, 00:02:14.216 --> 00:02:16.193 and — (Laughter) — 00:02:16.193 --> 00:02:19.016 he looks at them, and then 00:02:19.016 --> 00:02:22.032 in a blink of an eye, he kneels down in front of them, 00:02:22.032 --> 00:02:23.697 and he starts to say, 00:02:23.697 --> 00:02:25.766 "You know, listen, here's how you can do it. Look, 00:02:25.766 --> 00:02:28.385 if you do this -- " and he takes the laces out of their hand, 00:02:28.385 --> 00:02:31.696 and instantly, he starts tying these knots, 00:02:31.696 --> 00:02:36.357 and even better than they were doing it, remarkably. 00:02:36.357 --> 00:02:39.437 And it turns out they are medical students 00:02:39.437 --> 00:02:41.549 on their way to a lecture about the latest 00:02:41.549 --> 00:02:44.775 suturing techniques, and he's the guy giving the lecture. 00:02:44.775 --> 00:02:46.383 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:02:46.383 --> 00:02:48.797 So he starts to tell them, and he's like, 00:02:48.797 --> 00:02:51.305 "No, this is very important here. You know, 00:02:51.305 --> 00:02:53.585 when you're needing these knots, 00:02:53.585 --> 00:02:55.177 it's going to be, you know, everything's 00:02:55.177 --> 00:02:58.930 going to be happening at the same time, it's going to be -- 00:02:58.930 --> 00:03:02.567 you're going to have all this information coming at you, 00:03:02.567 --> 00:03:04.063 there's going to be organs getting in the way, 00:03:04.063 --> 00:03:06.098 it's going to be slippery, 00:03:06.098 --> 00:03:07.408 and 00:03:07.408 --> 00:03:10.166 it's just very important that you be able to do these 00:03:10.166 --> 00:03:13.536 beyond second nature, each hand, left hand, right hand, 00:03:13.536 --> 00:03:16.364 you have to be able to do them without seeing your fingers." 00:03:16.364 --> 00:03:18.734 And at that moment, when I heard that, 00:03:18.734 --> 00:03:25.806 I just got catapulted out of the subway car into a night 00:03:25.806 --> 00:03:28.940 when I had been getting a ride in an ambulance 00:03:28.940 --> 00:03:33.431 from the sidewalk where I had been stabbed 00:03:33.431 --> 00:03:37.750 to the trauma room of St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan, 00:03:37.750 --> 00:03:39.739 and what had happened was 00:03:39.739 --> 00:03:42.948 a gang had come in from Brooklyn. 00:03:42.948 --> 00:03:45.571 As part of an initiation for three of their members, 00:03:45.571 --> 00:03:47.275 they had to kill somebody, 00:03:47.275 --> 00:03:50.662 and I happened to be the guy walking down Bleecker Street 00:03:50.662 --> 00:03:51.959 that night, 00:03:51.959 --> 00:03:56.396 and they jumped on me without a word. 00:03:56.396 --> 00:03:58.721 One of the very lucky things, 00:03:58.721 --> 00:04:01.729 when I was at Notre Dame, I was on the boxing team, 00:04:01.729 --> 00:04:06.377 so I put my hands up right away, instinctively. 00:04:06.377 --> 00:04:09.929 The guy on the right had a knife with a 10-inch blade, 00:04:09.929 --> 00:04:13.222 and he went in under my elbow, 00:04:13.222 --> 00:04:17.689 and it went up and cut my inferior vena cava. 00:04:17.689 --> 00:04:19.409 If you know anything about anatomy, 00:04:19.409 --> 00:04:21.117 that's not a good thing to get cut, 00:04:21.117 --> 00:04:24.275 and everything, of course, on the way up, 00:04:24.275 --> 00:04:26.165 and then — I still had my hands up — 00:04:26.165 --> 00:04:28.654 he pulled it out and went for my neck, 00:04:28.654 --> 00:04:32.859 and sunk it in up to the hilt in my neck, 00:04:32.859 --> 00:04:35.583 and I got one straight right punch 00:04:35.583 --> 00:04:37.354 and knocked the middle guy out. 00:04:37.354 --> 00:04:39.567 The other guy was still working on me, 00:04:39.567 --> 00:04:41.432 collapsing my other lung, 00:04:41.432 --> 00:04:47.412 and I managed to, by hitting that guy, to get a minute. 00:04:47.412 --> 00:04:49.505 I ran down the street and collapsed, 00:04:49.505 --> 00:04:52.552 and the ambulance guys intubated me on the sidewalk 00:04:52.552 --> 00:04:55.025 and let the trauma room know 00:04:55.025 --> 00:04:56.643 they had an incoming. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:56.643 --> 00:04:59.642 And one of the 00:04:59.642 --> 00:05:03.583 side effects of having major massive blood loss 00:05:03.583 --> 00:05:05.430 is you get tunnel vision, 00:05:05.430 --> 00:05:07.243 so I remember being on the stretcher 00:05:07.243 --> 00:05:11.248 and having a little nickel-sized cone of vision, 00:05:11.248 --> 00:05:12.797 and I was moving my head around 00:05:12.797 --> 00:05:14.153 and we got to St. Vincent's, 00:05:14.153 --> 00:05:15.796 and we're racing down this hallway, 00:05:15.796 --> 00:05:18.064 and I see the lights going, 00:05:18.064 --> 00:05:24.792 and it's a peculiar effect of memories like that. 00:05:24.792 --> 00:05:28.971 They don't really go to the usual place that memories go. 00:05:28.971 --> 00:05:34.175 They kind of have this vault where they're stored in high-def, 00:05:34.175 --> 00:05:38.660 and George Lucas did all the sound effects. (Laughter) 00:05:38.660 --> 00:05:43.156 So sometimes, remembering them, it's like, 00:05:43.156 --> 00:05:46.880 it's not like any other kind of memories. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:46.880 --> 00:05:49.552 And I get into the trauma room, 00:05:49.552 --> 00:05:52.574 and they're waiting for me, and the lights are there, 00:05:52.574 --> 00:05:57.869 and I'd been able to breathe a little more now, 00:05:57.869 --> 00:06:01.348 because the blood has left, had been filling up my lungs 00:06:01.348 --> 00:06:03.314 and I was having a very hard time breathing, 00:06:03.314 --> 00:06:06.356 but now it's kind of gone into the stretcher. 00:06:06.356 --> 00:06:09.660 And I said, "Is there anything I can do to help?" 00:06:09.660 --> 00:06:11.432 and — (Laughter) — 00:06:11.432 --> 00:06:14.746 the nurse kind of had a hysterical laugh, and 00:06:14.746 --> 00:06:16.994 I'm turning my head trying to see everybody, 00:06:16.994 --> 00:06:20.810 and I had this weird memory of being in college 00:06:20.810 --> 00:06:23.722 and raising, 00:06:23.722 --> 00:06:27.779 raising money for the flood victims of Bangladesh, 00:06:27.779 --> 00:06:30.236 and then I look over and my anesthesiologist 00:06:30.236 --> 00:06:31.769 is clamping the mask on me, and I think, 00:06:31.769 --> 00:06:33.830 "He looks Bangladeshi," — (Laughter) — 00:06:33.830 --> 00:06:37.315 and I just have those two facts, and I just think, 00:06:37.315 --> 00:06:41.029 "This could work somehow." (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:06:41.029 --> 00:06:43.307 And then I go out, and 00:06:43.307 --> 00:06:45.083 they work on me for the rest of the night, 00:06:45.083 --> 00:06:50.096 and I needed about 40 units of blood to keep me there 00:06:50.096 --> 00:06:53.141 while they did their work, 00:06:53.141 --> 00:06:57.365 and the surgeon took out about a third of my intestines, 00:06:57.365 --> 00:07:00.784 my cecum, organs I didn't know that I had, 00:07:00.784 --> 00:07:03.155 and he later told me one of the last things he did 00:07:03.155 --> 00:07:06.500 while he was in there was to remove my appendix for me, 00:07:06.500 --> 00:07:08.723 which I thought was great, you know, 00:07:08.723 --> 00:07:11.886 just a little tidy thing there at the end. (Laughter) 00:07:11.886 --> 00:07:16.204 And I came to in the morning. 00:07:16.204 --> 00:07:18.020 Out of anesthetic, he had let them know 00:07:18.020 --> 00:07:21.508 that he wanted to be there, and he had given me 00:07:21.508 --> 00:07:24.703 about a two percent chance of living. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:24.703 --> 00:07:26.615 So he was there when I woke up, 00:07:26.615 --> 00:07:28.776 and it was, waking up was like 00:07:28.776 --> 00:07:34.993 breaking through the ice into a frozen lake of pain. 00:07:34.993 --> 00:07:37.096 It was that enveloping, 00:07:37.096 --> 00:07:41.268 and there was only one spot that didn't hurt 00:07:41.268 --> 00:07:42.741 worse than anything I'd ever felt, 00:07:42.741 --> 00:07:44.147 and it was my instep, 00:07:44.147 --> 00:07:47.893 and he was holding the arch of my foot 00:07:47.893 --> 00:07:51.761 and rubbing the instep with his thumb. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:51.761 --> 00:07:54.697 And I looked up, and he's like, 00:07:54.697 --> 00:07:55.818 "Good to see you," 00:07:55.818 --> 00:07:59.754 and I was trying to remember what had happened 00:07:59.754 --> 00:08:01.472 and trying to get my head around everything, 00:08:01.472 --> 00:08:05.529 and the pain was just overwhelming, and he said, 00:08:05.529 --> 00:08:08.905 "You know, we didn't cut your hair. I thought 00:08:08.905 --> 00:08:13.277 you might have gotten strength from your hair like Samson, 00:08:13.277 --> 00:08:16.060 and you're going to need all the strength you can get." 00:08:16.060 --> 00:08:19.769 And in those days, my hair was down to my waist, 00:08:19.769 --> 00:08:22.641 I drove a motorcycle, I was unmarried, 00:08:22.641 --> 00:08:27.950 I owned a bar, so those were different times. (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:08:27.950 --> 00:08:30.210 But 00:08:30.210 --> 00:08:33.182 I had three days of life support, 00:08:33.182 --> 00:08:36.963 and everybody was expecting, 00:08:36.963 --> 00:08:41.456 due to just the massive amount of what they had had to do 00:08:41.456 --> 00:08:43.284 that I wasn't going to make it, 00:08:43.284 --> 00:08:45.329 so it was three days of 00:08:45.329 --> 00:08:48.156 everybody was either waiting for me to die or poop, 00:08:48.156 --> 00:08:49.752 and — (Laughter) — 00:08:49.752 --> 00:08:52.711 when I finally pooped, then that somehow, 00:08:52.711 --> 00:08:56.118 surgically speaking, that's like you crossed some good line, 00:08:56.118 --> 00:08:57.158 and, um — (Laughter) — 00:08:57.158 --> 00:09:00.423 on that day, the surgeon came in 00:09:00.423 --> 00:09:03.615 and whipped the sheet off of me. 00:09:03.615 --> 00:09:05.276 He had three or four friends with him, 00:09:05.276 --> 00:09:07.678 and he does that, and they all look, 00:09:07.678 --> 00:09:09.559 and there was no infection, 00:09:09.559 --> 00:09:12.429 and they bend over me and they're poking and prodding, 00:09:12.429 --> 00:09:14.526 and they're like, "There's no hematomas, blah blah, 00:09:14.526 --> 00:09:17.396 look at the color," and they're talking amongst themselves 00:09:17.396 --> 00:09:20.319 and I'm, like, this restored automobile 00:09:20.319 --> 00:09:23.510 that he's just going, "Yeah, I did that." (Laughter) 00:09:23.510 --> 00:09:26.534 And it was just, 00:09:26.534 --> 00:09:29.670 it was amazing, because these guys are high-fiving him 00:09:29.670 --> 00:09:31.730 over how good I turned out, you know? (Laughter) 00:09:31.730 --> 00:09:35.251 And it's my zipper, and I've still got the staples in 00:09:35.251 --> 00:09:36.487 and everything. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:36.487 --> 00:09:38.702 And 00:09:38.702 --> 00:09:41.313 later on, when I got out 00:09:41.313 --> 00:09:46.925 and the flashbacks and the 00:09:46.925 --> 00:09:51.430 nightmares were giving me a hard time, 00:09:51.430 --> 00:09:53.112 I went back to him 00:09:53.112 --> 00:09:57.005 and I was sort of asking him, 00:09:57.005 --> 00:09:59.186 you know, what am I gonna do? 00:09:59.186 --> 00:10:03.794 And I think, kind of, as a surgeon, he basically said, 00:10:03.794 --> 00:10:05.520 "Kid, I saved your life. 00:10:05.520 --> 00:10:08.170 Like, now you can do whatever you want, like, 00:10:08.170 --> 00:10:09.836 you gotta get on with that. 00:10:09.836 --> 00:10:11.668 It's like I gave you a new car 00:10:11.668 --> 00:10:13.960 and you're complaining about not finding parking. 00:10:13.960 --> 00:10:17.561 Like, just, go out, and, you know, do your best. 00:10:17.561 --> 00:10:22.367 But you're alive. That's what it's about." NOTE Paragraph 00:10:22.367 --> 00:10:28.148 And then I hear, "Bing-bong," and the subway doors 00:10:28.148 --> 00:10:34.387 are closing, and my stop is next, and I look at these kids, 00:10:34.387 --> 00:10:36.256 and I go, I think to myself, 00:10:36.256 --> 00:10:37.818 "I'm going to lift my shirt up 00:10:37.818 --> 00:10:39.435 and show them," — (Laughter) — 00:10:39.435 --> 00:10:41.664 and then I think, "No, this is the New York City subway, 00:10:41.664 --> 00:10:45.295 that's going to lead to other things." (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:10:45.295 --> 00:10:49.337 And so I just think, they got their lecture to go to. 00:10:49.337 --> 00:10:53.298 I step off, I'm standing on the platform, 00:10:53.298 --> 00:10:56.162 and I feel my index finger 00:10:56.162 --> 00:10:58.341 in 00:10:58.341 --> 00:11:02.044 the first scar that I ever got, 00:11:02.044 --> 00:11:05.158 from my umbilical cord, 00:11:05.158 --> 00:11:08.396 and then around that, is traced 00:11:08.396 --> 00:11:10.892 the last scar that I got 00:11:10.892 --> 00:11:13.269 from my surgeon, 00:11:13.269 --> 00:11:18.583 and I think that, that chance encounter 00:11:18.583 --> 00:11:22.472 with those kids on the street with their knives 00:11:22.472 --> 00:11:24.905 led me 00:11:24.905 --> 00:11:28.030 to my surgical team, 00:11:28.030 --> 00:11:32.105 and their training 00:11:32.105 --> 00:11:34.221 and their skill 00:11:34.221 --> 00:11:37.641 and, always, a little bit of luck 00:11:37.641 --> 00:11:40.612 pushed back against chaos. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:40.612 --> 00:11:44.666 Thank you. (Applause) 00:11:44.666 --> 00:11:53.610 (Applause) 00:11:53.610 --> 00:12:00.030 Thank you. Very lucky to be here. Thank you. (Applause)