![Susan Biddle [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://2paragraphs.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/640px-President_George_H.W._Bush_holds_Jessica_McClure_in_the_Roosevelt_Room_at_the_White_House_1989-07-19-620x374.jpg)
One of the brave Americans featured on the People Icons episode ‘Heroes & Survivors’ is 30-year-old Jessica McClure. In 1987, when 18 months old, “Baby Jessica” fell in and got stuck in a well in Midland, Texas. It took more than two days for rescue workers to free her from the well in her aunt’s backyard. Every TV station in America, it seems, was on hand to film the rescue. Then-President Ronald Reagan said “everybody in America became godmothers and godfathers of Jessica while this was going on.” Over the years, Jessica, who fortunately doesn’t remember the event, has had 15 surgeries as a result of her fall.
When 19, Jessica McClure got married. She and her husband Danny Morales have two children and live less than five miles from where Jessica fell in the well. When she turned 25, in 2011, Jessica reportedly received a trust fund of donations worth $800,000. Even so, she lives a very humble, quiet life and has rarely taken advantage of her ready-made celebrity status by talking to the press. People Icons airs Tuesdays at 10pm on ABC.
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