# Rescue of Jessica McClure

Jessica McClure Morales (born March 26, 1986; widely known as "Baby Jessica" in 1987) fell into a well in her aunt's backyard in Midland, Texas, on October 14, 1987, at the age of 18 months.
Over the next 56 hours, rescuers worked to free her from the 8 in (20 cm) well casing, about 22 ft (7 m) below grade.
The story garnered worldwide attention. A 1989 ABC television movie was made about the events: Everybody's Baby: The Rescue of Jessica McClure.

## Rescue

The incident occurred in Midland, Texas, where firemen and police developed a plan to drill a parallel shaft to the well where Jessica was lodged—and drill another horizontal cross-tunnel to rescue her. Enlisting the help of local oil drillers, officials hoped to free McClure quickly. But they then discovered that the well was surrounded by rock. The rescuers' jackhammers were also inadequate, as they were designed for downward rather than horizontal drilling.
A mining engineer eventually arrived to help supervise and coordinate the rescue effort, and a relatively new technology, waterjet cutting, was ultimately used to cut through the rock.
Forty-five hours after Jessica fell into the well, the adjacent shaft and cross-tunnel were complete. During the drilling, rescuers could hear Jessica singing "Winnie the Pooh."
A roofing contractor, Ron Short, volunteered to go down the shaft. He had been born without collarbones and could collapse his shoulders to work in tight confines. The team considered his offer, but ultimately EMT/paramedic Robert O'Donnell was the one who descended the shaft, inching his way into the tunnel and wresting Jessica free from her position pinned inside the well with one leg above her forehead. O'Donnell then returned with Jessica to the parallel shaft, handing her off to fellow EMT Steve Forbes, who carried her up to safety before giving her to another firefighter who carried her to a waiting ambulance.

## Media coverage

CNN covered the rescue effort.
Then-President Ronald Reagan said, "Everybody in America became godmothers and godfathers of Jessica while this was going on."
Throughout the incident, local media outlet KMID-TV received calls from news organizations and private individuals globally, seeking the latest information.
In 1988, McClure and her parents appeared on Live with Regis and Kathie Lee to talk about the incident.
A photograph of McClure's rescue by Scott Shaw of the Odessa American received the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography.
ABC made a television movie of the story in 1989, Everybody's Baby: The Rescue of Jessica McClure, starring Beau Bridges and Patty Duke and featuring many participants from the actual rescue as extras.
On May 30, 2007, USA Today ranked McClure number 22 on its list of "25 lives of indelible impact".

## Aftermath

Following McClure's rescue on October 16, 1987, doctors feared they would have to amputate Jessica's foot due to damage from loss of blood flow sustained from her leg being elevated above her head for the 58 and a half hours she was stuck in the well. They decided to try hyperbaric therapy in an attempt to avoid full amputation. In the end, surgeons only had to amputate a toe due to gangrene caused by loss of circulation while she was in the well. Jessica carries a scar on her forehead where her head rubbed against the well casing and, despite the incident and 15 subsequent related surgeries, retains no first-hand memory of the events. Her parents divorced in 1990.
Paramedic Robert O'Donnell (August 27, 1957 – April 27, 1995) developed post-traumatic stress disorder after the rescue and later struggled to cope with the abrupt decline in recognition/fame that he had experienced in the immediate aftermath of his heroic act. He died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
In May 2004, McClure graduated from Greenwood High School, in a small community near Midland. On January 28, 2006, she married Daniel Morales at the Church of Christ in Notrees, Texas, about 40 mi (60 km) from Midland. They met at a day care center where she worked with his sister. They have two children, a son born in 2007 and a daughter born in 2009.
When McClure turned 25 on March 26, 2011, she received a trust fund, composed of donations from around the world, which she discussed using for her children's college and which she used to purchase her home, less than 2 mi (3 km) from the well into which she fell. However, she also indicated that a great deal of the fund was lost in the 2008 stock market crash.

## In popular culture

* On March 11, 1988, only 5 months after the rescue of Jessica McClure, in Season 2, Episode 16 of It's Garry Shandling's Show, the show starts with the opening credits playing more than once because Garry Shandling can't be found, and it turns out he fell into a hole in his backyard and needed to be rescued. The episode is titled "Garry Falls Down a Hole".
* Malootty, the 1990 Indian Malayalam-language movie starring Jayaram, was based on the incident.
* The Simpsons referenced the incident with an episode about Bart Simpson falling and becoming stuck inside a well.
* Gary Larson's The Far Side drawing dated 15 May 1992 shows "The life and times of Baby Jessica" with a sequence of unfortunate events starting with being stuck in a vertical pipe shaft; however she is fully upright.
* In Scary Movie 3, during a scene which parodies events from The Ring (2002), the character Brenda references the rescue when she exclaims, "Cindy the news is on! Another little white girl done fell down a well". She then proceeds to mock the national attention brought to the event when she complains that "50 black people get their asses beat by the police every day, but the whole world gotta stop for one little whitey down the hole".
* In the first episode of the fourth season of Everybody Hates Chris titled "Everybody Hates Tattaglia" (2008), Chris (Tyler James Williams) says to his best friend Greg (Vincent Martella), "All the white people think I look like every black person on Earth. I could go to jail for anything from a parking ticket to throwing little baby Jessica down the well." Being that the season takes place starting in 1986, and that event did not occur until 1987, Greg replies (breaking the fourth wall) by saying, "Dude, that didn't even happen yet."
* In 2010, blues musician Charlie Musselwhite released an album titled The Well. In the title song, he credits McClure's ordeal for inspiring him to quit drinking.
* In 2010, her story was featured satirically in the Saturday Night Live sketch "What Up With That."
* In 2012, an episode of American Dad! titled "National Treasure 4: Baby Franny: She's Doing Well: The Hole Story" referenced the incident. Francine Smith (Wendy Schaal) begins to feel guilty over wasting her life while the fireman who rescued her (Guest Star: Will Forte) from a well 35 years ago died in her place; but as it turns out, the fireman had been living in the well for the duration.
* In 2017, an episode of ABC's Modern Family, titled "Heavy Is the Head", Cam (Eric Stonestreet) has great difficulty getting an MRI scan. He later attributes his fear to being stuck in a well as a teenager on the same day as Baby Jessica.
* In 2019, an episode of NBC's A.P. Bio entitled "Dr. Whoopsie" has Jack (Glenn Howerton) asking the class for ideas to "take over the airwaves". Jack wants to look the hero after a clumsy video of him goes viral. Baby Jessica is suggested, and they stage a sewer rescue by having a student go down a manhole.
* In 12 Monkeys, upon hearing a news report about an ongoing rescue of a boy who has fallen down a mine shaft, James Cole tells Dr. Kathryn Railly that the incident is just a prank and that the boy later will be found hiding in a nearby barn. When this bears out to be true later, it provides proof to Katryn that Cole is actually from the future and not psychotic. This is clearly a reference to the massive media attention that Jessica McClure's rescue created.