0:00:00.000,0:00:02.000
I'm actually going to share something with you

0:00:02.000,0:00:05.000
I haven't talked about probably in more than 10 years.

0:00:05.000,0:00:07.000
So bear with me

0:00:07.000,0:00:09.000
as I take you through this journey.

0:00:09.000,0:00:11.000
When I was 22 years old,

0:00:11.000,0:00:14.000
I came home from work, put a leash on my dog

0:00:14.000,0:00:17.000
and went for my usual run.

0:00:17.000,0:00:19.000
I had no idea that at that moment

0:00:19.000,0:00:21.000
my life was going to change forever.

0:00:21.000,0:00:24.000
While I was preparing my dog for the run,

0:00:24.000,0:00:28.000
a man was finishing drinking at a bar,

0:00:28.000,0:00:30.000
picked up his car keys, got into a car

0:00:30.000,0:00:32.000
and headed south,

0:00:32.000,0:00:34.000
or wherever he was.

0:00:34.000,0:00:36.000
I was running across the street,

0:00:36.000,0:00:38.000
and the only thing that I actually remember

0:00:38.000,0:00:41.000
is feeling like a grenade went off in my head.

0:00:41.000,0:00:45.000
And I remember putting my hands on the ground

0:00:45.000,0:00:47.000
and feeling my life's blood

0:00:47.000,0:00:49.000
emptying out of my neck

0:00:49.000,0:00:52.000
and my mouth.

0:00:52.000,0:00:54.000
What had happened

0:00:54.000,0:00:57.000
is he ran a red light and hit me and my dog.

0:00:57.000,0:01:00.000
She ended up underneath the car.

0:01:00.000,0:01:02.000
I flew out in front of the car,

0:01:02.000,0:01:04.000
and then he ran over my legs.

0:01:04.000,0:01:06.000
My left leg got caught up in the wheel well --

0:01:06.000,0:01:08.000
spun it around.

0:01:10.000,0:01:13.000
The bumper of the car hit my throat,

0:01:13.000,0:01:15.000
slicing it open.

0:01:15.000,0:01:18.000
I ended up with blunt chest trauma.

0:01:18.000,0:01:20.000
Your aorta comes up behind your heart.

0:01:20.000,0:01:23.000
It's your major artery, and it was severed,

0:01:23.000,0:01:26.000
so my blood was gurgling out of my mouth.

0:01:26.000,0:01:28.000
It foamed,

0:01:28.000,0:01:30.000
and horrible things were happening to me.

0:01:32.000,0:01:34.000
I had no idea what was going on,

0:01:34.000,0:01:37.000
but strangers intervened,

0:01:37.000,0:01:40.000
kept my heart moving, beating.

0:01:40.000,0:01:42.000
I say moving because it was quivering

0:01:42.000,0:01:45.000
and they were trying to put a beat back into it.

0:01:45.000,0:01:48.000
Somebody was smart and put a Bic pen in my neck

0:01:48.000,0:01:51.000
to open up my airway so that I could get some air in there.

0:01:51.000,0:01:53.000
And my lung collapsed,

0:01:53.000,0:01:56.000
so somebody cut me open and put a pin in there as well

0:01:56.000,0:02:03.000
to stop that catastrophic event from happening.

0:02:03.000,0:02:05.000
Somehow I ended up at the hospital.

0:02:05.000,0:02:07.000
I was wrapped in ice

0:02:07.000,0:02:11.000
and then eventually put into a drug-induced coma.

0:02:11.000,0:02:15.000
18 months later I woke up.

0:02:15.000,0:02:17.000
I was blind, I couldn't speak,

0:02:17.000,0:02:19.000
and I couldn't walk.

0:02:19.000,0:02:22.000
I was 64 lbs.

0:02:25.000,0:02:27.000
The hospital really has no idea

0:02:27.000,0:02:29.000
what to do with people like that.

0:02:29.000,0:02:32.000
And in fact, they started to call me a Gomer.

0:02:32.000,0:02:36.000
That's another story we won't even get into.

0:02:36.000,0:02:39.000
I had so many surgeries to put my neck back together,

0:02:39.000,0:02:41.000
to repair my heart a few times.

0:02:41.000,0:02:43.000
Some things worked, some things didn't.

0:02:43.000,0:02:45.000
I had lots of titanium put in me,

0:02:45.000,0:02:47.000
cadaver bones

0:02:47.000,0:02:50.000
to try to get my feet moving the right way.

0:02:50.000,0:02:52.000
And I ended up with a plastic nose, porcelain teeth

0:02:52.000,0:02:54.000
and all kinds of other things.

0:02:54.000,0:02:57.000
But eventually I started to look human again.

0:03:03.000,0:03:05.000
But it's hard sometimes to talk about these things,

0:03:05.000,0:03:08.000
so bear with me.

0:03:08.000,0:03:10.000
I had more than 50 surgeries.

0:03:10.000,0:03:13.000
But who's counting?

0:03:13.000,0:03:15.000
So eventually, the hospital decided

0:03:15.000,0:03:17.000
it was time for me to go.

0:03:17.000,0:03:19.000
They needed to open up space

0:03:19.000,0:03:23.000
for somebody else that they thought could come back

0:03:23.000,0:03:26.000
from whatever they were going through.

0:03:26.000,0:03:29.000
Everybody lost faith in me being able to recover.

0:03:29.000,0:03:32.000
So they basically put a map up on the wall, threw a dart,

0:03:32.000,0:03:37.000
and it landed at a senior home here in Colorado.

0:03:37.000,0:03:39.000
And I know all of you are scratching your head:

0:03:39.000,0:03:42.000
"A senior citizens' home? What in the world are you going to do there?"

0:03:42.000,0:03:44.000
But if you think about

0:03:44.000,0:03:47.000
all of the skills and talent that are in this room right now,

0:03:47.000,0:03:49.000
that's what a senior home has.

0:03:49.000,0:03:51.000
So there were all these skills and talents

0:03:51.000,0:03:54.000
that these seniors had.

0:03:54.000,0:03:56.000
The one advantage that they had over most of you

0:03:56.000,0:03:58.000
is wisdom,

0:03:58.000,0:04:01.000
because they had a long life.

0:04:01.000,0:04:03.000
And I needed that wisdom at that moment in my life.

0:04:03.000,0:04:05.000
But imagine what it was like for them

0:04:05.000,0:04:08.000
when I showed up at their doorstep?

0:04:08.000,0:04:10.000
At that point, I had gained four pounds,

0:04:10.000,0:04:12.000
so I was 68 lbs.

0:04:12.000,0:04:14.000
I was bald.

0:04:14.000,0:04:16.000
I was wearing hospital scrubs.

0:04:16.000,0:04:19.000
And somebody donated tennis shoes for me.

0:04:19.000,0:04:22.000
And I had a white cane in one hand

0:04:22.000,0:04:25.000
and a suitcase full of medical records in another hand.

0:04:25.000,0:04:28.000
And so the senior citizens realized

0:04:28.000,0:04:30.000
that they needed to have an emergency meeting.

0:04:30.000,0:04:32.000
(Laughter)

0:04:32.000,0:04:35.000
So they pulled back and they were looking at each other,

0:04:35.000,0:04:39.000
and they were going, "Okay, what skills do we have in this room?

0:04:39.000,0:04:42.000
This kid needs a lot of work."

0:04:42.000,0:04:44.000
So they eventually started

0:04:44.000,0:04:46.000
matching their talents and skills

0:04:46.000,0:04:48.000
to all of my needs.

0:04:48.000,0:04:50.000
But one of the first things they needed to do

0:04:50.000,0:04:52.000
was assess what I needed right away.

0:04:52.000,0:04:54.000
I needed to figure out

0:04:54.000,0:04:56.000
how to eat like a normal human being,

0:04:56.000,0:04:59.000
since I'd been eating through a tube in my chest

0:04:59.000,0:05:01.000
and through my veins.

0:05:01.000,0:05:04.000
So I had to go through trying to eat again.

0:05:04.000,0:05:06.000
And they went through that process.

0:05:06.000,0:05:08.000
And then they had to figure out:

0:05:08.000,0:05:10.000
"Well she needs furniture.

0:05:10.000,0:05:13.000
She is sleeping in the corner of this apartment."

0:05:13.000,0:05:15.000
So they went to their storage lockers

0:05:15.000,0:05:17.000
and all gathered their extra furniture --

0:05:17.000,0:05:20.000
gave me pots and pans, blankets,

0:05:20.000,0:05:23.000
everything.

0:05:23.000,0:05:25.000
And then the next thing that I needed

0:05:25.000,0:05:28.000
was a makeover.

0:05:28.000,0:05:30.000
So out went the green scrubs

0:05:30.000,0:05:33.000
and in came the polyester and floral prints.

0:05:33.000,0:05:36.000
(Laughter)

0:05:38.000,0:05:41.000
We're not going to talk about the hairstyles that they tried to force on me

0:05:41.000,0:05:43.000
once my hair grew back.

0:05:43.000,0:05:45.000
But I did say no to the blue hair.

0:05:45.000,0:05:48.000
(Laughter)

0:05:49.000,0:05:52.000
So eventually what went on

0:05:52.000,0:05:55.000
is they decided that, well I need to learn to speak.

0:05:55.000,0:05:57.000
So you can't be an independent person

0:05:57.000,0:06:00.000
if you're not able to speak and can't see.

0:06:00.000,0:06:03.000
So they figured not being able to see is one thing,

0:06:03.000,0:06:05.000
but they need to get me to talk.

0:06:05.000,0:06:08.000
So while Sally, the office manager,

0:06:08.000,0:06:10.000
was teaching me to speak in the day --

0:06:10.000,0:06:12.000
it's hard, because when you're a kid,

0:06:12.000,0:06:14.000
you take things for granted.

0:06:14.000,0:06:16.000
You learn things unconsciously.

0:06:16.000,0:06:19.000
But for me, I was an adult and it was embarrassing,

0:06:19.000,0:06:21.000
and I had to learn how to coordinate

0:06:21.000,0:06:23.000
my new throat with my tongue

0:06:23.000,0:06:26.000
and my new teeth and my lips,

0:06:26.000,0:06:29.000
and capture the air and get the word out.

0:06:29.000,0:06:31.000
So I acted like a two-year-old

0:06:31.000,0:06:33.000
and refused to work.

0:06:33.000,0:06:36.000
But the men had a better idea.

0:06:36.000,0:06:38.000
They were going to make it fun for me.

0:06:38.000,0:06:42.000
So they were teaching me cuss word Scrabble at night,

0:06:42.000,0:06:46.000
(Laughter)

0:06:46.000,0:06:48.000
and then, secretly,

0:06:48.000,0:06:51.000
how to swear like a sailor.

0:06:51.000,0:06:55.000
So I'm going to just leave it to your imagination

0:06:55.000,0:06:59.000
as to what my first words were

0:06:59.000,0:07:02.000
when Sally finally got my confidence built.

0:07:02.000,0:07:04.000
(Laughter)

0:07:04.000,0:07:06.000
So I moved on from there.

0:07:06.000,0:07:09.000
And a former teacher who happened to have Alzheimer's

0:07:09.000,0:07:13.000
took on the task of teaching me to write.

0:07:13.000,0:07:15.000
The redundancy was actually good for me.

0:07:15.000,0:07:17.000
So we'll just keep moving on.

0:07:17.000,0:07:22.000
(Laughter)

0:07:23.000,0:07:26.000
One of the pivotal times for me

0:07:26.000,0:07:29.000
was actually learning to cross a street again

0:07:29.000,0:07:31.000
as a blind person.

0:07:31.000,0:07:34.000
So close your eyes.

0:07:34.000,0:07:36.000
Now imagine you have to cross a street.

0:07:36.000,0:07:40.000
You don't know how far that street is

0:07:40.000,0:07:43.000
and you don't know if you're going straight

0:07:43.000,0:07:46.000
and you hear cars whizzing back and forth,

0:07:46.000,0:07:48.000
and you had a horrible accident

0:07:48.000,0:07:51.000
that landed you in this situation.

0:07:51.000,0:07:54.000
So there were two obstacles I had to get through.

0:07:54.000,0:07:57.000
One was post-traumatic stress disorder.

0:07:57.000,0:08:01.000
And every time I approached the corner or the curb

0:08:01.000,0:08:03.000
I would panic.

0:08:03.000,0:08:05.000
And the second one

0:08:05.000,0:08:08.000
was actually trying to figure out how to cross that street.

0:08:08.000,0:08:11.000
So one of the seniors just came up to me,

0:08:11.000,0:08:14.000
and she pushed me up to the corner and she said,

0:08:14.000,0:08:17.000
"When you think it's time to go, just stick the cane out there.

0:08:17.000,0:08:19.000
If it's hit, don't cross the street."

0:08:19.000,0:08:24.000
(Laughter)

0:08:24.000,0:08:27.000
Made perfect sense.

0:08:27.000,0:08:29.000
But by the third cane

0:08:29.000,0:08:32.000
that went whizzing across the road,

0:08:32.000,0:08:35.000
they realized that they needed to put the resources together,

0:08:35.000,0:08:37.000
and they raised funds

0:08:37.000,0:08:39.000
so that I could go to the Braille Institute

0:08:39.000,0:08:41.000
and actually gain the skills

0:08:41.000,0:08:43.000
to be a blind person,

0:08:43.000,0:08:45.000
and also to go get a guide dog

0:08:45.000,0:08:47.000
who transformed my life.

0:08:47.000,0:08:49.000
And I was able to return to college

0:08:49.000,0:08:53.000
because of the senior citizens who invested in me,

0:08:53.000,0:08:57.000
and also the guide dog and skill set I had gained.

0:08:57.000,0:08:59.000
10 years later I gained my sight back.

0:08:59.000,0:09:01.000
Not magically.

0:09:01.000,0:09:04.000
I opted in for three surgeries,

0:09:04.000,0:09:06.000
and one of them was experimental.

0:09:06.000,0:09:08.000
It was actually robotic surgery.

0:09:08.000,0:09:11.000
They removed a hematoma from behind my eye.

0:09:12.000,0:09:14.000
The biggest change for me

0:09:14.000,0:09:17.000
was that the world moved forward,

0:09:17.000,0:09:19.000
that there were innovations

0:09:19.000,0:09:21.000
and all kinds of new things --

0:09:21.000,0:09:23.000
cellphones, laptops,

0:09:23.000,0:09:26.000
all these things that I had never seen before.

0:09:26.000,0:09:28.000
And as a blind person,

0:09:28.000,0:09:30.000
your visual memory fades

0:09:30.000,0:09:33.000
and is replaced with how you feel about things

0:09:33.000,0:09:36.000
and how things sound

0:09:36.000,0:09:39.000
and how things smell.

0:09:39.000,0:09:41.000
So one day I was in my room

0:09:41.000,0:09:43.000
and I saw this thing sitting in my room

0:09:43.000,0:09:45.000
and I thought it was a monster.

0:09:45.000,0:09:47.000
So I was walking around it.

0:09:47.000,0:09:49.000
And I go, "I'm just going to touch it."

0:09:49.000,0:09:51.000
And I touched it and I went,

0:09:51.000,0:09:53.000
"Oh my God, it's a laundry basket."

0:09:53.000,0:09:57.000
(Laughter)

0:09:57.000,0:09:59.000
So everything is different

0:09:59.000,0:10:01.000
when you're a sighted person

0:10:01.000,0:10:03.000
because you take that for granted.

0:10:03.000,0:10:05.000
But when you're blind,

0:10:05.000,0:10:08.000
you have the tactile memory for things.

0:10:08.000,0:10:11.000
The biggest change for me was looking down at my hands

0:10:11.000,0:10:15.000
and seeing that I'd lost 10 years of my life.

0:10:15.000,0:10:18.000
I thought that time had stood still for some reason

0:10:18.000,0:10:20.000
and moved on for family and friends.

0:10:20.000,0:10:22.000
But when I looked down,

0:10:22.000,0:10:24.000
I realized that time marched on for me too

0:10:24.000,0:10:26.000
and that I needed to get caught up,

0:10:26.000,0:10:28.000
so I got going on it.

0:10:28.000,0:10:32.000
We didn't have words like crowd-sourcing and radical collaboration

0:10:32.000,0:10:34.000
when I had my accident.

0:10:34.000,0:10:36.000
But the concept held true --

0:10:36.000,0:10:39.000
people working with people to rebuild me;

0:10:39.000,0:10:41.000
people working with people to re-educate me.

0:10:41.000,0:10:43.000
I wouldn't be standing here today

0:10:43.000,0:10:47.000
if it wasn't for extreme radical collaboration.

0:10:47.000,0:10:49.000
Thank you so much.

0:10:49.000,0:10:51.000
(Applause)