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R.A. Dickey on the moment he hit rock bottom

R.A. Dickey on the moment he hit rock bottom 05:43

"R.A.'s story is more than a story about baseball," 60 Minutes producer Rich Bonin told us. "It's a story about life." During R.A. Dickey's emotional 60 Minutes interview, the great knuckleball pitcher talked openly about the darkest moments of his life -- from the sexual abuse he suffered at age 8 to his depression and the extramarital affair that almost ended his marriage. In this week's 60 Minutes Overtime, you'll hear Dickey share something he's never discussed in public before: how close he came to ending his own life.

"I got in a car and attached a garden hose to the tail pipe, ran it into the driver-side window and rolled the garden hose up in the window and packed a towel around the garden hose, so the monoxide couldn't leak out. And I had my hand right on the car key. And I was a second away from starting it up."

Resources for sexual abuse victims from R.A. Dickey

Dickey decided not to turn the key, but it took a near-drowning incident a few months later for the ball player to truly begin rebuilding his life. In this video Dickey describes the moment his feet hit the bottom of the Missouri River during a failed attempt to swim the swift-moving currents, and how his faith is what lifted him to the surface.

"God brought me to the bottom literally and figuratively. And picked me back up and said, 'You're gonna do it different.'"

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