FRIDLEY, Minn. - The 12-year-old boy who had command of the audience at Medtronic's annual employee holiday program has had an audience before – in the hundreds of millions.
The same boy was beneath a Darth Vader mask in an iconic 2011 Volkswagen Super Bowl ad.
“It was just excited, it was my first big commercial,” Max said before his speech.
Brave as he may have been to stand before several Medtronic employees, the six-year-old version of Max was too frightened of Darth Vader to even watch Star Wars.
“It just scared me, it just freaked me out,” Max said.
Yet Max has endured something more sinister than Vader.
From birth on, Max underwent eleven heart surgeries. Max was seven when surgeons split open his chest to insert a new heart valve. He spent five days in the hospital and a year recovering.
But when that valve needed replacing last summer, the experience was completely different.
“It was like a sci-fi movie,” said Max’s mom, Jennifer Page. “It didn't even feel real.”
Max's Medtronic valve was installed through his groin and propelled by a catheter up to his heart - without opening his chest.
“The next day Max was standing up,” says his mom. “The doctor had him jumping up and down, and we left with a Tylenol and a band aid and didn't look back.”
On Friday Max and his family came from southern California to Medtronic to say thank you.
“I'm going to have heart disease my entire life,” Max told Medtronic employees. “I will always need you, and I plan on living a very long, very full, life.
A life now propelled by a Minnesota force.