Baby Jessica: The Girl who Fell Down a Well and Changed News Forever

In this episode of The Compendium, we dive into the incredible story of Baby Jessica, the 18-month-old girl who fell down a well and became trapped for 58 hours. But probably more interesting than Jessica's 1987 well rescue, this event marked a pivotal moment in the history of 24-hour news coverage. That's right; it's all Jessica's fault. Learn how this incident revolutionised CNN's approach to breaking news and the lasting impact it has had on news media and public news consumption, and of course, we’ll find out what happened to Baby Jessica.

We give you the Compendium, but if you want more, then check out these great resources:

1. “Los Angeles Times article” by Jesse Katz
2. "Death on the CNN Curve" by Lisa Belkin
3. YouTube footage of Baby Jessica’s rescue
4. “30th anniversary interview with Jessica McClure” by Olivia B. Waxman 
5. “People Magazine’s coverage of Baby Jessica” by Steve Helling

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Credits:

• Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
• Intro and Outro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland by Aleksey Chistilin
• All the Latest Things Intro: Clowns by Giulio Fazio

Chapters

• 0:00 Sneak peak
• 0:52 Welcome to The Compendium
• 1:40 Topic of the week
• 5:32 All the latest things
• 14:28 Topic of the week
• 1:08:20 Outro

Transcript

[00:00:00] Kyle Risi: it is fair to say that the world as we know it today can be split into the world before Jessica McClure fell down that well and the world after she was rescued and honestly, when the reckoning comes, I wouldn't be surprised if baby Jessica's chubby little legs are to blame for single handedly destroying the world as we know it. 

[00:00:21] Adam Cox: Yeah, let's, let's, let's go and protest. 

[00:00:24] Kyle Risi: Drag her out, let's tar and feather her, stick her back down the hole. 

[00:00:53] Welcome to the Compendium, an assembly of fascinating and intriguing things.

[00:00:58] We're a weekly variety [00:01:00] podcast where each week I tell Adam Cox all about a topic I think you'll find both fascinating and intriguing. We dive into stories pulled from the darker corners of true crime, the annuls of your old unread history books, and the who's who of extraordinary people. We give you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering.

[00:01:17] I'm your ringmaster this week, Kyle Risi. 

[00:01:20] Adam Cox: And I'm your snake charmer this week, Adam Cox.

[00:01:22] Kyle Risi: Is that because last week you were talking about snakes wriggling in your pants? It went from one snake, to two snakes, to ten snakes.

[00:01:31] Adam, again. 

[00:01:34] Adam Cox: All I'm going to say is our listeners know exactly what it means. Do they? Do they 

[00:01:40] Kyle Risi: know? What does that mean? Goddammit. Adam, on today's compendium we are diving into an assembly of wells, woes, and how one little girl's rescue rewrote the rules of breaking news. 

[00:01:56] Adam Cox: Okay, let me think about this. A girl that re [00:02:00] wrote the rules about news. I don't get the most obvious weeks. There's no way in hell I'm gonna get this week. 

[00:02:06] Kyle Risi: Adam. In 1987, a news event captured the world's attention like never before. People were glued to their TVs for days on end. Even the first lady of the United States decided to postpone her surgery until she knew the outcome of this story.

[00:02:25] Not only did this event captivate America and bring the country together, which is a big thing for America, right? also changed the way Americans, and in turn the world, consumed their daily news. 

[00:02:39] Today, Adam, I'm going to be telling you the story of baby Jessica, the little girl who fell down the well. Um, 

[00:02:47] Adam Cox: do you know what, I feel like I've heard it talked about. But I don't think I actually know the story. It's been referenced plenty of times, I'm sure. 

[00:02:54] Kyle Risi: The story is massive in popular culture, so you, it's not surprising that you have heard [00:03:00] of this before.

[00:03:00] So, Baby Jessica, in a nutshell, was this 18 month old girl who fell down an uncapped well in her aunt's backyard in the 1980s. What started as a bit of local news soon swelled into this massive national story as her rescue operation spanned almost 60 hours in total. Everybody in the world wanted to know if she would survive.

[00:03:23] And this story became so famous that even if you weren't alive when it happened, You're probably familiar with this story either directly or at least in your peripheral as you've just suggested. Probably the most famous parody. of the Baby Jessica story is from the Simpsons episode. 

[00:03:40] Adam Cox: Oh, when Bart got left down the well. Yes! Or faked that he was down the well. 

[00:03:44] Kyle Risi: Radio Bart, yes, well done for remembering that he was faking it because he wasn't in the well. I remember him being in the well. 

[00:03:51] Adam Cox: Well, he puts a radio down there and uses that to fool people and then he accidentally falls in so it's like more like the boy who cried wolf, I think what the story became.

[00:03:59] Kyle Risi: [00:04:00] Exactly, yeah. So the gist is, it's Bart ends up pranking the entire town in believing that a little boy called Timmy O'Toole has fallen down an abandoned well, and from there it quickly escalates into this media circus with the entire town rallying around to try rescue Timmy O'Toole in this well.

[00:04:16] Adam Cox: Didn't they get, Sting to do a song about They're like, almost like Band Aid, where they all pull together and write a song about this boy that fell down the well. 

[00:04:25] Kyle Risi: Exactly. So the town celebrities, including Sting, they record a charity single. Do you remember what it was called? No. We're Sending Our Love Down The Well.

[00:04:33] And then Crusty's like, they all sing like, We're sending our love down the well. And Crusty's like, Down the well!

[00:04:42] And essentially the episode is poking fun at these media frenzies that typically erupt from these stories. And this was one of the very first times that this really kind of like strangle held. The nation, the world, essentially. 

[00:04:57] So I'm really excited about today's edition of the compendium. [00:05:00] I'm going to be telling you about baby Jessica, how she fell down the well, I'll tell you about her rescue operation, and how this changed the way we consume news forever.

[00:05:09] And then we'll discuss if baby Jessica was unknowingly responsible for throwing the world as we know it into absolute chaos. 

[00:05:19] Unknowingly responsible. She didn't know at the time. She was like, oh, I'm 18 months old. I'm going to chuck myself down the well. Do you know why? Because I want to destroy the world.

[00:05:28] Adam Cox: That's what could be an underlying tactic. 

[00:05:30] Okay, interesting. 

[00:05:32] Kyle Risi: Anyway, before we kick off today's episode, as we always do, at this moment, it's time for 

[00:05:38] Adam Cox: All the Latest Things!

[00:05:39] Kyle Risi: Step right up and welcome to this week's All The Ladies Things where we unveil the fascinating, the extraordinary, the downright loopy stories, strange facts and intriguing tidbits from the past week. Adam, what's your headline act today?

[00:05:57] Adam Cox: So my bit of news this week actually [00:06:00] refers back to an episode we did a few weeks ago. 1962 escape from Alcatraz. I have some developments on that story. Oh, you have a little 

[00:06:10] update little update It's not just a plug for that episode. There is actually worthy news So if you remember it was a story of Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers John and Clarence, they vanished into the night, never to be seen again, and there's new information that's come to light, which proves that they might have survived.

[00:06:29] Kyle Risi: Oh, really? 

[00:06:30] Adam Cox: Yeah, so if you didn't listen to the episode one, I would recommend go having a listen. And then two, it was about three men that managed to escape from the prison, which was known as the inescapable prison in the world. They used makeshift tools, paper mache heads, and crafted a raft out of raincoats before paddling away into the San Francisco Bay. Waters never to be seen again. 

[00:06:53] Yes, I do. I remember all of that. Good. It was only a few weeks ago. I think it was literally last week. But so this is the update. [00:07:00]

[00:07:00] New evidence suggests that the Anglin brothers may have survived and lived out their lives in South America, which is sort of what we alluded to in the podcast.

[00:07:08] And this revelation comes from a deathbed confession of a man who claim to have helped them in their escape, and from a photograph that might just prove that they made it to freedom. 

[00:07:17] Kyle Risi: Wow. Okay. 

[00:07:19] Adam Cox: So it turns out an American crime Lord, James Whitney Bolger, so this is a guy that was in prison around about the same time that the Anglin brothers were in prison.

[00:07:28] And he had been in contact with the Anglin family through letters sent to a Georgia PO box. And Bolger had met the Anglin brothers in prison in the late 1950s, and he maintained a correspondence with their nephew, a guy called Ken Bolger. And through these letters, Bulger revealed crucial details about the brothers escape plan, including how he advised them on everything from crafting wetsuits to navigating the waters surrounding Alcatraz.

[00:07:56] Kyle Risi: Oh, no, I don't believe that., I'm gonna take some credit for some of this, just because, [00:08:00] like, you know, here's my opportunity. Who's gonna, who's gonna argue against me? 

[00:08:03] Adam Cox: Yeah, fair point. It's good to have a critical eye on this, yeah. But what he was saying is that his advice wasn't just theoretical because apparently he was the one that said that you should go to Brazil, um, because then you'd be on the reach of the American authorities, and he advised them to settle down, start a family there, which then makes it, almost impossible to then get extradited.

[00:08:25] Kyle Risi: Yeah. 

[00:08:26] Adam Cox: But the most compelling part of evidence is a photograph that was taken in 1975, but it's been resurfaced. And it's of the two older men, the Anglin brothers in Brazil, who bear very strong resemblance to John and Clarence Anglin. No. Have you got the picture? I don't. Do you have the picture?

[00:08:44] Kyle Risi: No, I don't recognise any of them. They look nothing like it. I recognise the termite mound. More than anything. But those guys, I mean, they do look much older. And they look healthy. They've both put on a bit of weight. 

[00:08:57] Adam Cox: They've ate well. people that [00:09:00] have specialised in facial recognition have insisted that the image does in fact show the two brothers, which I think is quite interesting. They're saying that there is a real clear resemblance. Um, so this photo was passed to the family by a friend who claimed to have visited the brothers.

[00:09:15] Ken, the nephew, of the brothers, is now on a mission to uncover the truth and he's trying to, dig into the family records in Brazil to try and track down potential relatives. So if he's able to track them down and get DNA evidence that they started families, then that is the proof that we need that they were, alive, they survived.

[00:09:36] I think there's 

[00:09:36] Kyle Risi: like a lot of, crimes and a lot of people are found now through these genealogy kind of connections through 23andMe. So I'm wondering if they could get hold of their DNA or even his own DNA to see if there's any relatives in, Brazil that are around and then maybe that can start with a good connection.

[00:09:53] Adam Cox: Yeah, although I don't know how popular these DNA kits would be in Brazil. I don't know. I'm not quite [00:10:00] sure. 

[00:10:00] Kyle Risi: It's worth a shot, right? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, 

[00:10:02] I just love these stories that happened so long ago that really captivate the world and just, still are intriguing to people just now. Decades and decades and decades later. It's just so fascinating to me. Like, what is it about these stories keep captivating people? I guess it's just the the mystery of not knowing,. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:10:20] Adam Cox: Cool. So what have you got for us? 

[00:10:22] Kyle Risi: So Adam, have you ever felt like your tampons aren't lasting as long as they used to?

[00:10:28] Most days. Yeah. Well, it's not just in your head, isn't it? No, this is kind of obviously the latest example of shrink inflation impacting us all during obviously the cost of living crisis.

[00:10:39] But now it's coming at the potential cost of women's health. So as men, we might not necessarily know that women's tampons come in specific sizes based on a woman's flow rate.

[00:10:49] Did you know that based on a women's flow rate, they come in different sizes? No, I had no idea. I genuinely thought that one size fits all. Genuinely, I guess. Yeah,

[00:10:58] Adam Cox: yeah. I've never had to [00:11:00] use them. I think I remember one time at university we used to like put them in water. So that they would get bigger, and then we'd like hug them at the front. 

[00:11:08] Kyle Risi: Ah, yeah, it's like a little water bomb. 

[00:11:11] Adam Cox: Kinda, yeah. That's not the same as this. 

[00:11:13] Kyle Risi: So they come in all these different sizes with these little codes on them. So they'll have like L for light and R for regular, SP for super plus, et cetera. By the way, when I was looking at this I was really thrown at first by seeing the little symbols L and R on the tampons.

[00:11:27] You think like left and right? I thought left and right as I, hang on a minute. Have people updated vaginas since I last inquired about them? There's two vaginas, a left and right. No means light and regular. But anyway, for a woman's entire adult life. They have become to rely on knowing and trusting these individual sizes, but companies like Tampax have now been exposed for secretly shrinking the actual tampons and the worst part is they haven't told anyone and as a result women have been so concerned that they've even booked [00:12:00] doctor appointments thinking that something was wrong with their bodies which is worrying because this could potentially lead a doctor to misdiagnosing a health issue when in reality it's just a manufacturer shrinking the size of 

[00:12:12] and so of course if the absorbency has kind of decreased they may not change the tampon as frequently, which could then lead to an increased risk of something called toxic shock syndrome, that could lead to organ damage or even death.

[00:12:27] Adam Cox: Oh my word, just by reducing this packaging and not telling anyone about it. 

[00:12:32] Kyle Risi: Because the idea is that you're supposed to change your tampon every so often, but if you have like this menstruation blood that's inside of you, it could potentially cause a big problem, that could potentially lead to this organ damage or even death.

[00:12:45] And that's really problematic that they haven't told anyone, and that's just another example of corporate greed at its worst. And all this was discovered when a woman found an old tampon in her purse from 2020. And then she compared it to ones that are [00:13:00] available today. And the differences like are so glaringly obvious. Sometimes they're a small, like smaller by up to 20%. 

[00:13:07] Adam Cox: Yeah, that's That's a lot. That's a whole extra hour, or something like that, if you're supposed to use them for four hours or something. That's, that you're not getting that use out of, and that probably adds up, doesn't it?

[00:13:16] Kyle Risi: Absolutely. What a bunch of motherfuckers. It's 100%. Got to be a man running 10 packs. 100%. 

[00:13:22] Adam Cox: Well, it just seems a bit crazy that where this is, um, you know, it's use, it's medical, but anything that kind of, is about someone's body, I always feel like you should be quite honest about this.

[00:13:35] Kyle Risi: 100%! And I say, do you know what, go for it. If you can, and you can afford to, Boycott them. Teach them a lesson. Because I kind of did that with Gillette. Do you remember when they had that big old massive campaign where they were like trying to kind of Essentially saying that all men were toxic and that like you've got to do better.

[00:13:54] I'm like, hang on a minute, you sell razors, stay in your lane and don't insult the [00:14:00] damn people that are buying your damn product. So I haven't bought Gillette since, but unknowingly. Gillette own a bunch of companies. It's owned by like, Procter Gamble, so they own literally everything. So I might have moved to a different product, but I'm just still buying Procter Gamble.

[00:14:13] Adam Cox: Yeah, they're probably okay. I'll show them. 

[00:14:16] Kyle Risi: So Adam, next time you feel your tampons aren't cutting it, remember, it's not just you, it's shrinkflation, and shame on the damn companies that are putting people's kind of well being at risk. 

[00:14:27] Adam Cox: Yeah, yeah. I've been in anything like this where they reduce package sizes, And still charge the same amount. Annoys the hell out of me. 

[00:14:34] Kyle Risi: But anyway, that was my All The Latest Things. Shall we get on with Baby Jessica? Let's do it. So adam the story of baby jessica is significant because This marks the moment when news networks like CNN finally nailed the formula for hooking people in with a brand new concept of 24 hour news and the unfolding story. And while [00:15:00] the idea of 24 hour news was actually invented seven years before this story even happened, it struggled the entire time to take off.

[00:15:08] However, when it finally did, it completely changed how we consume news forever. So it is fair to say that the world as we know it today can be split into the world before Jessica McClure fell down that well and the world after she was rescued and Therefore she is responsible for the world's chaos as we know it.

[00:15:29] Adam Cox: So a bit like ADBC. We've got like BJ And after J, H J. Oh, 

[00:15:36] Kyle Risi: I see,

[00:15:36] Adam Cox: b J. Before 

[00:15:37] Kyle Risi: baby Jessica. 

[00:15:39] Adam Cox: B B J, A B J. 

[00:15:41] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So before 1987, most people in the USA got their news from the morning paper. Then, after a long day at work, it was tradition for it to all be brought together via video and audio on the six o'clock news and breaking news was also something that back then was reserved for only [00:16:00] the most significant events, like for example, the president has just been assassinated, breaking news, not, uh, the other day I saw there was breaking news that Taylor Swift was redoing her concert in somewhere in Manchester.

[00:16:13] Yeah. That was breaking news. 

[00:16:14] Adam Cox: Yeah, they use that terminology now a little bit too loosely. 

[00:16:18] Kyle Risi: So this was back in the day when it actually meant something, right? And for a long time, despite networks trying to make 24 hour news happen, America just liked things as they were. They couldn't really visualize any other way to consume their news.

[00:16:33] But this started to change around the 1970s, specifically with a little event that you might know as The Watergate scandal. 

[00:16:42] Adam Cox: Oh, with Richard Nixon. 

[00:16:43] Kyle Risi: Exactly. So this was a major political scandal in the USA where Nixon's administration broke into the DNC headquarters and subsequently tried to cover it up. Ultimately, this led to Nixon's resignation. And this was a story that a lot of Americans were deeply interested in. And as a result, a lot of people were [00:17:00] Regular programming started to be frequently interrupted by breaking news bulletins causing headaches for networks as they lost ad revenue from the ads that couldn't air due to these interruptions.

[00:17:11] So consequently networks decided that something had to be done to mitigate this whilst still kind of bringing these headlines to the masses. So with this lesson learned in 1979, another event rocked the USA and that was the Iranian hostage crisis. 

[00:17:28] This time, rather than interrupting regular programming with breaking news updates, ABC, created a dedicated program which focused solely on the crisis. And this was groundbreaking because it covered a single event outside of the usual kind of format of the news and treated it like a form of entertainment.

[00:17:46] So we see it all the time now, like at nine o'clock, there'll be like, news night or something. And they'll focus on a particular event that happened

[00:17:54] Adam Cox: so this would still air on the main channels, just, but how was it breaking then? 

[00:17:58] Kyle Risi: They were kind of like, When, uh, [00:18:00] you had a big story that was loads of different developments that were happening that would just condense them all and then present them to kind of the public during the show in the evening.

[00:18:08] Right, okay. So it was like news, but just dedicated to this thing. Got you. So seeing the potential in this, the idea of a 24 hour news network then emerged so on June 1st, 1980, CNN was then created. But it struggled to gain traction because people simply weren't interested in regular boring news outside of major events. 

[00:18:30] Adam Cox: I'm kind of the same. I don't feel like I need to watch news all the time. I guess it's convenient for you If you're not around that you can just see what the headlines are or whatever but I didn't realize this has been going for 40 years. I thought it was a 90s sort of 

[00:18:41] Kyle Risi: it wouldn't really take off it will take another six years for cnn to start realizing what they needed to incorporate into their format to keep people engaged. So for six years, they really struggled to make 24 hour news happen. But the event that would change this would be a little event called the Challenger Space [00:19:00] Shuttle Disaster.

[00:19:01] So this was going to be an historical moment where a school teacher would be the first civilian to go into space. And so in the run up to the launch, CNN was going to be the only network able to broadcast the launch live on television because it was during the day. So a regular program was still going on. So people were interested in watching it. They needed to obviously tune into CNN. So on the day of the launch, thousands of schools across the country gathered in classrooms to watch this launch live.

[00:19:28] But tragically soon after the launch, the shuttle exploded midair . And it became one of the most shocking events ever to be captured on live television. And as people watched in disbelief, networks were gradually forced to return to regular programming, but the nation was gripped and they didn't want to stop watching.

[00:19:46] So the entire country just ended up tuning into CNN to continue following this unfolding story. And collectively, Americans had loads of questions. They wanted to know if any of the crew survived, and there was this hope that [00:20:00] maybe the shuttle had kind of like plunged into the ocean and that maybe they could be rescued. 

[00:20:05] But the biggest question of all was like, what do we tell the millions of young kids who watch this tragedy unfold live? about what happened. How do we explain this to them? So throughout this CNN kept the story rolling, bringing in various experts to discuss kind of their thoughts on what happened, which led to a ratings boom. Then every time there was a new development, it was announced as breaking news on the channel, again, attracting more viewers to the network.

[00:20:33] And CNN also began to kind of Invite ordinary members of the public to share their heartbreak and their disbelief which Helped CNN realize that people want to see this people want to see real people on the news expressing their grief 

[00:20:47] and while we take this approach for granted today It was unprecedented at the time. A news story had never been presented in this way, and so, by doing this, CNN quickly learned how to [00:21:00] use a nation shared trauma to solidify this concept of 24 hour news as part of our everyday life.

[00:21:06] Adam Cox: Yeah, don't get me wrong, when there is an event like this, you are gripped, you want to, like, stay tuned, but it does feel a little bit odd that a corporation Profiting or off this kind of trauma, isn't it? Isn't that strange a little bit? 

[00:21:20] Kyle Risi: Oh, yeah, of course, it's sickening, but No one goes into business for the sake of the people, exactly, doing good They need to be selling ads. They need to get viewers watching in order to make money Of course, it eventually emerged that the astronauts had tragically died and it was caused by a faulty o ring. And, at the end of the day, that was that. There were no more developments and Americans just moved on. They returned to their usual routine of reading newspapers in the morning and watching the 6 o'clock news. But, CNN now had the beginnings of a formula and a format to keep people glued to their screens.

[00:21:58] They just now needed [00:22:00] another opportunity to capitalize on everything that they had learned and that opportunity would finally come in 1987 in a small town of Midland, Texas. 

[00:22:11] Adam Cox: Where baby Jessica, I assume, lives. 

[00:22:14] Kyle Risi: Where baby Jessica is about to change the damn world. So Adam, it is the 14th of October, 1987. 

[00:22:24] Adam Cox: Uh huh. 

[00:22:24] Kyle Risi: A significant date for you? 

[00:22:26] Adam Cox: It, um, I have just arrived into the world. Mm 

[00:22:29] Kyle Risi: hmm. The world has just been blessed. Yep, that's right. With your arrival. So baby Jessica McClure is an 18 month old and she is the daughter of Sissy, who is 17, and Chip, who is 18. So they're very young. and Sissy's sister ran a family daycare at a house where Sissy would often help out and as a result baby Jessica frequently spent her days there while her mum and aunt cared for the other children.

[00:22:52] So on that day Sissy was keeping an eye on baby jessica and the other children were busy playing in the backyard when suddenly the phone rang.

[00:22:59] So she quickly went [00:23:00] inside to answer it, not thinking twice about leaving the kids unattended for a moment. Like, who would? The phone's rung, right? Of course you're going to answer it. And with that line, You can probably sense a foreshadowing here. 

[00:23:12] Adam Cox: Yeah,

[00:23:13] Kyle Risi: Within seconds sissy hears the other children screaming And she rushes back outside where they tell her that jessica's fallen down a pipe and sissy Is really confused. She has like no idea what the kids are talking about She knows that there is an old pipe sticking out of the ground in the backyard But a it was covered by a large rock and b It's literally eight inches in diameter.

[00:23:34] So there's no way that this is the pipe that the kids are talking about. Like the diameter is smaller than Literally a football. 

[00:23:40] Adam Cox: Yeah. Okay. 

[00:23:41] Kyle Risi: But the kids are like admin. So Sissy rushes over. She peers down the pipe. She sees nothing. But she hears the faint cries of Jessica coming up from the pipe. Oh no. And sissy freaks out. She runs inside, she calls the police and frantically is pleading with him to hurry. Like she's like, save my baby, save my baby. Is this, is this a working? Well then. No, It's got the top cut [00:24:00] off because normally there'd be like a pump on top of it But that's gone and it's just as opening in the ground 

[00:24:04] Adam Cox: and this is in her backyard 

[00:24:05] Kyle Risi: in her backyard 

[00:24:07] Adam Cox: Should have covered that but anyway, well they did they 

[00:24:09] Kyle Risi: had it covered with a big large rock But the rock had obviously fallen off and she'd got in.

[00:24:12] Adam Cox: Oh, right Okay, fine 

[00:24:14] Kyle Risi: But it also wasn't really something that was on the radar because when the kids came running over she had no idea what they were Right, yeah, yeah So when the police arrived they quickly realized that they had no idea how they could help. They literally cannot even see Jessica down the pipe.

[00:24:29] Now Midland had historically been part of the Texas oil boom throughout the 1970s, but by the late 1980s that boom had gone bust, which left the town essentially impoverished. And even though the town was no longer producing oil, it did still have a lot of specialized equipment across a number of different businesses that could potentially help baby Jessica 

[00:24:49] out of this pipe. That's handy. It is very handy. So the police call a bunch of local experts And they established very quickly that the pipe that jessica's fallen into was actually an abandoned old [00:25:00] water well So to help assess the situation They stick a thermal imaging camera into the pipe and they manage to see like this faint outline of a tiny person Next, they lower down a microphone into the well, and they're able to hear the faint little whimpers of Jessica.

[00:25:18] They work out that Jessica is roughly around about 7 meters down. That's 7 meters! That's taller than this building, Adam. 

[00:25:26] Adam Cox: This building, you mean our house? Our house, yeah. Um, and so this is So how wide is the well? So they can't fit down themselves? 

[00:25:34] Kyle Risi: No, the well is eight inches in diameter. So it is that, so it's eight 

[00:25:38] Yeah. So how is she falling down this thing? Exactly. This is an 18 month old kid who's no wider than a football. So she must have, 

[00:25:46] Adam Cox: that's not something you easily like trip and just fall into, right? She's 

[00:25:49] Kyle Risi: climbed in, or one of the other kids have put her in there again. It's 

[00:25:52] Adam Cox: like, uh, oops, yeah.

[00:25:54] Kyle Risi: Shit. The important thing is, she's seven meters down, but she is still [00:26:00] alive. So while all of this is going on, a local news station gets wind of the story, they dispatch a team of reporters to cover it, and when they arrive, it is very quickly recognised that this story had all the elements to help boost ratings.

[00:26:13] It had a clear protagonist in the form of a white child in danger. Okay. Young anxious parents, a complex rescue operation, and most importantly, the uncertainty of whether or not this child would survive. So of course, it's got all the makings of a perfect story. 

[00:26:30] Adam Cox: Yeah, I mean, I get that. I get people would be interesting, but isn't it weird for someone In a newsroom going, Oh, we can make something of this.

[00:26:38] Kyle Risi: But the thing is, though, they're only playing into what people want, right? That's the only reason like we find that captivating, right? It's a young child who doesn't care about a child. Yeah. So we can't relate with the anxiety of a worried parent. Like where a child could potentially die or live, people are invested and this is just the media. Using that to their advantage. They're not [00:27:00] manufacturing it. 

[00:27:00] Adam Cox: It's just, yeah, it's that, I think it's that, how you just said it, using it to their advantage. Because at the end of the day, it feels like regardless of the outcome, they get their story.

[00:27:10] Kyle Risi: Oh yeah. So of course, the local news pick up the story, but it's not long before the story is picked up by the national news and people become deeply invested in whether or not Baby Jessica is going to survive. But here is a problem. People didn't want to just get updates in the newspaper and the six o'clock news.

[00:27:26] They wanted round the clock news coverage. But of course, networks, they obviously had a schedule that they had to adhere to so many of them were forced to return back to regular programming except for CNN. Who was already set up for 24 hour news coverage.

[00:27:43] So as the press started to embark on the site where this was all unfolding, rescuers decided to try and keep the cameras at bay by cordoning off the area, using these makeshift barriers, the only way that reporters were able to see anything was to stand on a ladder so they could peer over, and some of them were [00:28:00] quite close to the hole so they could kind of like literally point their cameras down the hole to kind of watch.

[00:28:05] The thing unfold essentially. It was really grim. It became so overrun with reporters that neighbours had to band together to hand out coffee and sandwiches. And since this went on for 58 hours, Adam. 

[00:28:16] Adam Cox: 58 hours? 

[00:28:17] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Neighbours were letting reporters sleep on their sofas, use their showers, use their toilets, use their phones.

[00:28:22] And reporters who arrived too late to get a spot close to the well sat in nearby neighbors living rooms watching CNN, where they would then obviously call in any updates to the editors. But the problem was that those editors were already tuned into CNN.

[00:28:37] So it's like, what's the point? 

[00:28:38] Adam Cox: It's like, um, yeah, I've got this great breaking news update, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they're like, I can see that on CNN. Yeah. 

[00:28:43] Kyle Risi: I'm watching it right now, Steve. Like, 

[00:28:45] Adam Cox: uh, 

[00:28:46] Kyle Risi: They won't let me near.

[00:28:48] So one of the first policemen on the scene was a guy called Andy Glasscock. Clearly he was never bullied. Now he was assigned the task of laying on his stomach next to the pipe, calling down to [00:29:00] baby Jessica and listening for her responses through the microphone that was lowered into the well. And his job was just to make her feel safe, like keep her awake, keep her alert.

[00:29:08] And he would gently say, Jessica, what sound does a kitty make? And then her response would be like, meow. 

[00:29:15] Adam Cox: Oh, 

[00:29:16] Kyle Risi: it's not heartbreaking. I 

[00:29:18] Adam Cox: guess this kid who's only 18 months old, it's not like she has the strength because this is quite a small diameter. So I'm thinking, how would I get out of this? How would I get out? Right, Right, let's think critically. Yeah, you think or what would I do in that situation? Because you think, if I'm stuck down this well, Maybe I can use my body tense enough to then somehow crawl up, but like an 18 month year old. 

[00:29:38] Kyle Risi: No, she probably doesn't even have the leg strength.

[00:29:40] Yeah. Oh, but when you find out how she's stuck, you'll just be horrified. 

[00:29:43] Adam Cox: She's not upside down, is she? 

[00:29:45] Kyle Risi: You'll see. Oh 

[00:29:46] Adam Cox: no. 

[00:29:46] Kyle Risi: And of course, because they had no idea if she was injured down there, they decided not to send out any food or water down the pipe, just in case, of course, she had any internal injuries.

[00:29:54] The only thing that they could do was just pump down some oxygen to her to make sure that she was getting a fresh [00:30:00] supply. And the plan to rescue was to dig a shaft parallel to the well. And then once that was dug to dig a horizontal tunnel to reach the well just below where she was lodged.

[00:30:10] So like a cross section of this, it's like the shape of a letter H. Yeah. So you've got the well, you've got the other well, and then they'll dig a tunnel, connecting the two. 

[00:30:18] Adam Cox: Yeah, that 

[00:30:19] Kyle Risi: makes sense. But after digging down a meter, they hit solid rock, forcing them to bring in specialised drilling equipment with kind of like a diamond tip and even with this they can only drill down like a few centimetres per hour before kind of the drill then wore out then they had to get another one in. 

[00:30:33] Adam Cox: That is, yeah, because also I guess you've got to be really careful not to disturb too much of the ground around I guess because you don't know what's under there, you don't know how it could be connected to moving around.

[00:30:46] Kyle Risi: Eventually, night time on the first evening came and Jessica was still stuck down the well. And the noise is just overwhelming. Of course, baby Jessica is terrified. And Andy Glasscock says that, to make herself feel better, he could hear her singing Winnie the [00:31:00] Pooh through the microphone. So it's like, Winnie the Pooh, tubby little chubby all stuffed with fluff. He's Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh. This is horrible. The parents must be distraught. Yeah, I can imagine. 

[00:31:14] So 24 hours later, this is now an international story with news teams all over the world arriving at this small little town in Midland, Texas.

[00:31:23] A bunch of volunteers who hear about the story in the news start making their way to the site. Among them is a paramedic called Robert O'Donnell. Now, he initially had seen the early local reporting and just figured like the rescue would be pretty quick. As the hours dragged on he realized like, I can't just stand by and not do anything, I have to. I have to go and help. Yeah. So he finishes his shift and he drives down to Midland to lend a hand. Finally, they do manage to drill the hole down to the point where they think baby jessica is trapped but now they need to kind of dig across hoping to come in underneath her. [00:32:00] And they need to make sure they get this right because of course if they break through the other well they could end up crushing her yeah 

[00:32:06] Adam Cox: that is like a knife edge sort of thing in terms of how you, how far you dig . 

[00:32:09] Kyle Risi: When they finally break through the rescuers now had to decide who they were going to send down the tunnels and the shafts to rescue Jessica Mm hmm, and so of course this is incredibly dangerous task because the tunnel could essentially just collapse at any moment, right?

[00:32:23] Adam Cox: Yeah, it's not reinforcing the sides or anything. 

[00:32:25] Kyle Risi: Exactly. And because the horizontal tunnel is so narrow, whoever they sent down had to be small enough to fit through. One of the volunteers was a roofer contractor named Ron Shorts who had grossly been born without any collarbones which means that he could concave his shoulders and fit through kind of the narrow tunnel but they genuinely feared that this might frighten Jessica if she sees it. So they were like, no dice.

[00:32:48] So we've got a guy who's perfect 

[00:32:49] Adam Cox: for the job, but this might freak her out because he's coming in all contorted. 

[00:32:55] Kyle Risi: Yeah, essentially, that's correct. So instead, they chose Robert [00:33:00] O'Donnell, that was the paramedic.

[00:33:01] Adam Cox: That just came down to volunteer. 

[00:33:03] Kyle Risi: Exactly. So he's really skinny he's six foot tall, but he weighs 145 pounds. So he's perfect. He's super slim. So the rescuers give Robert a crash course on how to kind of assess Jessica's condition before he would move her.

[00:33:16] They equip him with a mining light, they strap him to kind of a cable harness, and then they just lower him down into this kind of shaft. When he reaches the bottom, he then has to maneuver himself horizontally and wiggle headfirst, arms stretched out, through this narrow tunnel. What he didn't tell rescuers though, was that he was actually severely claustrophobic 

[00:33:38] Adam Cox: I mean i'm not the best in tight situations like that and I just felt Really anxious all of a sudden you can 

[00:33:43] Kyle Risi: feel it, right? 

[00:33:44] Adam Cox: Yeah, you feel it. I don't think I could have done this 

[00:33:46] Kyle Risi: but what's incredible is that he like Knew that it just didn't matter like he had to put his fears aside because a child needed rescuing.

[00:33:55] True, his mind, it would matter or whatever. Yeah. Adrenaline. Robert later says that he [00:34:00] described the experience as being tightly wrapped in a sleeping bag, saying that you really felt like you were stuck in a grave. 

[00:34:07] Adam Cox: How 

[00:34:08] Kyle Risi: horrible is that? 

[00:34:09] Adam Cox: Especially if that.

[00:34:11] Kyle Risi: So when Robert reaches Jessica, he places an inflatable balloon down the pipe below Jessica, right? So, 

[00:34:17] Adam Cox: so the holes drilled through the pipe. Mm hmm And and so she's just above that hole and he's gonna somehow reach into 

[00:34:24] Kyle Risi: that's right But before he does that you put this balloon down there Inflates it because of course you don't want it to kind of slip and then fall down further Right, cause then you have to keep digging another hole.

[00:34:32] So put this balloon down there and Then he starts to kind of assess the situation He sees that one of her feet was dangling down towards him while the other was wedged up by her head so she was essentially stuck in the split position. And she'd been like that this entire time and by this point is like roughly 48 hours.

[00:34:50] Adam Cox: So, at least she, her head's upright, because I was thinking if she was head first, I think she would have died, right? God, that wouldn't have been good. But that's, that's a relief that [00:35:00] she at least is like that. 

[00:35:01] Kyle Risi: So he gently calls out to her saying, hey Juicy, because that's the nickname that her parents gave her.

[00:35:06] He's like, hey Juicy, I'm here to help you. And he asked if like, she could move her legs, which she could, which is good because this indicated that she didn't have any kind of spinal injuries. He then reaches up to grab her little ankle, but as soon as he tries to pull her down, like no and then immediately pulls her leg out of reach so it's clearly in pain yeah she's also completely wedged in Adam so Robert realizes that there's nothing that he can do to release her and he has to go back up so so he's prepared to leave he says juicy I'm coming back. Okay. I promise I'm coming back. And then he kind of like wiggled himself backwards out of the tunnel. 

[00:35:42] And then the team just put him up. Now, imagine watching this unfold as a spectator on CNN, right? All you see is Robert go down and everyone is on tenderhooks waiting for him to come up with Jessica. 

[00:35:55] Adam Cox: Oh, no, this is going to be what let down for everyone.

[00:35:57] Kyle Risi: But when he emerges, Jessica isn't with him. [00:36:00] So you can just imagine this is a super intense situation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. he explains to the team how tight the space was, and it really got to him. He was visibly distraught. He was devastated that he had to leave Jessica down there.

[00:36:13] And doctors were so concerned that they didn't want to allow him to go back down, but he insisted. He was like, no, I told her, I'm coming back I have to go back down there even though this guy is terrified and traumatized by all this. In the end of course they agree they widen the tunnel a little bit with a little bit more drilling and then the new plan is to send Robert back down with some KY jelly and a rubber tipped leg from a photographer's tripod. Other reports say it was kind of like forceps that you use during childbirth, but other people say it was a tripod leg. 

[00:36:45] Adam Cox: And KY Jelly, that is That's blue, basically. Okay, just double checking. Ha!

[00:36:51] Kyle Risi: So, he crawls through the tunnel, gets back to Jessica, and then he proceeds to grease her up as much as he possibly can. And then she just popped straight out!

[00:36:58] Really? So that really Yeah, it [00:37:00] worked! Yeah! Applying the training that the paramedics gave him, he assesses Jessica, and he establishes that she's safe to be moved. They then lowered a small kind of like back brace board down to the well. So they kind of use that when you're like airlifting people in a helicopter. And then they started the painstaking process of shuffling through the tunnel while he's pulling Jessica along behind him by her legs, because he's got to do this all backwards.

[00:37:22] Adam Cox: Yeah, and how is he, I'm trying to think, then he gets to the hole that they're then going to be lifted out of. I'm trying to imagine how he's then going to somehow. pull her close enough to him and then get her upright or whatever. He 

[00:37:35] Kyle Risi: does, he just has to shuffle through with one hand pulling her leg backwards. It's horrible. Poor Jessica. So if you're watching on television at home all you see are the backs of the men's Heads looking down to the hole so you wouldn't be able to see what's happening below, but you knew something was happening. I'm thinking, 

[00:37:54] Adam Cox: like now, they probably would have a camera strapped to someone, right? so they could see what [00:38:00] sort of state Jessica probably was in, and so people could then consult above ground. I imagine that would be on the news now, wouldn't they?

[00:38:06] Because when you see like, um, People trapped in a cave. There was that story not so long ago. They did used to put cameras in there so they could see how they were like. 

[00:38:14] Kyle Risi: I just feel that's quite morbid and that just just expresses just how eager the media are for footage that's going to keep people glued to the screen.

[00:38:23] Adam Cox: Well, that's what I mean. I feel like that's something that they would do now. 

[00:38:26] Kyle Risi: And it shouldn't be because at the end of the day, this is a rescue operation. Do you know what I mean? Like, oh, you want to sell more newspapers? Well, we have a small 18 month old kid that we need to save.

[00:38:34] Robert is about to make his way through this tunnel and The thing is though, the public don't know what Robert's gonna come up with. Could he come up with a body? Or could he come up with Jessica alive? Like, nobody knew. Nobody knew what state she was going to be in. 

[00:38:49] So, after 56 hours, the moment everyone was waiting for finally happened. A fist shot up from around the hole and was one of the rescuers signaling that it was done. And then Robert emerges with baby [00:39:00] Jessica in his arms and she was alive, Adam. You can see her little arm move in the footage on YouTube and the entire backyard just explodes with these cheers of relief and the town of Midland started ringing all his church bells and Celebration and the parents just you see them embrace her They're just so happy that they finally got her back and then they just rush her off to the an ambulance.

[00:39:25] And when you watch this footage on YouTube, it's just wild to realize that this is someone's backyard because the place is just packed with people, press, neighbors, and they've got all this heavy equipment just scattered all over the place. It really looks more like a construction site. It's so bizarre.

[00:39:40] Adam Cox: I think, that's actually made me feel quite emotional, that kind of reaction, I imagine, getting her out. It's 

[00:39:45] Kyle Risi: the people coming together, right? The whole of America is invested in this story. And remember, it's not just an American story now, it's worldwide. 

[00:39:52] Adam Cox: Anyone could imagine this kind of pain, you know, if you've got that, a child in trouble. 

[00:39:56] Kyle Risi: Yeah. 

[00:39:57] Adam Cox: Although when you said the fist going up, part of me [00:40:00] imagined that it was Robert with his fist coming up like Superman. Yeah. Coming up out of the ground with Baby Jesus again.

[00:40:05] Duh duh duh! Duh 

[00:40:06] Kyle Risi: duh duh duh! I've saved a child! That would've been funny. No, it's another rescuer there, kind of like, Yeah! We did it! And then Robert is still in the hole, so he hands the baby over to another rescuer. He is still in the hole, while baby Jessica is being ushered away. 

[00:40:19] Adam Cox: Maybe he didn't want attention on him because he'd be like, oh, you're the hero. He's like, you know what, get her help, focus on her. I'll come up when people turned away and not going to be focusing on me coming out of the hole 

[00:40:30] Kyle Risi: That is a fair assessment because that's exactly his personality. He is a quite a shy reserved kind of guy He doesn't like the spotlight. He doesn't handle it. Well, but things will change for him.

[00:40:39] So what's incredible is that when Jessica's finally pulled from the, well, a photographer named Scott Shaw was there, and he snapped the first photograph of her being rescued, and this picture became the picture that everyone associated with this entire ordeal.

[00:40:53] It was so powerful, Adam, that it ended up winning the Pulitzer Prize for spot photography in 1988. And isn't it just [00:41:00] amazing how, when we think about all the major events that happened In the world, there's typically always one or two photographs that sum up that entire event It's just crazy and this is pretty much that photograph So when you see it, you just see baby jessica basically being carried away by these rescuers. It's really sad

[00:41:18] And like I mentioned, there's a clip on YouTube showing the exact moment where she's lifted out. It's pretty intense. So we'll include that in the show notes, but go and check that out because it's just like you said, you got chills when you were thinking about everyone just cheering at that moment where she's finally rescued.

[00:41:33] And you do get that sense, even though this happened like in the 1980s. So after she's rescued, they rushed baby Jessica to the hospital. The first thing she ate was an orange popsicle, which is just such a sweet detail after everything that she went through. I 

[00:41:46] Adam Cox: guess like hydration, give it some sugar and I'd be like, you can have anything you want. 

[00:41:51] Kyle Risi: Anything? 

[00:41:52] Adam Cox: Orange popsicle. 

[00:41:54] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Baby Jessica needs orange popsicle. Thank you.

[00:41:58] But the thing is though, her timing that well [00:42:00] wasn't without complications. Because she was stuck in the split position, it ended up cutting off circulation to one of her legs. And as a result, gangrene had started settling in. Really that quickly? I mean, she was down there 58 hours. So they had to put her in a hyperbaric chamber in order to try and flood her body with oxygen, 'cause that would help stave off the gangrene. Mm-Hmm. Unfortunately, they had to amputate her little toe.

[00:42:20] Adam Cox: Her little pinky toe. 

[00:42:21] Kyle Risi: And you can just imagine how tiny that is. 

[00:42:23] Adam Cox: Yeah. For an 18 month old. To be fair, in the grand scheme of things, if that's all that happened.

[00:42:28] Kyle Risi: I mean, she did have a big nasty gash on her forehead as well. So that did require a bunch of cosmetic surgery over a bunch of weeks, but other than that, she was actually okay. It could have been a lot worse had she been stuck down there much longer.

[00:42:41] But after she was rescued, her parents, Chip and Sissy, they didn't have insurance at all. So paying their medical bills could have been this massive burden to them. So they didn't really know how they were going to front up the cost.

[00:42:54] But all the doctors that treated her, they all agreed to just donate their time. And when the bill [00:43:00] came, it was just 50, 000. And that's exactly how it was said in the reporting. It was only 50, 000. I go, only, only 50, 000. I know, and 

[00:43:09] Adam Cox: I'm like That's still crippling. And that's 1980s 50, 000. Is 

[00:43:13] Kyle Risi: that mental? For just cutting off a tiny toe, I would have bit that thing off. Ooh, bit of gangrene. 

[00:43:19] Adam Cox: Sorry, we'll handle this. 

[00:43:21] Kyle Risi: It's what you do with an apple, right? oh, my apple's got a bit of a bruise on it. You just 

[00:43:24] Adam Cox: bite the bruise out and then eat the rest.

[00:43:25] Kyle Risi: Just spit that out. Same with your child, right? Um, I don't like this this nubbin that you've got, this third nipple. Problem solve Hump. 

[00:43:36] Adam Cox: That's definitely not how it should go. 

[00:43:39] Kyle Risi: So because CNN covered the story so intensely, people didn't just follow it. They got emotionally invested in Jessica and her family. And when Word got out that they were struggling financially, that public rallied around and they set up a trust fund for her. And by the time Jessica was rescued, it had reached an incredible 700, 000. So people just wanted to [00:44:00] help her and they did. And it's all because of CNN, essentially bringing the story to the world.

[00:44:05] Also, The hospital was so overrun with gifts for her that they had to dedicate an entire room just to store everything. And someone even donated her a damn puppy. What have I got to do to get a puppy? I've done so much, I've done all my chores. Where's my puppy, Adam? 

[00:44:18] Adam Cox: Hang on, you haven't been stuck down a well. But then a puppy Hang on, are you 

[00:44:21] Kyle Risi: saying No, I'm not Are you saying if I throw myself headfirst down a well, you'll buy me a puppy?

[00:44:27] Adam Cox: Let's get back to baby Jess. So what would her parents think? They're like, oh yeah, we've got a puppy. don't really want to look after a puppy. How do you know? You don't know that. I'm just thinking like, They're not you, Adam. They're assuming that they're going to be able. What if one of them's allergic?

[00:44:42] I don't know, maybe it was offered to 

[00:44:43] Kyle Risi: them. I mean, it was a pretty good puppy. It was a sharp A. It was a pretty good puppy. As far as puppy goes. As far as puppies go, pretty damned good. Okay. There's a sharp A. 

[00:44:52] Adam Cox: That doesn't mean anything to 

[00:44:53] Kyle Risi: me. The Shar Pei's are those big wrinkly dogs. With all the wrinkles and you gotta like sometimes make sure they don't get like moisture trapped [00:45:00] under there because it could cause, you know, thrush. Puppy thrush. 

[00:45:03] Adam Cox: I don't think I want that kind of dog. I'd be like, no, take this back. Fair enough. 

[00:45:08] Kyle Risi: I would, I would take a Shar Pei, no problem.

[00:45:10] So after the rescue, things didn't slow down for the family. Jessica was invited to meet the president, who made this kind of beautiful statement about how her story had brought the entire country together, saying like, we are all her godfathers and godmothers now.

[00:45:24] And I mean, that is the sentiment that the country had when it came to Jessica. That's how they felt. She even appeared on live with Regis and Kathy Lee, which is this huge morning TV show in America, a bit like This Morning or like Good Morning Britain.

[00:45:38] As for Jessica, she made a full recovery and eventually went on to live a pretty normal life. The media attention eventually died down, and it wasn't until she was older, watching a special about baby Jessica, That she had that moment of realisation, it was about her. She didn't even know for ages that she was baby Jessica. 

[00:45:59] Adam Cox: Oh [00:46:00] really? No! She must still have been like a kid that I think she was 

[00:46:03] Kyle Risi: round about 11. 

[00:46:04] Adam Cox: I was just thinking if she was like a 20 year old, and then be like, Oh, baby Jessica lost a toe, I lost a toe. Hang on a minute. My name's Jessica.

[00:46:11] Kyle Risi: Oh my god, that's like my name! Things did get even better for her because when she turned 25 in 2011 she gained access to that trust fund that had been set up for her by the public. Unfortunately, a lot of the money was lost during the 2008 stock market crash but even still she got like 800, 000.

[00:46:28] Adam Cox: Yeah, I guess that's a house that, that sets you up sort of thing. That sets you 

[00:46:31] Kyle Risi: up. And her parents spent some of the money, don't get me wrong, but of course it was to benefit her. But! Yeah. That's what was left. 800, 000. It's nothing to grumble about. Yeah.

[00:46:40] Jessica said that the term baby Jessica saw something that she hears all the time. She even shares the story about telling a lady at work that she fell down the stairs. a well when she was a baby and the woman was like, Oh my God, you're baby Jessica. Oh my God. 

[00:46:53] Adam Cox: Oh my God, guys, guys. That's what I mean. Like, even if she's an adult and people call her baby Jessica, could you pass us the remote? [00:47:00] Yeah, I 

[00:47:00] Kyle Risi: reckon you probably would call her baby Jessica. Like all her friends, people who know her.

[00:47:03] Adam Cox: Yeah. 

[00:47:03] Kyle Risi: Why not? And looking back on everything in a recent interview, Jessica says that she hopes her children will learn from her experience Like, what are you going to learn from your mum's experience falling down the well? I don't get that. 

[00:47:13] Adam Cox: I feel like you might go, hey, if you see a well, don't fall down it. Don't 

[00:47:16] Kyle Risi: fall down it. Please learn from that. Don't make the mistakes that I did. And she just, apparently she says that she just wants him to stay humble, remember where they came from, and understand, like, that life is fragile, yeah, and like, worlds are bad.

[00:47:33] But like, bitch, you got 800, 000, you didn't become a superstar. Um. But as she puts it, she says that you can't take life for granted, which is true.

[00:47:42] Adam Cox: And where was, um, Lassie, or like, um, what's that kangaroo called? Skippy. Skippy. Where were they during this?

[00:47:49] Kyle Risi: Well, they put Lassie down. 

[00:47:51] Adam Cox: Oh. 

[00:47:51] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Skippy. 

[00:47:53] Adam Cox: It was in Australia, I guess. It was in 

[00:47:54] Kyle Risi: Australia, yeah, it wasn't about, but yeah. 

[00:47:56] Adam Cox: I reckon he was freaking out, though. He was like jumping around in a circle. His little 

[00:47:58] Kyle Risi: kind of kangaroo senses were [00:48:00] going off, going, Oh my god, someone needs help! There's a bit, 

[00:48:02] Adam Cox: generally, this time, there is someone sucked down the well.

[00:48:06] Kyle Risi: He's cried wolf so many times that people can't trust Skippy.

[00:48:10] But Adam, not everything about baby Jessica's story has a happy ending. Could we have not left it there then? We could have. Oh, I felt good about this now. I know, I know. Sure, her rescue brought people together, but it also showed a darker side of the media and how it can profit from people suffering. And this is something we have seen time and time again in the stories that we've covered on the show. Because after Jessica's rescue, Jessica's parents, Chip and Sissy, found themselves being relentlessly scrutinized by the media.

[00:48:40] And it all started with people questioning why Jessica was left unattended in the first place. And it's because CNN had this new format of bringing on these talking heads to share opinions about things that they don't need to have opinions about. 

[00:48:54] Adam Cox: Like Beryl from down the street. 

[00:48:55] Kyle Risi: Exactly.

[00:48:56] So, and the question was , like, why she answered the phone? [00:49:00] Why wouldn't you answer the phone? That's what it's there for. She answered the phone because someone was calling her. It doesn't matter if your kid's in the backyard, you think they're safe. You, as a parent, have the foresight to make a judgment call to say, they've been outside a million times, this is a daycare center, hundreds of other parents that send their kids here think it's safe as well, I'm just gonna answer the damn phone.

[00:49:20] Yeah,

[00:49:20] and then also when the trust money finally started coming in people began to really turn on them technically They could have used the money any way they saw fit though The purpose of the money was to benefit Jessica, but I'd argue buying a bigger house and buying a newer car Are things that 100 percent benefit her, but people are like, Why are you squandering her money?

[00:49:40] Oh, you're buying a nice big house? Oh, you're buying a new car? the bitch needs to go to ballet.That's why we bought the car. 

[00:49:46] Adam Cox: Yeah, but in a Range Rover? Couldn't she just go in a regular Nissan or something? 

[00:49:52] Kyle Risi: I think, you know what, she got most of the money. They just spent what they needed to spend to give them a leg up. They were dirt poor anyway. And that's why the money came [00:50:00] in. Because they were so poor. That people wanted to give them something. 

[00:50:03] Adam Cox: Or buy a house without a well. 

[00:50:05] Kyle Risi: It's not their house, it's their sister's house. 

[00:50:06] Adam Cox: Oh, buy their sister a house without a well.

[00:50:09] Kyle Risi: So it's not like they were squandering the money or gambling it away., anything they didn't use they did put into savings. But that didn't stop people from being just incredibly nasty, demanding to know exactly where every single penny was going and accusing them of just wasting Jessica's money.

[00:50:24] Now. This kind of scrutiny might seem normal to us today, but back then this was really unprecedented. And the thing to blame was the rise of 24 hour news. This new format meant that networks could now, fill airtime by bringing on pundits and talking heads to give their opinion. And suddenly everyone was a critic questioning Chip and Sissy's parenting skills and it just got really ugly really fast so it turned really dark.

[00:50:50] In a way, it's almost cheeky to say that it's all baby Jessica's fault. Her fall down that well marked that turning point, the line in the sand between [00:51:00] the world before Jessica fell down the well and the world afterwards. And people being so captivated by watching these stories unfold live, therefore feeling that entitlement to comment on it. even more so with social media and channels like YouTube, where everyone can have a platform.

[00:51:16] Adam Cox: Yeah, I mean, BBJ was just a simpler time and ABJ is just, I love that, before Jessica, after Jessica, that's how we should do it from now on. To be fair, I find that this is a bit of a segway to make this about you because it was the day after your birthday. So when you say BBJ, you really kind of mean Before Adam Copps. 

[00:51:38] I'm not the one that's making that connection. You are. It's a valid connection. But I'm not making it. 

[00:51:44] Kyle Risi: I just love your confidence. Arrogance. But the thing is though, it's all baby Jessica's fault, and honestly, when the reckoning comes, I wouldn't be surprised if baby Jessica's chubby little legs are to blame for single handedly destroying the world as we know it. 

[00:51:59] Adam Cox: Yeah, [00:52:00] let's, let's, let's go and protest. 

[00:52:01] Kyle Risi: Drag her out, let's tar and feather her, stick her back down the hole.

[00:52:05] Adam Cox: I just think this is crazy. I feel like any parent that, Something happens to their child, think of Madeline McCann, think of whoever, there's so many instances. They just get criticised and unfairly a lot of the time. 

[00:52:18] Kyle Risi: 100 percent women get such a raw deal, like you can't act correctly can you? If you are too composed, well you're hiding something.

[00:52:26] If you're too hysterical and emotional, again you're criticised for that as well.

[00:52:29] Adam Cox: Yeah, because I think now, kids don't necessarily go out and play like they did when we were kids. And so you'd end up Play? I was out on the rob.

[00:52:38] But you would end up in different situations that your mum would never have known about, but it was kind of normal back then. Yeah. But now, you know, there's this cotton wool around everyone, like, don't go out, don't do this. Yeah, yeah. And then they criticise, oh, but they're staying at home on their tablets. But we're not allowing them to go out. I don't know. 

[00:52:58] Kyle Risi: Yeah, I get [00:53:00] it. The things I used to do when I was a kid, I used to go on these adventures. If someone had like, kidnapped me and killed me, I was so far away from home sometimes that they would have never have found me. It's scary some of the things we did I remember our neighbor had some puppies and six of them died We decided to put them all in and these are beautiful dalmatian puppies They didn't even have their spots because you don't get their spots until they're like 10 days old So they're adorable, but a bunch of them died for some weird reason And I remember we put them all in this ice cream tub like a five liter ice cream tub We got in our bmxs.

[00:53:33] We traveled down the highway and against the traffic and we were always taught that if you're driving on the main road drive towards the traffic So you can see the cars coming at you eventually we came to this graveyard and we buried these puppies next to like this old lady and then we drove back and that took us all day.

[00:53:50] Adam Cox: I mean, that's really sweet that you did that. It is, 

[00:53:52] Kyle Risi: but we could have died. 

[00:53:53] Adam Cox: Yeah, and did you know that this cemetery, whatever, existed? Kind of. It needs to be this one. 

[00:53:59] Kyle Risi: We [00:54:00] kind of knew it existed. I don't know how it got there before. Strange. So, yeah, like, we live very different lives. 

[00:54:08] Adam Cox: To back then, yeah. A lot more carefree, a lot more freedom, because, I don't know, and I guess if they didn't think, given the size of this tube, pipe, whatever it is, you would never think that someone would fall down, especially if it was covered.

[00:54:21] Kyle Risi: Can you imagine If no other kids had seen her? and she just disappeared. They would have thought someone kidnapped her and then for ages they would have been like, oh my god, save my baby, all this while she is stuck down this well. 

[00:54:32] Adam Cox: Oh, that's horrible. There was something recently, not to sound too morbid, someone got trapped behind a fridge and they didn't realize this.

[00:54:38] Kyle Risi: Yeah, 20 years. Yeah. Is that crazy? They found them 20 and they couldn't hear their screams because, the fans of the refrigerators were just drowning them out. That's horrifying. Horrifying. And they found them, 20 odd years later when they were cleaning out or gutting out the store to replace it with new fixtures. They moved the fridges. Yeah. And then they found the, the [00:55:00] skeleton of this, this man. 

[00:55:01] Adam Cox: Oh, horrendous. Anyway, but baby Jessica, she's alive and well.

[00:55:05] Kyle Risi: So yeah, and of course, Chip and Sissy throughout all of the scrutiny, they were just completely mortified by this relentless hounding by the press. So to try and counter it all, they took out an ad in the local paper where they thanked everyone for their support and for all the donated toys and stuff.

[00:55:22] And as for the toys that they couldn't use, they, handed them out to the children of the volunteers who helped during the rescue. Even this ended up turning against him, 

[00:55:31] no matter how you act, you're going to be scrutinized one way or another. So in the end, they just eventually decided to stop talking to the press entirely. Just to kind of shield baby Jessica from all the fallout. But the problem is that this eventually took its toll on the couple. And by 1990, Chip and Sissy ended up divorcing.

[00:55:52] Adam Cox: Oh, as a result of the media and, or strain on their marriage. It's just 

[00:55:56] Kyle Risi: so stressful. But probably, Adam, the [00:56:00] saddest part of the story is what happened to Robert O'Donnell. The man who physically pulled Jessica out of the well. So Robert was always quiet. He was a shy guy, someone who mostly kept to himself. And he worked as a firefighter and he recently started working night shifts as a paramedic. And the thing about Robert is that he suffered from debilitating migraines that would kind of knock him out for days. So when he set out to assist in the rescue effort, he never anticipated that this would end up changing his life forever. 

[00:56:30] And right after Jessica was pulled out the well, before Robert even made it home, the press were already all over him. And since Jessica was a baby, she couldn't explain what it was like down there. Robert was the only one who could share that experience. 

[00:56:44] So reporters were just desperate for an interview and photos of him and just to get his side of the story. And at first Robert was really reluctant to go public But the offers just started pouring in for him to appear on various shows and eventually his family convinced him like You've got an offer here from oprah [00:57:00] winfrey To go on the show do it.

[00:57:01] This is going to be a good opportunity for you But also people deserve to hear your accounts of the story. So eventually he's convinced he goes on the show You And this eventually leads him to being honoured at a White House dinner and attending various other events around the country.

[00:57:16] Adam Cox: So for someone else, this might seem oh wow, all these great perks and opportunities, yeah, you never intended for, wanted for any of this, but maybe a lot of people could appreciate that? Because he's, you know, he's being celebrated as a hero. But it sounds like for someone that just didn't want this attention, Um, I'm guessing it kind of unravels a bit.

[00:57:36] It does.

[00:57:37] Kyle Risi: And here's the thing. Every time he went to one of these events or these appearances people just wanted him to relive the traumatic rescue and because he'd been so occupied with all these different events he'd never really gotten the chance to process kind of what had happened.

[00:57:53] So it's not surprising that this would have an impact on him. deep impact on someone. So despite that, [00:58:00] the sudden fame and attention that he was receiving started to make him think that this opportunity could potentially benefit his life in a positive way. And when he heard that Hollywood was planning on making a TV movie about baby Jessica, he thought that he could potentially use this to his advantage.

[00:58:19] But when Hollywood did get involved, there were various disagreements starting to crop up amongst the rescuers, who then divided themselves into two camps. Robert was part of one of those, groups. And the main issue was like, how would the story be told? And who will be profiting from the story.

[00:58:36] Eventually they did come to an agreement and the TV movie was made. It was called Everybody's Baby, The Rescue of Jessica McClure. And it starred Bo Bridges, Pat Hingle, who obviously was playing Robert and Robert was given a small non speaking part as a reporter and he was just thrilled at him.

[00:58:54] He was like, this is it. I'm going to use this to potentially land a book deal, sell my story, get some money, [00:59:00] better my life, move to a bigger house and just, be happier. 

[00:59:03] Adam Cox: So he has changed his opinion a little bit now 

[00:59:05] Kyle Risi: he's not doing it because he's fame hungry he's doing it because he recognizes that this could better his life that's fair.

[00:59:11] So on the night that the movie was aired, Robert swapped his shift so he could be at home with his family to watch it. He planned like a big party where everyone would gather around and watch this big moment. Before he left work, his chief pulled him aside and said like, listen Robert, why don't you just climb down from your pedestal before you fall?

[00:59:27] Because this is getting a little crazy. You can't make a living as America's hero, life goes on and so should yours. Which is like, That's a nasty thing to say. 

[00:59:38] Adam Cox: I don't know what it is, because I guess it does seem like it has changed him based on what you've said. 

[00:59:43] Kyle Risi: Sounds like he might just be consumed with this, waiting for this opportunity to unravel, with the film. But that night, as everyone eagerly watched the movie, Robert's scene never came. They cut him.

[00:59:54] And outwardly he shrugged it off , but on the inside he was absolutely crushed because he was relying on this [01:00:00] moment. And it quickly became clear that the public's interest in the story, Was now fading which just terrified me even more because he built up so much of his hope On this being potentially his big break So frantically he started going around all these different publications like people magazine To see if they were interested in writing his autobiography But by this point just no one was interested.

[01:00:21] He now wasn't in the film So he couldn't use that to go. Oh, by the way I was in this film and it was all about me. And with that, he just ended up slipping back into obscurity, which led him to abusing prescription drugs and eventually his divorce.

[01:00:35] But a few years later in 1995, Robert was watching footage of the Oklahoma City bombing and one image of a firefighter holding a dead baby really got him, it really brought everything back. And he turned to his mom and said these rescuers are going to need a lot of help for a long time after this And that was the first time that his mom realized just how much unresolved trauma [01:01:00] That robert was carrying around with him for all these years and he continually put himself through it Because he knew that potentially would lead to his big break, but if he just accepted it and just gone back to his life He maybe could have dealt with it a bit better, but he didn't because he wanted a better life.

[01:01:15] Who doesn't? I'm guessing 

[01:01:16] Adam Cox: because you said he suffered from claustrophobia did he have any sort of like panic attacks or nightmares as a result of that afterwards? He 

[01:01:25] Kyle Risi: definitely had PTSD. And he was definitely struggling with it. But the thing is though Adam, after that moment where he saw the firefighter holding their dead baby, a few days later he walked out.

[01:01:37] To his mother's backyard and he shot himself in the head. And he left a note saying no help from nobody, but family. And you really have to wonder about how responsible the media is in the way that they treat heroes like Robert. So often they take ordinary people, thrust them into the spotlight and exploit them without any thought. any kind of regard to how [01:02:00] prepared they might be psychologically for this experience. 

[01:02:04] Adam Cox: Yeah, it's a shame considering he did something so amazing. And he's just put someone else first given his own challenges and probably doing that. And I guess whilst he had this, Time to be celebrated as a hero.

[01:02:17] Maybe he should have had some more counseling or something after that to maybe align him better and not Put all his hopes on this benefiting his life because you only have to look at some of the reality TV shows where it's happened to people that have committed suicide because of the way that media has Mm hmm celebrated them for one minute and the next minute ignored them or they turn on them.

[01:02:39] So To go through that, whether you did something good or bad, must be a horrible experience. 

[01:02:43] Kyle Risi: And I think, of course, this is all brand new to everyone. So the media will take a long time for that to really kind of like get drummed in.

[01:02:51] Yeah. But he is one of the first casualties of that fallout. And it's just really sad,

[01:02:56] because it's the non stop attention, whether it was through [01:03:00] all those public appearances, tours or interviews, that prevented Robert from actually dealing with what happened. Instead, he was just forced to relive it over and over and over for the cameras. And the legacy of Baby Jessica's story is more than just the rescue itself, it's how it led to mainstreaming of 24 hour news coverage.

[01:03:19] CNN had been trying to make 24 hour news happen for eight years, but it was baby Jessica's story that really made it stick. They applied everything that they learned from covering the Challenger disaster and from there CNN, truly came into its own.

[01:03:36] They used this kind of same approach for covering like the Iraq war, the OJ Simpson trial, Princess Diana's death, 9 11. Like the 24 hour news format is here to stay. And it all started with baby Jessica and her chubby little leg. 

[01:03:50] Adam Cox: Well,, chubby little leg. 

[01:03:51] Kyle Risi: But yeah, and that's why I think this story is so Fascinating on the surface. It's this heartwarming tale of a community coming together to save this little girl But [01:04:00] underneath there's a darker side of the story a story of how this event Ended up changing the way we consume use forever.

[01:04:06] So the next time you're watching cnn fox Or MSNBC. Remember that Baby Jessica played a huge role in shaping the 24 hour news format as we know it today. It's also interesting to think about how one tiny event can change the course of history. Like, if Baby Jessica hadn't fallen down the well, would all of this still have happened?

[01:04:26] Or, let's go back even from there. What if the person who called Sissy that day hadn't called her at all. Like, like, why did this woman make that phone call in the first place? If she hadn't, then maybe Jessica wouldn't have fallen down the well. Maybe she needed advice because she had got a bee sting. For example, and that's the thing though, then the link is from the bee, right?

[01:04:47] So if the bee hadn't stung her, then maybe she wouldn't need to make the phone call. Therefore, she wouldn't have answered the phone. Therefore, baby Jessica wouldn't have fallen down the well. So you could take this line of inquiry all the way back to its [01:05:00] kind of smallest starting point and then find the person responsible for changing and destroying the world. So if it was about that bee sting, then it's that bee. that destroy the world as we know it. 

[01:05:11] Adam Cox: Yeah, but you could take that back even further than that. Because whoever planted the meadow where the bee was hanging out. 

[01:05:15] Kyle Risi: Yeah, if that meadow wasn't there. 

[01:05:17] Adam Cox: Yeah, I don't know. If it wasn't this story, I imagine something else would have triggered 24 hour news. Because if CNN were trying to push this for six to eight years before it actually took off, then I'm sure something else would have captivated people enough.

[01:05:31] Kyle Risi: Correct, yeah. Because they were on their way to getting there. With the Challenger disaster, so yeah, I've no doubt they would have got there, but it's interesting that this is a story and it's all around this baby little girl.

[01:05:42] And Adam, that is the story of baby Jessica, the girl who fell down the well. And her chubby little legs that ended up changing the world. 

[01:05:50] Adam Cox: Mmm. Well, I didn't really know the story. Aside from the Simpsons reference, I think. so I didn't know how much, what it caused.

[01:05:57] The ABJ years. And also, how it [01:06:00] affected people. Because you'd think it would just be like, oh, this positive news story. And it all turned out well. But actually 

[01:06:05] Kyle Risi: Yeah, there's always a darker side to things, isn't there? Mmm. Of course, we've just scratched the surface here. So if you want to dive a little deeper, we recommend a couple excellent articles.

[01:06:15] One from 1995 by Jesse Katz in the Los Angeles Times. There's another by Lisa Belkin titled Curve. That's from the New York Times Magazine. Both pieces explore the impact of media on the people involved in these stories There are also plenty of documentaries on YouTube, definitely suggest watching the footage of baby Jessica being pulled out the world because it's just so heartwarming.

[01:06:38] I'll also include links to the interviews that Jessica did with People Magazine and Time Magazine in 2017, which actually marks the 30th anniversary of this event, which is crazy to think this was 30 years ago. it's more than that, right? it is now, but in 2017 it was, so it'd be 37 years, But yeah, that's baby Jessica. Shall we run the outro? 

[01:06:58] Adam Cox: Let's do it. 

[01:06:59] Kyle Risi: [01:07:00] And that's it for another episode of the companion podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please follow us on your favorite podcasting app. It really, really helps us when you do. 

[01:07:08] Next week's episode is now available seven days early On our free Patreon page. For more content, subscribe to our certified Freaks Tier for access to our entire backlog, we'd love you to come and join and have a chat.

[01:07:19] We release new episodes every Tuesday, and until then, remember, sometimes it takes falling down a well to shake up the whole world. 

[01:07:27] See you next week. 

[01:07:28] See ya. [01:08:00]