When 6-year-old Jack Foley crossed the finish line last month at the Long Beach Kids Triathlon, it was more than an athletic achievement. His completion marked a remarkable recovery from a rare heart condition.

The journey began before Jack was born.

At a routine 20-week examination, doctors told parents-to-be Rob Foley and Lauren Kiefer-Foley of Long Island, New York, that the fetus’ (胎儿的) heart wasn’t properly developing. “The doctor told us, ‘we can’t see the left side of the baby’s heart,’ Kiefer-Foley recalled.” He told us, “you need to get to a cardiologist (心脏病专家) first thing in the morning.”

Further tests would confirm a diagnosis of hypo plastic left heart syndrome, a rare birth fault affecting the heart’s ability to pump blood through the body. Doctors informed the couple about the risks and challenges their child could face. “We were advised by many doctors to terminate our pregnancy because the condition is so severe. They told us that most babies don’t even survive birth, let alone the first surgery,” Kiefer-Foley said.

Nonetheless, the couple decided to give their baby a chance.

After Jack was born at full-term via a scheduled C-section (剖腹产), doctors took him straight to a care unit to administer the level of care he would need before his first open-heart surgery days later. “When the doctor said ‘it’s a boy!’ I didn’t get to see him for hours after that.” Kiefer-Foley said. They would also have to wait until after Jack’s first surgery to hold him for the first time.

With a successful delivery behind them, it was now up to Dr. Emile Bacha, chief of Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital to guide Jack through a series of surgeries to repair the newborn’s heart.

Usually if a radio show puts you to sleep, it’s a sign of a bad program. But for John Watson, sleeping listeners are exactly what he’s hoping for. As a young man, Mr. Watson was not feeling good. He’d had a heart attack(心脏病). His job was stressful and he wasn’t happy. Even worse, he couldn’t sleep because he was so sensitive(敏感的) to sound. He tried many ways to relax, but without success. Still, he kept his eyes open during the whole night.

Someone said ambient music might help him sleep. Ambient music has layers of slow, relaxing sounds which blend together. Unlike most songs, where the tunes(旋律) and the beats are the important parts, in ambient music, the calming surroundings are most important. Light and temperature of the room are also part of the music. This music works better without lyrics(歌词).

Mr. Watson found some ambient music CDs, but there weren’t many to choose from. He soon got tired of hearing the same tracks (songs) over and over again. He found some ambient music stations on the Internet. They basically charged nothing. But there was one disadvantage. Just as he was falling asleep, the calming music would get interrupted — either by an advertisement or the announcer — and Mr. Watson would wake up again. However, the sound quality was pretty good.

Mr. Watson, who had experience working with websites, decided to teach himself how to create his own Internet radio station without any help from technicians. In 2014, Mr. Watson’s ambient music station, Sleep Radio, went live on the Internet. Every week he gets four or five CDs from musicians who make ambient music. They send him their music because they want him to play their tracks on the air. The station has visitors from all over the world. People have even listened to his program from Africa. The station usually has around 500 visitors, but the number has gone as high as 1,000. Since there are no ads, Mr. Watson and his wife pay for most of the costs themselves. Every day, Mr. Watson gets email from people around the world thanking him for helping them go to sleep. “Around 70% of the people who are listening on any given day are actually asleep,” Mr. Watson says.

One night about nine o'clock, Dr. Eyck, a surgeon, had a phone call from Dr. Haydon at the hospital in Clens Falls. The surgeon was asked to go there at once to operate on a very sick boy who shot himself while playing with a gun.

The doctor was soon on his way to Clens Falls. It was 60 miles away. And it was snowing heavily in the city. The surgeon thought he could get there before 12 o'clock.

A few minutes later, the doctor was stopped by a man in an old black coat. Gun in hand, the man ordered the doctor to get out. Then the man drove the car down the road, leaving the doctor in the falling snow.

It was after 2 o'clock in the morning when the doctor arrived at the hospital in Clens Falls. Dr. Haydon told him that the boy had died an hour before.

The two doctors walked by the door of the hospital waiting room. There sat the man in the old black coat with his head in his hands.

“Mr. Cuninghan,” said Dr. Haydon to the man, “This is Dr. Eyck. He is the surgeon who walked all the way from Albany to save your boy.”