Destiny and the Power of One: An Unbelievable True Story of Survival!

25 Oct 2026 · 1 min

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1:04

In this autobiographical segment, Richard R. Ramos introduces the central theme of his talk—"destiny and the power of one"—by recounting a formative childhood incident. At two years old, Ramos found himself on train tracks that ran alongside his family's backyard in Northeast Los Angeles. A train approached, and he was unable to move away. Police officers intervened just in time, rescuing him from a likely fatal collision. Ramos uses this near‑death experience as a narrative anchor to illustrate how a single moment and the actions of a few individuals can shape a lifelong belief in destiny and personal agency. He hints at a fuller account in his book but focuses on the emotional impact of the rescue and its role in his worldview.

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And then finally, we talk about destiny and the power of one. And in that, to understand that, you have to understand my story. So I tell my story about how I was saved by policemen from being run over by a train when I was 2 years old. And I tell the story in the book. But the snapshot of it is I was on the train. You know how all that happened? I don't want to necessarily get into all the details. How did a 2-year-old end up on train tracks? Well, our backyard was basically the train tracks where I grew up in Northeast Los Angeles. So it was very easy for me to get to the train tracks. But on that particular day, the train was coming. And when the guy— can you imagine the conductor seeing me? There's no way he could stop. No way.