The Power of Simple Words, Hope and Healing | Thomas Sullivan | TEDxHult Boston
Thomas Sullivan recounts the harrowing experience of his 8‑year‑old daughter Melissa’s near‑drowning in Texas, the frantic rescue by two Laredo firefighters, and her subsequent critical care in the University of Texas pediatric ICU. He describes the decisive moment when firefighter Fernando Mata refused to give up, the reassuring yet candid words of Dr. Armijo (“I will care for your daughter like she’s my own”) and Nurse Pat’s encouragement (“Don’t give up, your daughter is a fighter”). Sullivan reflects on the fragility of life—being a “quarter inch away” from tragedy—recognizes that first responders and healthcare workers must lead with their hearts, and urges listeners to express love to their loved ones now, before it’s too late. The talk blends vivid, emotional storytelling with lessons about hope, resilience, and the profound impact of simple, heartfelt words.
Chapters
I wanna tell you my story, and my story reaches back into the worst moments of my life. And there are times that I might end up crying. I'm okay with me crying. I hope you can find a way to make it okay that I cry if I do. Ah. But I'll tell you this, as I thought about this moment in time, I thought, Children often have nightmares. Adults have nightmares too, but adult nightmares are things they couldn't have dreamt of until they had adult responsibilities. And in my wife, in our case, children. The story that I'm telling is my story of a nightmare, but it began for my wife before it began to me. She called me Early on a Saturday morning, I was in Thailand doing work, and she was in Texas with visiting family. And so I was a little bit groggy when she called me. And I, I had to listen hard because she had trouble getting through what she told me when she first got on the phone. And what she said to me was, I'm on my way to the hospital, and I don't know if Melissa is alive or dead. I was awake really fast. Our then 8-year-old daughter had been stuck underwater for 15 to 20 minutes. It took 2 firefighters from the Laredo Fire Department to get her unstuck and out of water. She came out, she didn't have a heartbeat or couldn't— wasn't breathing. Oh my God. They began to do CPR immediately. CPR is intense, hard work. And in the middle of it, in the middle of doing that work, one of the firefighters turned to the other and said, I think she's gone. And Fernando Mata turned to his partner and said, I'm not giving up. He didn't say it righteously. He said it just as a matter of fact. And when he said that, you can't do this by yourself, you need a partner. So when he committed himself, the 2 firefighters were committed. Simple words, words that changed the course of our family's life. In a short time, Melissa had a heartbeat. But it wasn't the end of the story. It was the beginning of the story. It took me 30 hours to get from Thailand to Texas. And I didn't know that you could cry for nearly 30 hours until that happened. When I got to the hospital, she had been transported to San Antonio, Texas. And we went into the hospital. It was the University of Texas. In San Antonio Hospital. She was in the pediatric ICU. It was late. It was late at night. It was even early in the morning. It was a sort of Monday morning, just after midnight. You get to the hospital, it's a quiet place. You go to the pediatric ICU. My wife took me in. And you enter into a room. Some of you might have experienced something like this. The room is dim. And as my wife and I walked into the room, all I could see were this bank of machines behind my daughter's bed. And there were lights blinking on and off and beeping sounds. There was hissing and clicking from machines. My wife and I watched or looked at that, but I, I, when I looked at my daughter, I saw tubes coming out of her nose, tubes coming out of her mouth, tubes coming out of her arms. It's an intense experience. And she had been put in a coma. And when I touched her, her body was cold. It was shocking. But that's part of the treatment. Part of the treatment for a condition like this is to lower the core temperature of the body. And to keep somebody in a coma so the brain doesn't continue to swell. And those machines, when you have something like this happen and your heart starts pumping— stops pumping, what happens is your blood turns acidic. And when it turns acidic, it begins to attack the organs of your body, and they begin to shut down. Those machines were doing what Melissa's organs could not. And when we were in that room, it took a little while, but then the first doctor, uh, who was the doctor responsible for Melissa's care, came into the room to talk to us, Dr. Armijo. And she told us all the things that had happened to Melissa and all the things that they were doing to care for her and keep her alive and save her life. And then she said this one thing that stays with me forever. She said, do you have any questions? And I said, she's cold. Is she there? Is she alive? And Dr. Armijo didn't answer me right away. She paused, she thought, and then she said this. She said, yes, she's alive. Mm-hmm. But I can't promise you she'll be alive by Friday. The brain continues to swell for 96 hours. It was devastating to hear that, but she didn't stop. She said this other thing. She said, But I want you to know, I have 2 daughters. I will care for your daughter like she's my own. It was incredibly important to us. It was a word of hope that in that devastating moment. I often thought about why did she pause when she was talking to us to answer that question? I don't know if that's true, but I think that she was wrestling with something and she was wrestling with this. How does she tell us the truth? And how does she care for us as the parents of her patient? Because to tell us the truth, she could not protect us from the devastating pain of that situation. But then she gave us probably the only and the best thing that she could. She gave us all of her heart in that moment. After a while, she left the room. And when she left the room, there was another healthcare professional there. And that was Pat, Nurse Pat. Nurse Pat had been Melissa's nurse for every 12-hour shift that she had. She was Melissa's only patient during those 12 hours. And Between us was Melissa in the bed and Pat was on the other side. My wife and I were on this side. And after Dr. Armijo left the room, Pat leaned across the bed, leaned over Melissa and said to my wife and I, don't give up. Your daughter is a fighter. Wow. Those simple words of hope. So important to us in that moment in time. You know, those 2 women as healthcare providers knew something that we didn't know at the time. And it was so important to us to know. They knew something about the fact that in order for Melissa to heal, it was going to have to be us that healed too. And that's what they were paying attention to. Because the path that Melissa was on was a long path. It was not a shorter path. And we had to be strong and whole for her. We got a few heroes out of that time. We got the heroes of the firefighters. We got the heroes of Nurse Pat and Dr. Armijo and all the team that were the professionals at the hospital. But we also got one more hero, our daughter Melissa, who without words in those first 5 days fought, fought for everything. And when she came out of the coma and began her long process of recovery, she fought for everything. Yes. And she never complains. about the path life has given her. She works so hard. She's my hero. I wanna be like her. I'm not done. I'm not done. There's a few things that I wanna say. As I think about this, and I think about that moment, you know, I think there's, there's some lessons that I took from this. One lesson is we are all a quarter inch away from tragedy every moment. We just don't know. And we're lucky. We just don't know we're lucky. The second thing that I learned is first responders, like those firefighters, and healthcare professionals like Dr. Armijo and Nurse Pat, they're not like professors. Or accountants or coders or mechanics or plumbers. I love all those professions. I love all those people. But there's something, and there's moments that they face as healthcare providers and first responders where to do their job, they have to lead with their heart. And I know that sometimes that means their heart gets broken. Remember that when you're around those kinds of folks. Lastly, I want to leave you with one thing, which is during those 30 hours that it took me to get from Thailand to Texas, I kept wishing and praying. I kept wishing and praying that I could have had one more time to hold my baby. And give her a hug and one more time to tell her that I loved her. And then during those 30 hours, I just kept thinking, it's too late. We're all always a quarter inch away. If you can hear me today and it makes sense, why don't you go home tonight, find those people that you love. Hug them. Tell them that you love them. Tell them now. Don't wait till it's too late. Thank you.
