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I'm actually going to share
something with you

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I haven't talked about
probably in more than 10 years.

3
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So bear with me as I take you
through this journey.

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When I was 22 years old,

5
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I came home from work,
put a leash on my dog

6
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and went for my usual run.

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I had no idea that at that moment,

8
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my life was going to change forever.

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While I was preparing my dog for the run,

10
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a man was finishing drinking at a bar,

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picked up his car keys, got into a car

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and headed south,

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or wherever he was.

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I was running across the street,

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and the only thing
that I actually remember

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is feeling like a grenade
went off in my head.

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And I remember
putting my hands on the ground

18
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and feeling my life's blood

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emptying out of my neck and my mouth.

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What had happened is, he ran a red light

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and hit me and my dog.

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She ended up underneath the car.

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I flew out in front of the car,

24
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and then he ran over my legs.

25
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My left leg got caught up
in the wheel well --

26
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spun it around.

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The bumper of the car hit my throat,

28
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slicing it open.

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I ended up with blunt chest trauma.

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Your aorta comes up behind your heart,
it's your major artery --

31
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and it was severed, so my blood
was gurgling out of my mouth.

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It foamed, and ... horrible things
were happening to me.

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I had no idea what was going on,

34
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but strangers intervened,

35
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kept my heart moving, beating.

36
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I say "moving," because it was quivering,

37
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and they were trying to put
a beat back into it.

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Somebody was smart
and put a Bic pen in my neck

39
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to open up my airway,
so I could get some air in there.

40
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And my lung collapsed,

41
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so somebody cut me open
and put a pen in there as well,

42
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to stop that catastrophic
event from happening.

43
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Somehow I ended up at the hospital.

44
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I was wrapped in ice,

45
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and then eventually put
into a drug-induced coma.

46
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Eighteen months later, I woke up.

47
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I was blind, I couldn't speak

48
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and I couldn't walk.

49
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I was 64 pounds.

50
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The hospital really has no idea
what to do with people like that.

51
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And in fact, they started
to call me a "gomer."

52
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That's another story
we won't even get into.

53
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I had so many surgeries
to put my neck back together,

54
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to repair my heart a few times.

55
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Some things worked, some things didn't.

56
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I had lots of titanium put in me;

57
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cadaver bones,

58
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to try to get my feet
moving the right way.

59
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And I ended up with a plastic nose,

60
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porcelain teeth
and all kinds of other things.

61
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But eventually,
I started to look human again.

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But ...

63
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It's hard sometimes
to talk about these things,

64
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so bear with me.

65
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I had more than 50 surgeries.

66
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But who's counting?

67
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(Laughter)

68
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So eventually, the hospital decided
it was time for me to go.

69
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They needed to open up
space for somebody else

70
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that they thought could come back

71
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from whatever they were going through.

72
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Everybody lost faith in me
being able to recover.

73
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So they basically put a map
up on the wall, threw a dart,

74
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and it landed at a senior home,
here in Colorado.

75
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And I know all of you
are scratching your head:

76
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"A senior citizens' home?

77
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What in the world
are you going to do there?"

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But if you think about
all of the skills and talent

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that are in this room right now,

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that's what a senior home has.

81
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So there were all these skills and talents

82
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that these seniors had.

83
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The one advantage
they had over most of you

84
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is wisdom,

85
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because they had a long life.

86
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And I needed that wisdom
at that moment in my life.

87
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But imagine what it was like for them

88
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when I showed up at their doorstep.

89
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At that point, I had gained
four pounds, so I was 68 pounds.

90
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I was bald.

91
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I was wearing hospital scrubs.

92
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And somebody donated tennis shoes for me.

93
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And I had a white cane in one hand

94
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and a suitcase full of medical
records in another hand.

95
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So the senior citizens realized

96
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that they needed to have
an emergency meeting.

97
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(Laughter)

98
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So they pulled back
and they were looking at each other,

99
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and they were going, "OK,
what skills do we have in this room?

100
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This kid needs a lot of work."

101
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So they eventually started
matching their talents and skills

102
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to all of my needs.

103
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But one of the first things
they needed to do

104
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was assess what I needed right away.

105
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I needed to figure out how to eat
like a normal human being,

106
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since I'd been eating
through a tube in my chest

107
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and through my veins.

108
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So I had to go
through trying to eat again.

109
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And they went through that process.

110
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And then they had to figure out:

111
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"Well, she needs furniture.

112
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She is sleeping in the corner
of this apartment."

113
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So they went to their storage lockers

114
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and all gathered their extra furniture --

115
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gave me pots and pans, blankets --

116
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everything.

117
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And then the next thing that I needed

118
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was a makeover.

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(Laughter)

120
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So out went the green scrubs,

121
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and in came the polyester
and floral prints.

122
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(Laughter)

123
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We're not going to talk
about the hairstyles

124
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they tried to force on me
once my hair grew back.

125
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But I did say no to the blue hair.

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(Laughter)

127
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So eventually, what went on is,

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they decided that, well,
I need to learn to speak.

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You can't be an independent person

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if you're not able to speak
and you can't see.

131
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So they figured not being able
to see is one thing,

132
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but they need to get me to talk.

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So while Sally, the office manager,

134
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was teaching me to speak in the day --

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it's hard, because when you're a kid,
you take things for granted.

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You learn things unconsciously.

137
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But for me, I was an adult
and it was embarrassing,

138
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and I had to learn how to coordinate
my new throat with my tongue

139
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and my new teeth and my lips,

140
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and capture the air and get the word out.

141
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So, I acted like a two-year-old,

142
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and refused to work.

143
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But the men had a better idea.

144
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They were going to make it fun for me.

145
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So they were teaching me
cuss-word Scrabble at night.

146
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(Laughter)

147
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And then, secretly,
how to swear like a sailor.

148
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(Laughter)

149
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I'm going to just leave it
to your imagination

150
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as to what my first words were --

151
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(Laughter)

152
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when Sally finally got
my confidence built.

153
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(Laughter)

154
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So I moved on from there.

155
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And a former teacher
who happened to have Alzheimer's

156
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took on the task of teaching me to write.

157
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The redundancy was actually good for me.

158
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So, we'll just keep moving on.

159
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(Laughter)

160
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One of the pivotal times for me

161
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was actually learning
to cross the street again

162
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as a blind person.

163
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So close your eyes.

164
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Now imagine you have to cross a street.

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You don't know how far that street is,

166
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and you don't know
if you're going straight.

167
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And you hear cars whizzing back and forth,

168
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and you had a horrible accident

169
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that landed you in this situation.

170
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So there were two obstacles
I had to get through.

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One was post-traumatic stress disorder.

172
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Every time I approached
the corner or the curb,

173
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I would panic.

174
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And the second one

175
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was actually trying to figure out
how to cross that street.

176
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So one of the seniors just came up to me,

177
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and she pushed me
up to the corner and said,

178
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"When you think it's time to go,
just stick the cane out there.

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If it's hit, don't cross the street."

180
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(Laughter)

181
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Made perfect sense.

182
00:08:26,604 --> 00:08:27,741
(Laughter)

183
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But by the third cane
that went whizzing across the road --

184
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(Laughter)

185
00:08:32,753 --> 00:08:35,810
they realized that they needed
to put their resources together,

186
00:08:35,834 --> 00:08:37,304
and they raised funds

187
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so that I could go
to the Braille Institute

188
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and actually gain the skills
to be a blind person,

189
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and also to go get a guide dog,

190
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who transformed my life.

191
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And I was able to return to college

192
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because of the senior citizens
who invested in me,

193
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and also the guide dog
and skill set I had gained.

194
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Ten years later, I gained my sight back.

195
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Not magically --

196
00:09:01,865 --> 00:09:04,834
I opted in for three surgeries,

197
00:09:04,858 --> 00:09:06,728
and one of them was experimental.

198
00:09:06,752 --> 00:09:08,476
It was actually robotic surgery

199
00:09:08,500 --> 00:09:10,998
that removed a hematoma
from behind my eye.

200
00:09:13,096 --> 00:09:17,925
The biggest change for me
was that the world moved forward,

201
00:09:17,949 --> 00:09:21,991
that there were innovations
and all kinds of new things --

202
00:09:22,015 --> 00:09:23,944
cellphones, laptops,

203
00:09:23,968 --> 00:09:26,615
all these things
that I had never seen before.

204
00:09:26,639 --> 00:09:28,291
And as a blind person,

205
00:09:28,315 --> 00:09:30,834
your visual memory fades,

206
00:09:30,858 --> 00:09:34,876
and is replaced with how you
feel about things

207
00:09:34,900 --> 00:09:36,719
and how things sound

208
00:09:36,743 --> 00:09:38,100
and how things smell.

209
00:09:39,500 --> 00:09:41,986
So one day, I was in my room

210
00:09:42,010 --> 00:09:44,083
and I saw this thing sitting in my room.

211
00:09:44,107 --> 00:09:45,476
I thought it was a monster,

212
00:09:45,500 --> 00:09:47,615
so I was walking around it.

213
00:09:47,639 --> 00:09:49,641
And I go, "I'm just going to touch it."

214
00:09:49,665 --> 00:09:51,047
And I touched it and I went,

215
00:09:51,071 --> 00:09:53,189
"Oh my God, it's a laundry basket."

216
00:09:54,332 --> 00:09:57,214
(Laughter)

217
00:09:58,217 --> 00:10:02,253
Everything is different
when you're a sighted person,

218
00:10:02,277 --> 00:10:03,939
because you take that for granted.

219
00:10:03,963 --> 00:10:07,974
But when you're blind,
you have the tactile memory for things.

220
00:10:08,815 --> 00:10:11,364
The biggest change for me
was looking down at my hands

221
00:10:11,388 --> 00:10:14,208
and seeing that I'd lost
10 years of my life.

222
00:10:15,301 --> 00:10:18,360
I thought that time
had stood still for some reason

223
00:10:18,384 --> 00:10:20,218
and moved on for family and friends.

224
00:10:20,242 --> 00:10:21,726
But when I looked down,

225
00:10:21,750 --> 00:10:24,320
I realized that time
marched on for me, too,

226
00:10:24,344 --> 00:10:26,068
and that I needed to get caught up.

227
00:10:26,092 --> 00:10:27,567
So I got going on it.

228
00:10:29,167 --> 00:10:33,087
We didn't have words like "crowdsourcing"
and "radical collaboration"

229
00:10:33,111 --> 00:10:34,476
when I had my accident.

230
00:10:34,853 --> 00:10:36,616
But the concept held true --

231
00:10:36,640 --> 00:10:39,053
people working with people to rebuild me;

232
00:10:39,077 --> 00:10:41,886
people working with people
to reeducate me.

233
00:10:41,910 --> 00:10:43,727
I wouldn't be standing here today

234
00:10:43,751 --> 00:10:47,476
if it wasn't for extreme
radical collaboration.

235
00:10:47,500 --> 00:10:48,794
Thank you so much.

236
00:10:48,818 --> 00:10:52,301
(Applause)