Our next guest was trapped in the Nashville flood
when the unthinkable happened.
Her house caught fire.
She's here today with the man who saved her life.
Leslie Bills and Bill Crouser, come on down.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[APPLAUSE]
I'm happy you're here.
Oh, I'm happy to be here too.
Yeah.
Look at you, huh.
How do you feel?
Pretty good.
Good.
You should.
Leslie and Bill, first of all, when this was going on,
our hearts go out to everyone in Nashville.
And I know our friend Kellie Pickler did a benefit there.
Everybody's been trying to raise money.
It's crazy how fast this happened.
So you were in your house.
It had been raining.
Did you have a chance to leave?
Or how did this flood happen so fast?
It had been raining for two days.
I think we got about 15 inches of rain.
And we had the option to leave.
We were notified as far as, we don't
know what's going to happen.
If you want to leave, you may or whatever.
Is this your house?
No, that's Bill's house.
OK.
That's your house.
That's Bill's house.
And he lives 20 some houses down the street from me.
And you'd never met.
Never met.
No, never met prior to that day.
OK.
So I understand the reason you didn't leave
is the shelter would not take your dogs.
The shelter would not take my dogs.
They got to change this.
It's like if people have pets, you have to understand,
that's like saying you can't take your children.
You have to be able to take your pets.
[APPLAUSE, CHEERING]
They have to.
You can't leave your animals behind.
So--
I couldn't do it.
No.
I couldn't do it.
I couldn't do it either.
And eventually they did take them
at the end, when they started evacuating.
But at the time, when it got that far into it,
there was nothing that they could do for me.
You were just in there, and you couldn't get out.
I couldn't get out because when they had to release the dam
waters, then all of a sudden the whole front of the house came--
I mean, it covered cars--
Yeah, it covered--
--tons of cars.
It actually come around the front
before it even got to the back of the house.
And there's undertow and stuff like that.
And the water raised-- the water came 70 feet, Ellen.
70 feet.
That's six stories.
And stood up all night long, we did, watching
it come up and come up.
And we kept thinking, it's just not going to happen.
It can't get there.
So then--
So then the flood, what happened was
when they let the water out, my garage was four steps down
to my living space.
And bam, all of a sudden, the water was frozen--
I mean, completely up into the cars.
And we hear this kaboom happen.
And we run out.
My friend Billy Heldenberg and I ran out
with three fire extinguishers and tried to put the fire out.
Because the flood had put the pilot light out.
So it was just gas.
We think.
You think.
We think.
We don't know exactly what it was.
But it blew the garage door off.
And thank god it didn't blow the whole house the first time.
So once we came back, and we went out to the front porch,
we were like, oh, man, we got to call 911.
And so call 911, and they're saying, whatever you do,
don't get in the river because of the undertow.
Get blankets.
Put the blankets in the water.
Put them over your body because if the house blows up
you won't burn.
And I'm like, am I going to burn?
Am I going to drown?
Am I going to burn?
Am I going to drown?
Because they couldn't get to you.
And you're-- so you're in that situation.
You don't even know Leslie.
You're in your house.
No, I never met her.
And you have a jet ski that you decided you
didn't want to flood, right?
Well, I woke up that morning.
And of course, everything was flooded out.
And it was still winterized from the previous season.
So I decided in case I needed to get out,
I was going to go out there and get my jet ski ready to go.
And of course, the plugs were out.
So the engine compartment was full of water.
So I put them in, get a battery, put it all in there,
finally get the thing started up.
And--
You decide to take your jet ski out just to get it--
Just check it out.
--in good condition.
Mm-hmm.
But you normally would have gone in another direction.
Yeah.
And changed your mind.
Actually went out of my driveway and turned to the right.
And something told me I need to turn around and go back
the other way.
Wow.
So you go the other way.
[APPLAUSE]
Crazy, right?
So then you're just driving out, and then you
see a house on fire.
She actually flags me down.
I'm saying again, am I going to burn?
Am I going to drown?
Am I going to burn?
And I look up, and I have an angel on a jet ski.
[LAUGHS] Yes.
My angel on a jet ski.
An angel on a jet ski.
And I said, sir, sir, can you look into the garage
and tell me if it's on fire?
Can you tell me what's happening?
He got off the jet ski, looked in,
and he said, oh, man, we've got to get the--
out of here.
And so he jumps on the jet ski.
I jump on behind him with a seven-month-old cockapoo.
My friend Billy Heldenberg jumps on behind me
with a four-year-old cockapoo.
So there's 500 pounds of weight, plus the water.
There's water in the compartment.
The jet ski's ready to flip over.
We're going backwards.
And Bill goes, OK, 1, 2, 3, "hoomph,"
and we all move forward.
I'm trying to slide up on the jet ski.
And then--
And I understand that when you were leaving, of course,
you're just getting out of there as fast as you
can because you're waiting to see if this is
going to blow up, which it did.
After you got 20 feet away, the house blew up.
So you're getting out of the house.
And instead of grabbing your purse,
you grab dog food because you decided
you were not going to leave without the dog's having food.
I did.
I love you for so many reasons.
But I love you for that.
Thank you.
Crazy.
Thank you.
So I have--
I just can't do enough for you.
But the first thing I can do is I care about animals
as much as you do.
And I believe they should eat healthy foods
to keep them happy and healthy.
So I have a pet food company called Halo Purely for Pets.
I know that.
I am going to give you a year supply of food for your dogies.
Thank you.
And Quaker-- also, our friends at Quaker Oats
are about health and wellness as well.
And they're going to give you a year supply of products.
And they're also going to give you a check for $25,000
so that you can also--
Oh, my god!
--get your stuff, but you lost everything.
Thank you, Quaker.
Now, I understand your jet ski didn't do so well.
Yeah, it didn't fare too good.
Well, our friends at Sea-Doo, want to give you a--
they're going to give you a Wave Runner.
And it's in the world with a brake,
which adds to the new level.
You're going to get that.
Yay!
I just feel, like, Leslie I should give you something more.
And Bill, you should get something more too.
Leslie, you're going to get a GMC Terrain.
Bill, you're getting a GMC Sierra.
Come on down.
[APPLAUSE, CHEERING]
Woo-hoo!
How about that?
Unbelievable.
Yay!
Check it out!
Oh, the Terrain gets great mileage
There's a lot of features like rear-vision camera,
USB Bluetooth connectivity.
And the Sierra gets 21 miles per gallon,
has a five-year warranty.
GMC, we love you.
Thank you so much.
[THEME MUSIC]