Count to five is a story about his past that Jack related to Kate.
On the day of the crash, Jack was wounded in a place on his back that he couldn't reach. He convinced Kate to suture the wound closed for him, and to calm her nerves while she did it, he told her a story about a time that he was afraid, but overcame it. The story helped develop a bond between the two, and Kate has employed a similar technique on multiple occasions.
The story
- "Well, fear's sort of an odd thing. When I was in residency my first solo procedure was a spinal surgery on a 16 year old kid, a girl. And at the end, after 13 hours, I was closing her up and I, I accidentally ripped her dural sac, shredded the base of the spine where all the nerves come together, membrane as thin as tissue. And so it ripped open and the nerves just spilled out of her like angel hair pasta, spinal fluid flowing out of her and I: and the terror was just so crazy. So real. And I knew I had to deal with it. So I just made a choice. I'd let the fear in, let it take over, let it do its thing, but only for 5 seconds, that's all I was going to give it. So I started to count, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Then it was gone. I went back to work, sewed her up and she was fine." -Jack, ("Pilot, Part 1")
Later references
- Jack's tattoo has the number 5.
- It was a technique that Kate took to heart, as she used it the very next day to move past paralyzing fear, when she thought Jack hadn't escaped the Monster. ("Pilot, Part 1")
- Kate counts to five as she is lowered into the Hatch by Locke. ("Man of Science, Man of Faith")
- In season 3, Jack used the story as a password that Kate could tell him when she had reached safety- so that he would know to finish with Ben. ("I Do"), ("Not in Portland")
Trivia
- On the Season 1 DVD special features, it is revealed that "Five" was Boone's original name and that when they ran a search and replace on The Pilot script, it accidentally changed this story to have Jack say: "1, 2, 3, 4, Boone".
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