Coping with sudden disability.
Ariel Fishman, director of institutional research at Yeshiva University and assistant professor of management at YU’s Sy Syms School of Business, was hospitalized after a freak roadside accident last year that cost him both lower legs and 70 units of blood. Visitors asked, “What can we do?”
“Tell them to go give blood,” Fishman’s brother-in-law suggested.
Fishman liked the idea. Through his wide circle of friends he embarked on a drive, largely coordinated through the New York Blood Center (http://nybloodcenter.org), which has brought in more than 1,000 units of blood.
By agreeing to become “the human face” of blood donation, whose anonymity often discourages potential donors, Fishman’s work may have helped save thousands of lives: each unit, separated into its component parts, can go to several people.
Still working — part-time, because he is “still healing” — at Yeshiva University, he’s had to learn how to walk with two prostheses. YU, he says, has supported him throughout, letting him keep his job, hosting a recent meal of thanks on the first anniversary of his accident.
“From the very beginning, I was very thankful that I am still alive,” Fishman, an Upper West Side resident, says. “I am thankful that my kids” — two of them were in the family car when he was struck in the road by a negligent driver — “are still alive.”
Wanderlust: The prospect of “exotic” international travel attracted Fishman to a life in business. So far, most of his on-the-job traveling has been domestic. “My business travel is always boring places – which business is.” … Still running: A one-time marathoner (New York, a decade ago; 4:30 finish), Fishman wants to do it one more time. He was in training earlier this year, but broke the stump of one of his legs. “I haven’t given up,” he says. “A marathon is a goal that’s reachable.”
