The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 351: NEW STORY—Rough Delivery

Episode Date: October 12, 2023

For the baby's sake, it's a good thing Bobby was there. For Bobby, it changed everything.  

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One day when the waitin is done, we'll take a drink and go. I got a story to tell every word of it true except for the parts I made up for you, just some history that has been reworded into a mystery called the web. I heard it. Yes, indeed, my friends.

It's a bonus episode of the way I heard it. Episode number 351, to be specific. I called this one rough delivery. And I called it rough delivery. I was thinking the other day of my old friend Troy Paff, cameraman on Dirty Jobs, hadn't seen Troy in a while. And his name came up. And I started thinking about one of the first stories he told me.

He delivered a baby. a neighbor. He was out in, I think, in New Mexico somewhere in Touse and he got a call late one night and he ran out and long story short, he was just one of those guys who was there to deliver somebody's baby. He's not a doctor or anything. He just did it. It was rough, but he got it done. So the story you're about to hear was inspired by a rough delivery. I do hope you like it. Like all these stories, this is a, it's a mystery for the curious mind with a short attention. span, so we'll have you out of here in eight minutes or less. This is the way I heard it. When Bobby arrived at the scene of the accident, he wasn't sure what he'd find, but he was pretty

sure it wouldn't be pleasant. And he was correct. The young firefighter pushed his way through a throng of onlookers and made his way to the victim. It took him a while to get there, but when he finally arrived, the challenge before him was self-evident. The baby was in a breach position. The mother was in no position to help, and time was running out. Bobby wasn't a doctor, much less an obstetrician, but he knew the baby had to come out now. And so Bobby reached in with his left hand as gently as he could. He grabbed the tiny foot and began to pull, but the baby didn't budge. Bobby pulled harder, but it was no use. He could feel the little foot kick in his hand, but the baby was stuck. Bobby didn't give up. He reached into his first aid kit and removed a container of

petroleum jelly. He applied it, liberally. Then he grabbed a hold of the baby's limb and pulled some more. Progress, but not much. So more petroleum jelly and more pulling. Again, Bobby felt the leg kick in his hand. The baby was still alive. Incredible, given the circumstances. So Bobby stayed with it. more lubrication, more pulling a few inches at a time, until finally the baby was delivered. The next morning, in the middle of his breakfast, there was a knock at Bobby's front door. Bobby answered and found a dozen reporters crammed onto his porch. A CNN news van was in his driveway. Cameras and microphones were thrust in his face as questions were yelled simultaneously.

How does it feel to be a hero, Bobby? Did you think you could do it? Were you scared? Bobby blinked under the glare of bright lights and tried to answer their questions. He knew that CNN was broadcasting live all over the world. He knew that he was in millions of homes right now. He didn't want to say anything stupid. He didn't want to embarrass himself or his family or his fellow first responders. Bobby answered their questions, honestly. He told the reporters that he was just doing his job. But the media, thought he'd done a bit more than that. So they came back the next day, and the day after that. They asked him to describe every detail of the delivery and relive every harrowing moment. CNN declared him a genuine hero. People Magazine wrote an article about him. Life put him on the cover. Oprah came to interview him, and Nightline devoted an entire episode to his heroism. Awards filled his mantle and commendations lined his walls. He got a phone call from the president and was even offered a small role in a made-for-TV movie about the events of that fateful day.

Ironically, they cast him in the role of a reporter. Bobby's mother-in-law made him a scrapbook filled with hundreds of articles honoring his actions. She called it Our Hero, and Bobby kept it on the coffee table where his guests could see it. Over the next few months, Bobby got used to the limelight. He even learned to enjoy it and told People magazine, I've saved people's lives before, but they'll never be nothing like this again. And for Bobby, there wasn't. The weeks and months after he delivered that baby were the most exciting of his life.

But eventually, CNN found other stories to cover, and Oprah found other heroes to interview. And worst of all, when his friends, and family gathered to watch his acting debut, Bobby learned, along with everybody else in the room, that his scene had been cut from the film. The producers hadn't bothered to tell him. And then, when he called the editors over at people

to see if they could help him with his autobiography, nobody called him back. Overnight, it seemed. The world had forgotten all about Bobby. And then the migraines began, and the nightmares and the painful return. to his former life, a life that was somehow not as satisfying as the one he remembered. Seven years later, slumped in front of his television, Bobby watched as hundreds of first responders

in Oklahoma City walked into a hellscape. Some lunatic had blown up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and the coverage of that tragedy looked like a video montage of Bobby's entire career, weary firefighters and paramedics searching for children trapped beneath the rubble racing against the clock to find them and free them. When those rescuers are through, they're going to need lots of help, he told his mother, as they watch search crews hunting for survivors,

not for weeks, but for years. A couple days later, Bobby was still in front of the TV, still watching the recovery efforts unfold in Oklahoma City and still suffering from the headaches that had plagued him for the last seven years. He reached for the scrapbook entitled Our Hero, bulging with the story of his life. He thumbed slowly through the dog-eared pages

and thought again about the moment that had defined his entire existence, the moment he brought a baby into the world. Finally, Bobby turned off the television, took a few more painkillers, closed the scrapbook his mother-in-law had made. made for him and drove his pickup truck across the pasture to nowhere in particular,

before putting a shotgun to his head. Not the ending anybody wanted to the story that kept us riveted to our televisions for two and a half days. The first real-life drama that CNN ever covered around the clock. The real-life drama that gave us the hero we were hungry for. The first responder who volunteered to be lowered. to the bottom of a freshly dug shaft, 23 feet deep. Shimmy on his back through a connecting tunnel barely wide enough to accommodate his shoulders,

and then, somehow, in conditions too claustrophobic and too terrifying to imagine, give an anxious nation the happy ending we were all hoping for. Such were the heroic actions of Robert O'Donnell, the courageous firefighter, who was simply not prepared for the adoration that followed his sudden celebrity or for the sudden indifference that replaced it. A paramedic and first responder who had saved men, women, and children from hazards of every kind, but couldn't save himself. A tragic hero who risked his life to deliver a baby from the bottom of an abandoned well

that was about to become her tomb. A toddler. You might remember. as baby Jessica. Anyway, that's the way I heard it. When you leave a review, which we hope that you'll do, tell us who you are. And before you go, won't you leave a star?

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