OPRAH WINFREY: More amazing stories
of children who cheated death-- children who did--
and a man who is anxiously waiting
backstage to reunite with the child he saved
from death eight years ago.
Your baby stops breathing or heart stops beating,
and you don't know what to do.
But what happened to Doreen and her three-week-old baby
is enough to make you believe in miracles.
It was eight years ago when Doreen's daughter, Leona,
was near death on the highway.
What happened?
We were en route to New Durham, New Hampshire,
where my family lives to visit.
I was taking her up there to see them.
And my brother and sister picked us up in Boston,
and my sister had said, do you want to ride up front?
And I'm like, no, Leona hasn't been feeling well.
She's got a little cold.
I think I better sit in the back with her.
And--
OPRAH WINFREY: You were in the backseat with her
and noticed she stopped breathing.
Right.
She coughed and I noticed like a little trickle of vomit
and I wiped her mouth, and all of a sudden,
I was looking at her and I realized
that her lips were blue.
And I screamed, and my brother's like, well, you
sure you're not exaggerating?
And I'm like, please stop the car.
Stop the car.
And we were on I-95 headed north.
And he pulled into a McDonald's parking lot
and they ran inside to call an ambulance.
And I was trying to do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
It wasn't even CPR.
It was something that I remembered vaguely
from when I was in ninth grade.
And apparently, what happened when they were inside
McDonald's is a gentleman came forward and asked
if anybody was doing CPR.
My brother said, my sister's trying,
but I don't think she knows what she's doing.
And the next thing I know, this gentleman came
and he took Leona from me.
And I stood there and I watched him.
And I'm afraid that for a moment, I lost hope.
I really thought that I was going
to be picking out coffins.
And I'm ashamed to even say that, but the next thing I
know, I just said, please, God, give me
another chance with this child.
Let her be all right.
And I will do the best I can by her.
And all of a sudden, I heard her cough
and then a little tiny whimper.
And a few minutes later, the ambulance--
OPRAH WINFREY: A little teeny whimper came out of you.
DOREEN: Yes.
[LAUGHS] The ambulance arrived and they took us
to Melrose General and they couldn't
find anything wrong with her.
But before they put us back on the highway,
they told us to go see a respiratory specialist.
And of course, Leona ended up being
in the hospital for several weeks
in Mass General and she was--
OPRAH WINFREY: Because what was wrong with her?
She had whooping cough, which I had passed on to her.
Oh, my.
Something that you inoculate your children for,
but she was not old enough to have been inoculated,
and mine obviously wasn't strong enough to have protected me.
It had been too many years.
OPRAH WINFREY: So you know why you're here today?
Because someone that I don't know saved my life.
DOREEN: Oh, yes he did.
OPRAH WINFREY: That's right.
Doreen's tried to correspond with Leona's rescuer
over the years, the man who just happened
to be at McDonald's that day.
He and his wife had had a fight and he was--
[LAUGHTER]
It's true.
This is how miracles happen.
They don't come with a Hallelujah Chorus,
they come at McDonald's.
He just happened-- his wife-- I'll let him tell you the story.
We tracked him down and he's here today.
Paul, come on out. DOREEN: Paul?
[SOBS]
[APPLAUSE]
Hello.
I never got to thank you.
You're so beautiful.
These are for you.
I think you're gonna like this better than the roses.
Oh, yeah.
I never got thank you.
OPRAH WINFREY: Oh, we love this season.
Oh, that is so nice.
So you all haven't seen since that day at McDonald's?
No.
What is wrong with people? They don't get on the bus.
He didn't even wanna give me-- he didn't even want
to give my sister his name.
He said, no, just go with her.
It's OK. My sister said, no.
OPRAH WINFREY: So you--
I heard you grudgingly left your name.
DOREEN: Yes, he did.
OPRAH WINFREY: So what was the deal with you that day?
You'd had a fight with your wife, I heard.
Yeah, yeah.
Fate led me to Leona that day.
It was a series of events, any which--
any one of them, if they'd gone right, we would, you know,
would not have met.
And what happened is I purchased a firearm from England.
It was late in coming.
I expected it to come to my home.
It ended up being delivered to Boston.
So my wife was upset with me for purchasing it
and also for the fact that we had to go to Boston
to pick it up.
It was in a warehouse.
And we got lost trying to find the warehouse.
We finally got there.
They said we had to go to customs.
We got lost going to customs.
Got into an argument with a customs agent.
OPRAH WINFREY: How did you happen to be on that road
and in McDonald's, is what--
Well, when we finally got en route to home,
I'm traveling along at 65 miles per hour and I'm thinking,
how can I get back with my wife?
And what can I do?
So there's a lot of nice restaurants along the way.
So I said, would you like to stop and have something to eat?
And she said, yes.
I wanna stop right there.
And there was a McDonald's 50 yards in front of me.
And I cut across all the aisles of traffic,
and the car came in like a shuddering
jet at the Logan international.
And we got out.
We ordered our hamburgers.
The hamburger was cold.
I went up to complain to the manager.
And a fellow came running in.
He cut in front of me and started asking the manager,
does anyone know CPR?
The manager said, no.
I said, I do.
And with that, he said, follow me!
And so I went running after him.
I scaled the hamburger across McDonald's to my wife.
She caught it.
Didn't spill the special sauce.
And actually, I expected to go out into the parking lot
and find a little old lady or some old man or something.
And in truth--
OPRAH WINFREY: And it was a baby.
PAUL: And it was a baby.
I couldn't believe it.
OPRAH WINFREY: And so when she came back to life--
'cause I read that when you first saw her,
you thought she was dead-- PAUL: I thought she was dead.
--and you just continued up the act.
Yeah.
I just thought I was doing the CPR for mom.
OPRAH WINFREY: You continued.
Isn't this amazing how this happens?
PAUL: Yeah.
And these little blue eyes open up and she started crying.
And I started crying, and the crowd started cheering.
OPRAH WINFREY: And I started crying.
Yeah.
DOREEN: But nobody else came forward.
I mean, he was the only one.
And I did not realize it at the time,
but I had to learn infant CPR before I could bring
her home from the hospital.
And when they taught me, I said, that man
knew what he was doing.
He knew exactly what he was doing.
I mean, by the grace of God and this gentleman, I--
I do.
Paul, I can never thank you enough.
Oh, you don't need to thank me.
This is crazy.
OPRAH WINFREY: So Paul, you get a Christmas
card from them every year.
Every year, I look forward to it.
Last year was a little late, by the way.
DOREEN: Yes, it was.
[LAUGHS]
But there was a nice picture that came with it,
and so I brought that--
We'd gone to Iowa to visit the grandparents,
so everything was kind of--
I brought the picture to work and showed
everyone that's my little girl.
OPRAH WINFREY: So every year you get a picture of her
at different stages? - Yes.
OPRAH WINFREY: And every year, does it
make you cry when you see it? - Yes, absolutely.
OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah. It's a little life.
PAUL: Yeah, it sure is.
Oh, we're expecting great things from you.
What's in the bag?
Why don't you open up the bag?
Want me to hold this for you?
We're expecting great things.
You got saved as a little girl.
Paul saved you.
OPRAH WINFREY: Oh, that is the cutest.
DOREEN: Aw. PAUL: It's a Santa bear.
OPRAH WINFREY: It's a Santa bear.
DOREEN: [GASPS] Isn't that cute?
OPRAH WINFREY: That's cute.
[APPLAUSE]
You should name him Paul.