Name: Owen Thomas Was Clinically Dead But Lived To Talk About It | Letterman
Uploaded: 2022-02-01T16:05:47.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Owen Thomas Was Clinically Dead But Lived To Talk About It | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-02-01. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Owen Thomas Was Clinically Dead But Lived To Talk About It | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-02-01. Transcript available.

hi and welcome back to the show this is the magazine to which i alluded earlier
in the
program if you were with us and this is the gentleman who is our next guest
this is owen
thomas believe it or not after his accident last december not that long ago he
was pronounced
clinically dead for about 10 minutes it's an unbelievably miraculous story here
now is owen
thomas uh you know the the we talked about this and by the way does it bother
you that i was sort of
joking around with the fact no it's fine i joke around myself every day sure
that's the only way
to go through life now is yeah you know uh you get it going the the thing that
i find hard to believe
as what is it's the end of february and this happened when uh december 16th
around four
i think it's four o'clock in the afternoon so three months after you were
actually dead
you're here on a talk show i had a talk show i was at a bar the other day you
know you were in a bar
the other day yeah you know celebrating my brother's birthday he's turned 20.
and you feel okay i feel
physically i'm very good i just can't lift what i used to be i lost 30 pounds
and right now i'm up to
162. so i'm getting back up there well you look terrific let's uh let's uh let's
get this out of
the way because it makes me a little queasy how did this happen what happened
um a friend of mine
i was giving a ride home uh we're coming out this bar down uh down the fish
market where we work and
we're going to my car and uh he was there was a controversy going on with uh
there's a couple
walking by and words were said and then i uh told him i said come on come on
and then he got in the car
and all of a sudden he ran out of the car and and then uh he went after the guy
and started a fight and
the guy pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the uh left uh elbow this was
your friend got
right yeah and then ripped him up underneath his underarm and then he called
for me and i didn't
know the person had the knife and i jumped on him and he stabbed me three times
twice in the chest and
once in the abdomen and ripped me right open and then i just fell to the floor
and if it wasn't for the three phone men there i would be right we wouldn't be
here today is that
pretty much the last thing you remember was going to help your friend and that's
oh i don't remember
anything this is just from what i've gotten from my brother and and the people
who were there to
tell me about it i'd lost a whole week yeah i don't remember anything have you
read this article
by the way yes i read several times over i couldn't believe myself um the
article it's it's full of
fascinating medical detail but to make a long story short uh by the time they
got you to the hospital
you were dead i was dead i had uh no blood in my body no blood in your body
right none i had blood
to death already uh dr valdez uh had uh made an incision underneath my left
underarm and he noticed
when he cut the artery here that no blood had come out he said oh man this kid's
in bad shape so that's uh
for you kids winning a career in medicine no blood means trouble
but that was i mean uh your your brain had stopped functioning for it was uh no
everything
that had a slight pulse when i went in so it wasn't it was just very very very
slight you know then
all of a sudden i just that was it then i really started getting going dr valdez
opened my chest
open and uh dr hoggib was doing my abdomen and dr valdez yeah no stabilization
or anything just had to
get me going open my chest up spread my ribs and put his two hands in and
started giving my heart
massage while the rest of the medical staff was pumping blood into my veins
like slicing my arteries down here
and in my groin and i just had to get blood going yeah yeah i didn't feel a
thing so it didn't bother
me no but according to the article the thing that amazed me about this
circumstance you were admitted
to an emergency room right you they noticed that you were were i mean you're
just lucky that somebody
said put him in the corner we have people who are still alive to deal with yes
that's what i was amazed
about you know yeah my mother's a nurse and uh and we've talked about this
quite often i didn't expect
this to ever happen to me okay you know and let me ask you the question that of
course i guess
everybody wants to know what was it like being dead well you know i don't
remember the only thing i
remember was uh when i uh i woke up and i had told my sister it was a couple
days after thing had happened
that i but i saw my older brother chris who had passed away and she said well
what was it like i
said it was dark and all of a sudden it was warm i got a nice warm feeling
around me and then i heard
his voice and then he's just two hands just no face or anything that's what i'm
mad about i didn't get
to see him you know but you you sensed the presence of your brother yeah and he
put his hands on my
shoulder and he pushed me back i don't know where i was going you know i could
have been down there
or up there i don't know where i was but you were in route i was someplace yeah
and uh and then i woke
up and i had told my sister and the doctors all came in because i had awakened
my mother my father my
brothers and all my friends were all over there it wasn't for them uh they were
great they were great
to me so the time passed much as if you had been asleep right i mean yeah i was
sedated quite often so
it was real good but you know with these are these are some of the people these
are all
my nurses and doctors right here these are people that helped me first this is
dr valdez who is a
great man and dr hogg up in the back and there's my heart surgeon dr z and
everybody else fantastic
people right there you want to mention the names of the guys who got you into
the car and took you to the
the hospital oh yeah dominic uh demarco was young man's my age 22. he was uh
first one on the scene
he had ran in and and he noticed my belly was open so stuck towels in there and
uh and then uh ben uh
excuse me benefit last name uh um vitale i think it yeah vitale right and they
grabbed me and they put me in the front seat of the car
and uh by the time the car got there it was a white car by the time i got there
was a red car
so and quickly uh and i hate to rush you off like this but has this has this
changed your your life
at all i mean do you think about stuff differently now well i uh it says in the
article i i read the
bible a lot now and since i i have a sensation of i you know i'm not afraid to
die anymore and uh i just go on
every day and it's great you know so you you actually were dead weren't you
yeah i guess so
uh it's amazing i appreciate you being here thank you very much
fred willard and sandra karen will be out here in a minute