You know, we wake up in the morning, you get dressed, put on your shoes, you head out into the world. You plan on coming back, getting undressed, going to bed, waking up, doing it again, and that anticipation, that rhythm, helps give us a structure to how we organize ourselves and our lives, and gives it a measure of predictability. Living in New York City, as I do, it's almost as if, with so many people doing so many things at the same time in such close quarters, it's almost like life is dealing you extra hands out of that deck. You're never, there's just, juxtapositions are possible that just aren't, you don't think they're going to happen. And you never think you're going to be the guy who's walking down the street and, because you choose to go down one side or the other, the rest of your life is changed forever.
Znate, budimo se svakog jutra, obučete se, obujete, krenete među svet. Nameravate da se vratite, svučete, odete u krevet, budite se, opet sve iznova, i to očekivanje, taj ritam nam pomažu da imamo strukturu da organizujemo sebe i sopstvene živote i unesemo dozu predvidljivosti. Živeti u Njujorku, poput mene, uz toliko ljudi koji istovremeno obavljaju razne stvari u isto vreme u tako malom prostoru, to je kao da vam život postavlja dodatne prepreke. Moguća su povezivanja za koja vi mislite da ne mogu da se ostvare. I nikada ne mislite da ćete baš vi biti ti koji će da šetaju ulicom i samo zato što odlučite da idete jednom ili drugim stranom ulice, ostatak vašeg života se menja zauvek.
And one night, I'm riding the uptown local train. I get on. I tend to be a little bit vigilant when I get on the subway. I'm not one of the people zoning out with headphones or a book. And I get on the car, and I look, and I notice this couple, college-aged, student-looking kids, a guy and a girl, and they're sitting next to each other, and she's got her leg draped over his knee, and they're doing -- they have this little contraption, and they're tying these knots, and they're doing it with one hand, they're doing it left-handed and right-handed very quickly, and then she'll hand the thing to him and he'll do it. I've never seen anything like this. It's almost like they're practicing magic tricks.
Tako jedne večeri, vozim se lokalnim vozom za gornji deo grada. Uđem u voz. Pokušavam da budem obazriviji kad ulazim u podzemnu železnicu. Nisam od onih koji su odsutni uz slušalice ili knjigu. Uđem unutra i gledam, i primetim taj par, decu koja su, rekao bih, studenti, momak i devojka, sede jedno pored drugog, njena noga preko njegovog kolena, i prave - imaju tu malu čudnu spravu i vezuju čvorove, rade jednom rukom, desnom i levom rukom veoma brzo zatim mu ona to dodaje i on to radi. Nikada nisam video nešto slično. Čini se kao da uvežbavaju magične trikove.
And at the next stop, a guy gets on the car, and he has this sort of visiting professor look to him. He's got the overstuffed leather satchel and the rectangular file case and a laptop bag and the tweed jacket with the leather patches, and — (Laughter) — he looks at them, and then in a blink of an eye, he kneels down in front of them, and he starts to say, "You know, listen, here's how you can do it. Look, if you do this -- " and he takes the laces out of their hand, and instantly, he starts tying these knots, and even better than they were doing it, remarkably. And it turns out they are medical students on their way to a lecture about the latest suturing techniques, and he's the guy giving the lecture. (Laughter)
I na sledećoj stanici, neki čovek ulazi u vagon, koji izgleda poput nekog profesora. Ima pretrpanu kožnu torbu, pravougaonu fasciklu i torbu za laptop i jaknu od tvida s kožnim zakrpama i - (Smeh) - pogleda ih, i u tren oka kleči ispred njih i govori im: "Znate, slušajte, možete ovako da uradite. Pogledajte, ako uradite ovo -" i uzima im vezicu iz ruku i istog trenutka počinje da veže čvorove čak bolje nego što su oni to radili, izvanredno. I ispostavi se da su to studenti medicine koji su upravo krenuli na predavanje o najnovijim tehnikama ušivanja, a on je upravo taj predavač. (Smeh)
So he starts to tell them, and he's like, "No, this is very important here. You know, when you're needing these knots, it's going to be, you know, everything's going to be happening at the same time, it's going to be -- you're going to have all this information coming at you, there's going to be organs getting in the way, it's going to be slippery, and it's just very important that you be able to do these beyond second nature, each hand, left hand, right hand, you have to be able to do them without seeing your fingers." And at that moment, when I heard that, I just got catapulted out of the subway car into a night when I had been getting a ride in an ambulance from the sidewalk where I had been stabbed to the trauma room of St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan, and what had happened was a gang had come in from Brooklyn. As part of an initiation for three of their members, they had to kill somebody, and I happened to be the guy walking down Bleecker Street that night, and they jumped on me without a word. One of the very lucky things, when I was at Notre Dame, I was on the boxing team, so I put my hands up right away, instinctively. The guy on the right had a knife with a 10-inch blade, and he went in under my elbow, and it went up and cut my inferior vena cava. If you know anything about anatomy, that's not a good thing to get cut, and everything, of course, on the way up, and then — I still had my hands up — he pulled it out and went for my neck, and sunk it in up to the hilt in my neck, and I got one straight right punch and knocked the middle guy out. The other guy was still working on me, collapsing my other lung, and I managed to, by hitting that guy, to get a minute. I ran down the street and collapsed, and the ambulance guys intubated me on the sidewalk and let the trauma room know they had an incoming.
Dakle, počinje da im govori u stilu, "Ne, ovo ovde je veoma važno. Znate, kad su vam potrebni čvorovi, biće, znate, sve će da se dešava istovremeno - bićete zasuti s mnogo informacija, smetaće vam organi, biće klizavo i veoma je važno da možete tada da ovo uradite bez obzira na sve, s obe ruke, levom rukom, desnom rukom, morate to da uradite bez gledanja u svoje prste." I u tom trenutku, kad sam to čuo, odjednom sam se zamislio van podzemne železnice, negde u noći, kad su me vozili u ambulantnim kolima, pokupivši me sa trotoara gde sam bio izboden, i voze me u salu bolnice Svetog Vinsenta na Menhetnu. Desilo se da se pojavila banda iz Bruklina. Čin inicijacije za trojicu članova bande bio je da nekog ubiju, i desilo se da sam ja bio taj koji je šetao Bliker ulicom te noći i zaskočili su me bez reči. Jedna od srećnijih okolnosti je da sam, kada sam bio u Notr Damu, bio član bokserskog tima, pa sam insinktivno istog trena podigao šake. Momak s desna je imao nož sa 25 cm dugom oštricom, zario ju je ispod mog lakta povukao na gore i presekao mi donju venu zaduženu za dotok krvi u srce. Ako znate išta iz anatomije, to nije najbolji izbor za preseći i sve na gore, naravno, i tada - još uvek su mi ruke bile podignute - izvadio ga je i krenuo ka mom vratu, i zario do balčaka. Ja sam zamahnuo desnicom i srušio srednjeg tipa. Drugi momak se još bavio mnome, udarao drugo plućno krilo. Nakon što sam ga udario, uspeo sam da dobijem minut vremena. Potrčao sam niz ulicu i srušio se i bolničari su me intubirali na trotoaru i pozvali salu da jave da stiže pacijent.
And one of the side effects of having major massive blood loss is you get tunnel vision, so I remember being on the stretcher and having a little nickel-sized cone of vision, and I was moving my head around and we got to St. Vincent's, and we're racing down this hallway, and I see the lights going, and it's a peculiar effect of memories like that. They don't really go to the usual place that memories go. They kind of have this vault where they're stored in high-def, and George Lucas did all the sound effects. (Laughter) So sometimes, remembering them, it's like, it's not like any other kind of memories.
I jedan od efekata prilikom gubitka velike količine krvi je što imate polusvesna sećanja. Sećam se da sam bio na nosilima i video kao kroz malu kupu, pomerao sam glavu. Stigli smo u Sveti Vinsent bolnicu, jurimo niz hodnik, vidim svetla, i to je čudan efekat sećanja. Ta sećanja nisu gde i ostala. Kao da imaju sef u kome su pohranjena u visokoj rezoluciji i Džordž Lukas im je sredio sve zvučne efekte. (Smeh) Ponekad, sećajući se toga, kao da nije bilo kakvo sećanje.
And I get into the trauma room, and they're waiting for me, and the lights are there, and I'd been able to breathe a little more now, because the blood has left, had been filling up my lungs and I was having a very hard time breathing, but now it's kind of gone into the stretcher. And I said, "Is there anything I can do to help?" and — (Laughter) — the nurse kind of had a hysterical laugh, and I'm turning my head trying to see everybody, and I had this weird memory of being in college and raising, raising money for the flood victims of Bangladesh, and then I look over and my anesthesiologist is clamping the mask on me, and I think, "He looks Bangladeshi," — (Laughter) — and I just have those two facts, and I just think, "This could work somehow." (Laughter)
Ulazim u salu, čekaju me, svetla su upaljena, mogao sam malo da dišem jer je krv, koja je ispunjavala moja pluća, nestala i teško sam disao, a sada kao da je sve ostalo na nosilima. I pitao sam: "Mogu li nekako da pomognem?" i - (Smeh) - sestra se počela malo histerično smejati i ja okrećem glavu pokušavajući da vidim sve, i setim se čudnog trenutka kad sam studirao i skupljao novac za žrtve poplave u Bangladešu. Zatim pogledam s druge strane i moj anesteziolog stavlja masku na mene i, mislim, "Izgleda kao da je iz Bangladeša", - (Smeh) - i samo su mi te dve stvari bile u glavi, i samo sam mislio "Ovo bi nekako moglo da uspe." (Smeh)
And then I go out, and they work on me for the rest of the night, and I needed about 40 units of blood to keep me there while they did their work, and the surgeon took out about a third of my intestines, my cecum, organs I didn't know that I had, and he later told me one of the last things he did while he was in there was to remove my appendix for me, which I thought was great, you know, just a little tidy thing there at the end. (Laughter) And I came to in the morning. Out of anesthetic, he had let them know that he wanted to be there, and he had given me about a two percent chance of living.
Zatim sam zaspao, rade na meni ostatak noći, i trebalo im je 40 jedinica krvi za mene dok su radili. Hirurg je izvadio skoro trećinu mojih creva moje slepo crevo, organe koje nisam ni znao da imam, i posle mi je rekao da je, poslednja stvar koju je uradio dok sam bio otvoren, otklonio moj crvuljak i smatrao sam da je to odlično, znate, jedna mala uredna stvar na kraju. (Smeh) I došao sam sebi ujutro. Iz anestezije, rekao im je da ga obaveste jer je hteo da bude tamo i rekao mi je da imam dva posto šanse da preživim.
So he was there when I woke up, and it was, waking up was like breaking through the ice into a frozen lake of pain. It was that enveloping, and there was only one spot that didn't hurt worse than anything I'd ever felt, and it was my instep, and he was holding the arch of my foot and rubbing the instep with his thumb.
Bio je prisutan kad sam se probudio, i bilo je, buđenje je bilo kao probijanje leda u zamrznutom jezeru bola. Bilo je toliko okružujuće i samo jedna tačka nije bolela, gore od svega što sam ikada osećao i to je bio moj gornji deo tabana i držao je luk mog stopala i trljao gornji deo svojim palcem.
And I looked up, and he's like, "Good to see you," and I was trying to remember what had happened and trying to get my head around everything, and the pain was just overwhelming, and he said, "You know, we didn't cut your hair. I thought you might have gotten strength from your hair like Samson, and you're going to need all the strength you can get." And in those days, my hair was down to my waist, I drove a motorcycle, I was unmarried, I owned a bar, so those were different times. (Laughter)
Pogledao sam ga, a on je rekao: "Drago mi je što te vidim", a ja sam pokušavao da se setim šta se desilo i pokušao sve da shvatim, bol me je nadvladavala i rekao mi je: "Znaš, nismo te šišali. Pomislio sam da ti snaga dolazi iz kose, kao kod Samsona, a trebaće ti sva snaga koju imaš." Tih dana, kosa mi je bila do struka, vozio sam motor, nisam bio oženjen. Imao sam kafić, dakle, to su bila druga vremena. (Smeh)
But I had three days of life support, and everybody was expecting, due to just the massive amount of what they had had to do that I wasn't going to make it, so it was three days of everybody was either waiting for me to die or poop, and — (Laughter) — when I finally pooped, then that somehow, surgically speaking, that's like you crossed some good line, and, um — (Laughter) — on that day, the surgeon came in and whipped the sheet off of me. He had three or four friends with him, and he does that, and they all look, and there was no infection, and they bend over me and they're poking and prodding, and they're like, "There's no hematomas, blah blah, look at the color," and they're talking amongst themselves and I'm, like, this restored automobile that he's just going, "Yeah, I did that." (Laughter) And it was just, it was amazing, because these guys are high-fiving him over how good I turned out, you know? (Laughter) And it's my zipper, and I've still got the staples in and everything.
Međutim, bio sam tri dana na aparatima i svi su očekivali, s obzirom na masu stvari koje su morali da urade na meni, da neću uspeti. Dakle, to su bila tri dana kada su čekali da ili umrem ili obavim nuždu i - (Smeh) kada sam konačno obavio nuždu, hirurški rečeno, kao da sam prešao liniju i - (Smeh) tog dana je hirurg ušao i strgao pokrivač sa mene. S njim su bila trojica ili četvorica prijatelja, a on je to uradio, oni su pogledali nije bilo infekcije, nagnuli su se preko mene, pipkaju i gurkaju i kažu: "Nema hematoma, bla, bla, pogledaj boju kože", i pričaju među sobom a ja sam kao popravljen automobil, lekar govori: "Da, ja sam uradio to." (Smeh) To je bilo neverovatno, jer su mu čestitali zbog mog stanja, znate? (Smeh) To je moj rajsferšlus i još uvek imam konce unutra i sve.
And later on, when I got out and the flashbacks and the nightmares were giving me a hard time, I went back to him and I was sort of asking him, you know, what am I gonna do? And I think, kind of, as a surgeon, he basically said, "Kid, I saved your life. Like, now you can do whatever you want, like, you gotta get on with that. It's like I gave you a new car and you're complaining about not finding parking. Like, just, go out, and, you know, do your best. But you're alive. That's what it's about."
I, kasnije, kad sam izašao, i sećanja i noćne more počele, otišao sam kod njega i upitao ga, znate, šta da radim? I mislim da je, kao hirurg, samo rekao: "Momče, spasao sam ti život. U smislu, sad možeš da radiš šta hoćeš, moraš da živiš s tim. Kao da sam ti dao novi auto, a ti se žališ kako nema parking mesta. Izađi i daj sve od sebe. Živ si. To je ono što je važno."
And then I hear, "Bing-bong," and the subway doors are closing, and my stop is next, and I look at these kids, and I go, I think to myself, "I'm going to lift my shirt up and show them," — (Laughter) — and then I think, "No, this is the New York City subway, that's going to lead to other things." (Laughter)
I onda sam čuo, "Bing- bong" i vrata podzemne železnice su se zatvarala i moja stanica je sledeća, pogledao sam tu decu, i pomislio, "Podići ću majicu i pokazaću im" - (Smeh) i zatim pomislih: "Ne, ovo je podzemna železnica Njujorka, to će značiti neke druge stvari." (Smeh)
And so I just think, they got their lecture to go to. I step off, I'm standing on the platform, and I feel my index finger in the first scar that I ever got, from my umbilical cord, and then around that, is traced the last scar that I got from my surgeon, and I think that, that chance encounter with those kids on the street with their knives led me to my surgical team, and their training and their skill and, always, a little bit of luck pushed back against chaos.
I samo pomislih, moraju na predavanje. Iskoračio sam, stojim na peronu, i osetim svoj kažiprst kako dodiruje moj prvi ožiljak u životu, od moje pupčane vrpce, i oko toga je poslednji ožiljak koji imam s operacije i mislim da me je taj slučajni susret sa tom decom na ulici s noževima, vodio do mog hirurškog tima, a njihova praksa, veština, i uvek pomalo sreće bili su nasuprot haosa.
Thank you. (Applause) (Applause) Thank you. Very lucky to be here. Thank you. (Applause)
Hvala. (Aplauz) (Aplauz) Hvala lepo. Veoma sam srećan što sam ovde. Hvala vam. (Aplauz)