Baby Jessica Mcclure Biography

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Everybody’s Baby: The Rescue of Jessica McClure Who could have ever imagined that on Wednesday, October 14, 1987, Jessica McClure would become the most famous child in the country? Known by many as “Baby Jessica”, her ordeal captured the hearts of many. Jessica McClure, just 18 months old, fell into an 8-inch-wide abandoned well in her aunt’s yard; where she became trapped, 22 feet underground. Rescue efforts unfolded live for 58 hours while America watched on CNN. (Jessica, 2015) Jessica McClure Morales was born March 26, 1986, in the oil city of Midland, Texas. Her parents, Reba "Cissy" McClure and Lewis "Chip" McClure, were just 17 when they fell in love. After getting married, they had fallen on hard times; due to the Texas oil bust…show more content…
On the morning of the incident, Jessica was playing with four other children in the backyard with her mother, supervising. Cissy briefly went inside to answer the phone, leaving the children unattended. It was that momentary instant that changed their lives forever. Cissy returned back outside and soon discovered that Baby Jessica had fallen into an eight-inch diameter well and become trapped deep down in its shaft. For the next 58 hours, frantic rescue crews attempted to save baby Jessica’s life. The fact that she had fallen so deep underground, there were layers of rock harder than granite. To add to the already extremely difficult rescue, was the fact that the diameter of the well was so narrow. Using a large rat-hole rig, a machine normally used to plant telephone poles in the ground, rescue teams drilled a 30-inch wide, 29-foot deep hole parallel to the well. They then began the difficult process of drilling a horizontal tunnel between the two wells about two feet below where Baby Jessica was trapped. In the end, her rescue was a good, powerful, and an unforgettable memory for a lot of people all over the world. (Maier & Hart,

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