Organist Returns To St. John The Divine Cathedral After Nearly Dying
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Gustav Mahler's "The Resurrection" will be played on the organ at St. John the Divine Cathedral Saturday night, by a man who nearly died there.
As WCBS 880's Marla Diamond reported, organist David Briggs has played the world over, but none of those concerts will resonate like the one at St. John the Divine.
"You have the cathedral, and within a hundred yards is the hospital, where for about five hours, my heart was stopped," Briggs said.
Organist Returns To St. John The Divine Cathedral After Nearly Dying
Doctors at the hospital corrected what is known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a thickening of the heart muscle.
"Having HCM is a little bit like operating on five of six cylinders with a chance of dying suddenly," Briggs said.
Dr. Mark Sherrid at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital specializes in the condition.
"He's playing Mahler's symphony the Resurrection, and in a sense he's reliving through that the experience of almost dying in the street," Sherrid said.
Please leave your comments below...
