An unexpected place of healing

When Ramona Pierson was 22, she was hit by a drunk driver and spent 18 months in a coma. At TEDxDU she tells the remarkable story of her recovery -- drawing on the collective skills and wisdom of a senior citizens' home.

I'm actually going to share
something with you

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

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

When I was 22 years old,

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

and went for my usual run.

I had no idea that at that moment,

my life was going to change forever.

While I was preparing my dog for the run,

a man was finishing drinking at a bar,

picked up his car keys, got into a car

and headed south,

or wherever he was.

I was running across the street,

and the only thing
that I actually remember

is feeling like a grenade
went off in my head.

And I remember
putting my hands on the ground

and feeling my life's blood

emptying out of my neck and my mouth.

What had happened is, he ran a red light

and hit me and my dog.

She ended up underneath the car.

I flew out in front of the car,

and then he ran over my legs.

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

spun it around.

The bumper of the car hit my throat,

slicing it open.

I ended up with blunt chest trauma.

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

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

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

I had no idea what was going on,

but strangers intervened,

kept my heart moving, beating.

I say "moving," because it was quivering,

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

Somebody was smart
and put a Bic pen in my neck

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

And my lung collapsed,

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

to stop that catastrophic
event from happening.

Somehow I ended up at the hospital.

I was wrapped in ice,

and then eventually put
into a drug-induced coma.

Eighteen months later, I woke up.

I was blind, I couldn't speak

and I couldn't walk.

I was 64 pounds.

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

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

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

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

to repair my heart a few times.

Some things worked, some things didn't.

I had lots of titanium put in me;

cadaver bones,

to try to get my feet
moving the right way.

And I ended up with a plastic nose,

porcelain teeth
and all kinds of other things.

But eventually,
I started to look human again.

But ...

It's hard sometimes
to talk about these things,

so bear with me.

I had more than 50 surgeries.

But who's counting?

(Laughter)

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

They needed to open up
space for somebody else

that they thought could come back

from whatever they were going through.

Everybody lost faith in me
being able to recover.

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

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

And I know all of you
are scratching your head:

"A senior citizens' home?

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

But if you think about
all of the skills and talent

that are in this room right now,

that's what a senior home has.

So there were all these skills and talents

that these seniors had.

The one advantage
they had over most of you

is wisdom,

because they had a long life.

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

But imagine what it was like for them

when I showed up at their doorstep.

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

I was bald.

I was wearing hospital scrubs.

And somebody donated tennis shoes for me.

And I had a white cane in one hand

and a suitcase full of medical
records in another hand.

So the senior citizens realized

that they needed to have
an emergency meeting.

(Laughter)

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

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

This kid needs a lot of work."

So they eventually started
matching their talents and skills

to all of my needs.

But one of the first things
they needed to do

was assess what I needed right away.

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

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

and through my veins.

So I had to go
through trying to eat again.

And they went through that process.

And then they had to figure out:

"Well, she needs furniture.

She is sleeping in the corner
of this apartment."

So they went to their storage lockers

and all gathered their extra furniture --

gave me pots and pans, blankets --

everything.

And then the next thing that I needed

was a makeover.

(Laughter)

So out went the green scrubs,

and in came the polyester
and floral prints.

(Laughter)

We're not going to talk
about the hairstyles

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

But I did say no to the blue hair.

(Laughter)

So eventually, what went on is,

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

You can't be an independent person

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

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

but they need to get me to talk.

So while Sally, the office manager,

was teaching me to speak in the day --

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

You learn things unconsciously.

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

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

and my new teeth and my lips,

and capture the air and get the word out.

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

and refused to work.

But the men had a better idea.

They were going to make it fun for me.

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

(Laughter)

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

(Laughter)

I'm going to just leave it
to your imagination

as to what my first words were --

(Laughter)

when Sally finally got
my confidence built.

(Laughter)

So I moved on from there.

And a former teacher
who happened to have Alzheimer's

took on the task of teaching me to write.

The redundancy was actually good for me.

So, we'll just keep moving on.

(Laughter)

One of the pivotal times for me

was actually learning
to cross the street again

as a blind person.

So close your eyes.

Now imagine you have to cross a street.

You don't know how far that street is,

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

And you hear cars whizzing back and forth,

and you had a horrible accident

that landed you in this situation.

So there were two obstacles
I had to get through.

One was post-traumatic stress disorder.

Every time I approached
the corner or the curb,

I would panic.

And the second one

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

So one of the seniors just came up to me,

and she pushed me
up to the corner and said,

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

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

(Laughter)

Made perfect sense.

(Laughter)

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

(Laughter)

they realized that they needed
to put their resources together,

and they raised funds

so that I could go
to the Braille Institute

and actually gain the skills
to be a blind person,

and also to go get a guide dog,

who transformed my life.

And I was able to return to college

because of the senior citizens
who invested in me,

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

Ten years later, I gained my sight back.

Not magically --

I opted in for three surgeries,

and one of them was experimental.

It was actually robotic surgery

that removed a hematoma
from behind my eye.

The biggest change for me
was that the world moved forward,

that there were innovations
and all kinds of new things --

cellphones, laptops,

all these things
that I had never seen before.

And as a blind person,

your visual memory fades,

and is replaced with how you
feel about things

and how things sound

and how things smell.

So one day, I was in my room

and I saw this thing sitting in my room.

I thought it was a monster,

so I was walking around it.

And I go, "I'm just going to touch it."

And I touched it and I went,

"Oh my God, it's a laundry basket."

(Laughter)

Everything is different
when you're a sighted person,

because you take that for granted.

But when you're blind,
you have the tactile memory for things.

The biggest change for me
was looking down at my hands

and seeing that I'd lost
10 years of my life.

I thought that time
had stood still for some reason

and moved on for family and friends.

But when I looked down,

I realized that time
marched on for me, too,

and that I needed to get caught up.

So I got going on it.

We didn't have words like "crowdsourcing"
and "radical collaboration"

when I had my accident.

But the concept held true --

people working with people to rebuild me;

people working with people
to reeducate me.

I wouldn't be standing here today

if it wasn't for extreme
radical collaboration.

Thank you so much.

(Applause)