And you can't have a feel good news story
without a cute animal rescue story.
Here's one for you.
Oh, I'll still talk.
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE]
[INAUDIBLE]
It's self-explanatory, but I'll tell you anyway.
It's an Olympic sprinter.
His name is David Verburg, and he stopped traffic
to save a tortoise.
[MUSIC - STARSHIP, "NOTHING'S GONNA STOP US NOW"]
(SINGING) And we can build this dream together,
standing strong forever, nothing's gonna stop us now.
And if this world runs out of lovers,
we'll still have each other.
Nothing's gonna stop us now.
[CHUCKLING]
He could've put him further off the road, but that's good,
I think.
You know where that tortoise was trying to go?
To the Shell station.
[LAUGHTER]
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
I loved what he did so much that I wanted to meet him.
So please welcome Olympic gold medalist David Verburg.
I saw that story, and I was--
I want to meet this guy.
What a sweet-- you-- this is not the first time
you've done that.
You do it a lot, right?
Oh, believe it or not, this is probably, like,
the 30th time I've done this, fifth time in traffic.
I just so happen to have my friend with me
and caught it on camera just for the fact
that if something bad happened that I wasn't just running
in traffic and be crazy, like, I was trying to do something.
Right, because nobody else will stop.
Usually people go around it and, you know,
it's really, to me, very funny that a sprinter saved a turtle
because you're fast and it's slow.
I was just trying to help him out.
I figure he's a little too slow.
He was a little too slow.
And so you save them all the time
because they're in the middle of the road.
And you save a lot of animals, right?
I do, actually.
Actually I have a rescue Pomeranian
that I rescued from a shelter.
So he's a little buddy and low key.
And I do it a lot, quite a bit, actually.
It's actually quite a big problem in central Florida.
Yeah.
It happens-- it happens quite a bit.
That's so sweet.
So yeah, so that's great that you're a huge animal lover.
And you posted-- your friend posted that.
And it has now seven million views-- over seven million
views.
So it's [INAUDIBLE]---- like, so like I said,
I do it quite a bit.
So I posted it like it was nothing.
I usually post that kind of thing on my page.
And I woke up the next day and it said 1.2 million views.
And I had to refresh because that doesn't happen to me.
So I hit refresh.
And I was joking around with some friends
because I'm a fan of the show.
And I was, like, it'd be crazy if Ellen saw it.
And--
Yep, Ellen saw it.
Ellen loved it.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
So-- and then you found out that the tortoise
is an endangered tortoise.
It's an endangered gopher tortoise and endangered
because their habitat is basically
getting destroyed, whether it's by roads or construction.
And their burrows actually are home to another 250 species.
They actually use this burrow so--
Really?
Kill-- yeah, so killing the gopher tortoise actually
affects a whole lot of animals.
And going through the comments, I'm reading people are saying,
they're like, oh, we do this too.
This is a big issue.
So moving forward, I really wanted
to work with like a local wildlife conservation
and eventually start my own and try
to combat this issue because it's not just the tortoise
but it is like a bigger ecosystem problem.
Especially--
Yes.
--in Florida.
That's amazing.
Good for you.
[APPLAUSE]
All right.
So you really are an Olympic gold medalist.
Are you going to go back to the Olympics again?
I am.
I was a Olympic gold medalist.
I actually brought it here.
Here, you can have it.
I wouldn't-- I'm not going to take it, but that's amazing.
That's amazing!
Wow!
So I was and I plan on training again for 2020.
[APPLAUSE]
So that's a-- that's a [INAUDIBLE]..
But look-- I know that you're used to receiving gold medals,
so we got you the first ever reward for saving a turtle.
It's a tortoise.
[APPLAUSE]
This is amazing.
Yeah.
This is probably one of my top favorite medals.
It would be--
Olympic gold medal, Ellen tortoise.
Yeah.
Yeah, I hope you wear that.
Of course.
And I know you're starting a foundation
to help rescue animals.
That is correct.
So my friends at Cheerios are encouraging
one million acts of good.
And they want to give you $10,000 so you can--
[APPLAUSE]
Oh my God.
Thank you.
I want to hear about your acts of good.
Go to our website, tell us what you're doing.
We'll be right back.