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Robert Langdon regains consciousness on the bank of the Tiber after surviving his fall from the helicopter. Disoriented, aching, and vomiting river water, Langdon is treated by Dr. Jacobus and hospital staff, who pulled him from the river after seeing him fall during the antimatter explosion over Rome.

Dr. Jacobus identifies Langdon from Langdon's wallet and realizes this is the same American professor just seen on television boarding the helicopter. The staff are stunned that Langdon is alive, and the mood becomes even stranger when a patient announces that Camerlegno Ventresca has appeared alive on the Vatican roof, prompting cries of miracle.

Langdon wakes again in a hospital examination room, wearing a paper gown while his soaked clothes have been cut away. The staff return Langdon's personal effects, and Langdon notices that the last surviving copy of Galileo's Diagramma has dissolved into useless scraps inside Langdon's jacket.

A nurse also returns a small Sony camcorder found in Langdon's pocket, which Langdon remembers Kohler had given him for the media. Though the viewer is cracked, the audio still works and repeatedly plays a recording of two men arguing. Langdon recognizes both voices and hears a shocking finale that makes Langdon reassess the antimatter, the helicopter, and what has just happened.

Driven by rage, confusion, and urgency, Langdon insists on leaving for Vatican City immediately despite Dr. Jacobus's protests. Because Langdon's clothes are ruined, the staff provide a paramedic jumpsuit, and an ambulance driver escorts Langdon to what Langdon assumes will be an ambulance ride—until Langdon sees that the vehicle is an air ambulance helicopter, ready to fly Langdon back to the Vatican.