On this episode of Our American Stories, John O'Leary is the bestselling author of On Fire. Today he shares the story of how after being burnt on nearly 100% of his body, faith, family, and a hall-of-fame radio broadcaster named Jack Buck got him through some of the darkest times in his life when he was only nine years old.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories. Up next, a
miraculous story of survival, faith, and friendship from John O'Leary.
John is the author of the best selling book on Fire,
Seven Choices to Ignite a radically inspired life. Let's get
into the story. Take it away, John.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
If you had to draw a picture of Americana back
in the eighties, I think it would be a picture
of our backyard. We had a picket fence, We had
a golden retriever. My mother taught third grade history, and
in her spare time, she raised six kids. I'm the
fourth one of those six. My father did not sleep.
As far as I know, I never saw the man
in bed. I never once saw the man sick. I
(00:50):
never saw the man angry. I saw a man who
was hardworking and industrious, and faithful and loving and tender.
He served in the US Army, was a small business
owner and an example of true, beautiful masculine love to
not only his sons, but to his daughters. He came
home for dinner every time, sat around the dinner table,
(01:12):
held hands while we prayed. Mom made dinner almost every
single night, except on Fridays when we went out together
as a family for pizza. Both set to grandparents were alive,
and maybe the biggest argument we had growing up, the
two grandpas would fight about who had it worse, the
grandpa who fought in Europe or the grand who fought
in the Pacific. We had a wonderful, faith filled, idealistic
(01:34):
upbringing prayers before bed, prayers before meals, Church on Sundays,
pancakes afterwards. I remember, this is a story I've never shared.
Our take home exercise at school I went to a
little Christian school was to draw a picture of Jesus.
And I drew this picture of this boat being rocked
by the waves, and then this one apostle stepping out
(01:56):
of that boat toward Jesus. And as I was coloring
this picture, I knew back then as a little boy,
if I ever got called out of that boat, I
could walk on water too. My mom and dad gave
us that type of faith as kids, really candidly before
we needed it. That'll just be honest. I mean, the
sun shines very brightly over the Leery house for a long,
(02:18):
long long time. I don't know if we understood how
fortunate we were, but in my life and in the
lives of my five siblings. There would come a day
for all of us when all of us would need
that type of faith. Back in the eighties, we wouldn't
have technology. Man, we spent our lives outside, kind of
getting in trouble in creek beds and people's backyards. So
(02:38):
these kids were playing with fire and gasoline in their backyard.
They would drizzle a little bit of gasoline, stand back
a couple feet, throw the match on top, and this
little gasoline puddle would dance to life. And these were
boys I looked up to. They were about eleven, and
I figured if they could do it, so could I.
So the following weekend, my mother was out with two
(03:00):
of my sisters, my father was at work. It was
seven point thirty bent over a five gallon can of gasoline.
What I remember is it was too heavy to even budge,
filled to the brim, So I lit a piece of
cardboard on fire. I set it down on the concrete floor,
and then very carefully bent down, poured a little bit
(03:21):
of gasoline on top. And man, it was so heavy
I couldn't even move the thing at first. So I
bare hugged this thing, tilted it and as I waited
for the liquid to come out. The fumes must have
pulled the flame into the can. It created this massive explosion,
split the metal can into it, picked up the nine
year old boar that's me, launched me twenty feet against
(03:42):
the forest side of the garage. I remember coming to
Everything around me was either pitch black or on fire.
And when you're little, you're taught to stop and drop
and roll. But when you're the one on fire, you
know that's not what you naturally do. You run. And
so I'm pan extrucked, I'm in pain, I'm burning, although
I'm not even sure if I know it at the time.
(04:03):
So I just run on fire, through the smoke, through
the flames, back toward my mom and dad's house. I
opened up this little garage door, came into the front hall,
stood on top of this rug. Man. My mom and
dad had this oriental rug in the front hall, and
I remember standing on this rug just screaming for a hero. God,
I'll take anybody, I'll take anybody. And I see my
(04:27):
brother Jim coming from the upper steps, and still distinctly
remember as I'm seeing Jim coming toward me, I remember thinking,
oh my gosh, anybody else man not him. I need
a hero. I need a parent, I need a firefighter,
I need a neighbor. I need someone who can do
something here for me. Jim was the kind of brother
who my mother would ask, Hey, make everybody peanut butter
(04:50):
and jelly sandwiches, and Jim would and he would add
tabasco sauce to all the sandwiches. And yet, on that
morning it was January seventeenth, brother Jim picks up a rug,
the kind you're supposed to wipe your feet on. He
runs over to me. He begins beating down the flames.
After swinging down a couple times, he dropped the rug
(05:12):
because he started catching. And then I remember, Jim sees me,
and he picks up the rug, and he comes in
and he beats me down a fourth time and a
fifth time, and now he's burning, and he beats me
a sixth time and a seventh time. For two minutes,
this seventeen year old brother of mine, burning himself in
the process, beats down the flames of my body, wraps
(05:34):
me in that rug, carries me outside, throws me on
the ground. Once we get out there, jumps on top
of me. We roll around in the front yard. He
then says, stay awake, I'll be right back. He runs
back inside, gets my two other sisters out of the house,
gets our golden retriever out of the house, calls nine
to one one. Nineteen eighty seven, the life saver of
(05:56):
the Year for the state of Missouri was not a firefighter.
It was not a first responder, was not a police
officer or a veteran. It was a seventeen year old
boy high school junior named Jim. It was lightly snowing
that day, was cold outside. I'm in the front yard.
My clothes had been burnt off, and my skin has
been burnt off, and I'm naked in the front yard
(06:19):
of a burning house. When my brother Jim went in
and chased the two girls out of the house out
of the smoke, one of them walked over to me
and she just put her arms around me. Her name
is Amy, and she says, John, it's okay, have faith
and fight. The best is she had to come. And
I remember hearing her say that, and just like kind
(06:41):
of in disbelief. I remember looking down and when I
looked down, when I saw my legs and my hands
and my body all burnt. So I looked up and
when I looked up, I saw my house and their
flames leaping through the roofline. There wasn't a lightning strike
that caused that fire. I'm the one that caused it.
And I remember looking up at her and saying, Amy,
it's not okay, not this time. Do me a favor.
(07:04):
Go back into the house, get a knife, come back
out of here, and just finish me off. This time.
It's not all right. And this little girl pulls me
even closer. She's eleven, and she says, John, shut up,
what is wrong with you? Have faith and fight? The
best is she had to come overhearing this dialogue. Is
(07:27):
our younger sister, Susan. This is the little girl that
my brother Jim would make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
with Tabasco sauce for me. I would hate him for
but I would learn from and then I would make
her peanut butter and jelly sandwich is with Tabasco sauce.
I've just given her the green light to maybe do
what she always wanted to do. She unbelievably goes back
(07:50):
into a burning house. A few seconds later, she comes
running back outside, and then she threw a cup of
water right into my face. I'm simmering, I'm dying, I
want out. And this little girl just went into a
burning house for a cup of water, begging me to live.
(08:10):
And after she threw that first cup of water in
my face, she goes right back into a burning house
a second time, comes back outside, throws a second cup
of water in my face, and then she turns and
she runs right back. In one of my favorite scriptural lines,
is no greater love with her than this than to
be willing to lay it on one's life for one's friends.
(08:31):
She doesn't lay it on her life that day for me,
but she was willing to. My entire body was burned
on January seventeenth, nineteen eighty seven. One hundred percent, eighty
seven percent of what was burned third degree. That's as
bad as it gets. The part that was not burned
third degree was my face and my scalp, which is
(08:52):
why I'm able to not only have my face still,
my ears still, my nose still, What a blessing that is,
but also the scalp is where they took every layer
of skin to replace the parts of my body that
had lost the skin and the doctor's and was vacchi
evash In credits my sister's love on the day I
was burned with how he was able to salvage that
donor site. So not only did she embody selfless love,
(09:15):
she may have given me back the opportunity of life
beyond that day.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
And you're listening to John O'Leary, author of the best
selling book on Fire, share his story. He grew up
in a good home, a joy filled home, a prayer
filled home, and well, on this one occasion, this one day,
he's playing with fire and with gasoline too, and there's
an explosion. It launches him against the garage and he's
(09:44):
on fire. When we come back, this remarkable story of
faith and fighting, it continues here on our American Stories,
John O'Leary's story when we come back, and we returned
(10:09):
to our American stories and John O'Leary's horroring story of survival.
When we last left off, John had just set himself
and his family's house on fire. Let's return to the story.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
So I'm in the hospital room, I'm amongst strangers. I'd
never been away from home. I'd never even been a
summer camp. I'd never been sick, I'd never been in
a hospital. And then I hear my father's voice down
the hall, Where is my boy? Where is my boy?
And my first thought was, oh my gosh, my old
man has come to finish me off. He's going to
(10:43):
be so mad once he finds out what I did
to the house. He's going to kill me. He marches
in military style left right, left, right, points down at me.
So I shut my eyes. And then I hear my
father say, John, look at me when I'm talking to you.
So I look up at my dad, and then he says,
(11:05):
I have never been so proud of anyone in my
entire life. And then he says, I love you. Hearing this, thinking,
oh my gosh, nobody told my dad what happened. Clearly
he does not know the cause of this thing in
his son's life. And what I did not know back
(11:27):
then as a kid was the power of grace, was
true unconditional love. As an adult now looking back on
the story, as a man, as a father, myself, man,
I get it now. I got a picture of the
prodigal father hanging up in my office. I did not
understand what it looks like to look over the hillside
to see a son coming home and to go sprinting
down the path toward him. I didn't get that as
(11:48):
a kid, but I felt it as a kid. I
felt that I'm conditional love, and I'm telling you changed
me in the emergency room. It did not make the
journey forward easy, like how do you recover quickly from
burns your entire body? But I think my dad's love
on day one, on moment one, made that journey possible.
And that was a turning point. Right behind my dad
(12:11):
came my mom. She takes my right hand. My fingers
are amputated on both hands now, so you can imagine
what they might have looked like on the morning off.
But she just boldly walks and she takes my right hand,
pats my bald head, and she says, I love you.
So I look up and I say, Mama, am I
going to die? She looked me in the eyes and
(12:34):
she said to me, baby, do you want to die?
It's your choice, it's not mine. I don't want to die.
I want to live. And her response was good, to
take the hand of God, walk the journey with him,
and you fight like you have never fought before your daddy,
(12:56):
and I will be with you every step. You're never
going to be on your own, but you got to
do your part. And on that morning, it was January seventeenth,
nineteen eighty seven, a lifetime ago, man, almost four decades
ago now, a little boy shut his eyes and took
God's hand and just walked forward. I never heard of
burn care, never heard of amputations, never heard of the breatment,
(13:17):
never heard of donor sites, none of that. That has
what made the journey not only endurable, but ultimately miraculous
and possible. The math they used to run on patients
as they arrived into emergency departments and ultimately in the
burn centers, they would take the percentage of the body burned,
they would add age, and that would give them mortality.
(13:39):
So get your calculators out. One hundred percent if the
body was burned the child was nine, which means this
little boy has one hundred and nine percent likelihood of dying.
That's just the cold, hard facts. My mother doesn't know this,
so right after she visits me, she has an opportunity
meeting with the doctor for the first time. His name
is Vacchi evaj and doctor Evajen is explaining how badly
(14:02):
her little boy is burned. And starting to talk about
what the first procedures might look like, and talking about
the first night and what they've got to do right
away to get this thing going. And finally it's beginning
to sink in with my mother how desperate this fight
will be. And so she says to him, doctor, are
you telling me that my baby's got a fifty to
fifty chance of surviving this thing? And the way my
(14:23):
mother told me later on was he took off his glasses,
looked her in the eyes and said, missus O'Leary, you
are completely misunderstanding me. I'm not a betting man, but
if I had to put odds on your son's chances
to survival, I would say that he has less than
one half of one percent chance of surviving this first night,
and those odds will never improve every night. It will
(14:46):
be less than one half of one percent chance of
surviving that night. We know how the story ends, and
the unbelievable thing about my parents' faith. Gosh, I get
emotional even sharing this. The day I was burned, my
dad left the hospital in a snow store because he
(15:07):
hears there's a prayer surface, you know, in Saint Louis,
we don't get that much snow, and when we do,
basically they call the National Guard man. Stay in doors,
don't go outside. Well that night, in seven inches of snow,
my dad goes up to the church and it is
sold out. They're not selling tickets, but there's nowhere to sit.
The church is packed. No one goes to church when
it's snowy, not even on a Sunday. This is a
(15:29):
Saturday night, it's late. My dad walks in. He kneels
down in front of these guys he probably used to
try to impress. He kneels in front of all of
them the hand of a microphone, and he just thanks
them all for coming. He talks about the situation as
it is right now, and then he says, but I
need to turn this over to God. So he sends
up this prayer. God, you gave us your son John
(15:51):
to love in a race. We now give him back
to you. We give him back to you. But our
prayer are expectant. Prayer is that you will heal our boy.
He asked this through Jesus Christ. He stands up, he
walks out. The prayer service continues. My dad goes back
to work at the hospital, but that little prayer, God,
(16:13):
you gave us this boy to love and to raise.
It remained as prayer during that five and a half
months in hospital. They realized what a surgeon may not
be able to do, God can. God can, and so
the prayers began to go out. You know, there was
an old device that your grandparents once had in their
home called the telephone, and the dad was burned. My
(16:34):
next door neighbor, her name was Carol Bauer. She was
a widow. She called a friend, who called a friend,
who called a friend, and her game of phone tag
ultimately led five relationships deep to a girl named Colleen.
Colleen called her dad. Her dad was an old cardinal
player in the back in the teen he's in sixties.
His name was Red Shandings, and Colleen mentions that a
(16:57):
little boy was burned in our community. He's probably gonna
keep him in your thoughts in prayers though. Red Shandean's
then goes to a charity auction that night. He's seated
at a VIP table in Saint Louis, Missouri, and while
sharing with the table of nine others, you know, celebrating
baseball and the promise of spring, he also shares that
a little boy in our community was burned terribly. Keep
(17:17):
him in your thoughts in prayers. Well, at that table
was a guy named Jack Buck. Jack Buck was in
seven hall of Fames, Baseball Hall of Fame, the Football
Hall of Fame, the Hockey Hall of Fame, the Broadcasters
Hall of Fame, the Radio Hall of Fame. This man
was everywhere. He was influential nationally but also locally, hugely
(17:40):
powerful locally. And Jack Buck hears the little boy is
gonna die. There's a man from the greatest generation. He
fought overseas, picked up a purple heart. He understood pain,
but he also understood what happens when people show up
for one another. He leaves the charity auction that night.
Jack Buck is the voice of Saint Louis Cardinals baseball.
(18:01):
In other words, he is the voice of my childhood.
And I'm laying in the hospital bed dying. I'm tied
down to this bed. My arms and legs are tied down,
so I can't move my arms from my legs. My
lungs have been burned, so I can no longer breathe
on my own. There's a trick force an oxygen into
my lungs my eyes are swollen shut, so I can't see,
I can't communicate. I'm cut off from the world, but
(18:25):
I could listen, and I remember the night I was burned.
The door opens up from the outside. I hear footsteps,
I hear a chair, I get pulled across close. I
hear a cough, and then I hear the voice of
my childhood.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
And you've been listening to John O'Leary's story, and what
a story it is about the power of faith and
grace and my goodness, I encounter with his father and
hearing his father's voice, where's my boy? And his dad
says those words, I've never been so proud of you
anytime in my entire life. I love you, And there
it was the power of grace, true unconditional love on display.
(19:08):
Anybody who's a parent out there, if this isn't the
relationship you have with your kid, it's never too late.
When we come back, what happens next the story of
John O'Leary here on our American story, and we returned
(19:39):
to our American stories and the final portion of John
O'Leary's beautiful story of survival, faith and as you'll soon hear,
friendship let's pick up where we last left off, with
the great late Jack Buck visiting John O'Leary at the
hospital in Saint Louis. Here again is John O'Leary.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
The sound of our summertime was baseball from March until September,
and if we were lucky more and the sounds of
baseball for us was a guy named Jack Buck, the
voice of Saint Louis Cardinals baseball. He's in six different
Hall of Fames. He's a celebrity in and of his
own right, but more than a celebrity to me, he
(20:21):
was my connection to the thing I love more than
anything else, baseball, because back in the eighties you weren't
watching the games on television. The way you watch baseball
as a kid was to shut your eyes and listen.
When my mom and dad would tuck me in in
the summertime, they would walk out of that room about
seven feet down the hallway, one of the floorboards would
(20:43):
get this little squeak, and I knew Mom and Dad
weren't coming back into my room, and that's when I
would turn on the radio eleven twenty Camelax. The voice
I heard every night was the voice of Jack Buck,
and The voice I heard on the first night of
being burned was Jack Buck, and the voice said to me, kid,
wake up, wake up, you are going to live, and
(21:06):
once you get out of here, we are going to celebrate.
We'll call it John O'Leary Day at the Ballpark. Keep fighting.
Mister Buck stands up, he walks out of that room,
leaned his head against a glass story just started crying.
One of the nurses came over, explained that the little
boy wasn't going to survive. And then mister Buck goes
(21:29):
home that night, cries, he prays, He journals on one question.
The question was what more can I do? And the
following day, I'm laying in the hospital bed. Now it's
January eighteenth. The door opens up, footsteps walk back in,
Cherry comes across the floor, and then I hear the
voice of the radio kick on again. When Jack Buck
says to his new little friend, kid, wake up, I'm back.
(21:55):
You are going to live. You are going to survive.
John O'Leary d at the Ballpark will make it all worthwhile.
See as soon he would come back into the room
almost every single day while I was in hospital. When
he went out of town for spring training with the Cardinals.
He would send in sick players, guys who were injured,
(22:15):
like a guy named Ozzie Smith, an outfielder named many
van Slike. He'd send in hockey players. And he began
championing this little boy, this little boy he had not
met previously. I'm not a celebrity, I'm not famous, our
family's not wealthy. He just saw an opportunity to serve
someone in need. John O'Leary Day at the ballpark. So
(22:38):
I've just celebrated my tenth birthday, and as part of
the celebration, would go downtown Saint Louis to Bush Stadium.
The person who greet us in the parking lot is
a white haired guy in a beautiful red blazer named
Jack Boch. Helps get me out of the car into
a wheelchair, rolls me into the stadium, takes me onto
the field for batting practice, and then we go into
(22:59):
a place called players Only Clubhouse. Buck was never much
of a rule follower, so we walked right in. There's
twenty five athletes in various stages of undress. We make
a right hand turn, and one by one he introduces
me to twenty five Saint Louis Cardinals as if I'm
one of them. And what I remember most distinctly about
(23:19):
that is the first guy was Willie McGee, came over,
shook my broken right hand as if I belonged. And
then a fellow named Terry Pendleton, and then there's there's
Ozzie Smith, Keith names and down the line we went
one by one. These guys all made me feel as
if I belonged, and then we went upstairs. That night,
(23:40):
the broadcast begins. Jack Buck begins with a call, it's
John O'Leary did at the ballpark. The New York Mets
are in town, kid, Are you having fun? So I
look up on live National radio and I respond, that's right,
no noise. I'm nodding my head violently up and down.
I'm like, yes, I'm excited, but I haven't found my
(24:02):
voice yet physically it's returned. But man, I'm in the
presence of a hero of mine, so I don't say
much to him. All night. That night, though, was not
a blur. I remember almost a body any frame by frame. Eventually,
the Cardinals coming back in the bottom of the eighth
and winning the game against the Mets four to three.
Year final. What an awesome game. I also remember Jack
(24:25):
Buck had learned that night that little John Leary can't
do much with his hands. So the following day at
our house, arrives in a brown box a little ball
that says, kid, if you want a second baseball, write
a thank you letter to the man who sent the first.
And inside that box was a baseball signed by Ossie Smith.
(24:45):
So my mom looks at me and says, baby, I
guess if you want a second baseball, you gotta write
a thank you letter. Unable to write up until that point,
I begged my mother for a pen or pencil. She
brings one over. There are two occupational therapist to push
my hands together, we break through scar tissue. We wrote
a note, and two days later we got a second
(25:08):
baseball from another Cardinal player, Tommy hur that read, kid,
if you want a third baseball, write a thank you letter.
So I did. Then I got a third baseball that said, kid,
if you want a fourth baseball, Kid, if you want
a fifth baseball. Nineteen eighty seven, Jack Buck, a very
busy Hall of Fame radio announcer, sends a ten year
(25:29):
old boy in a wheelchair with no fingers and no
real chance at life's d Baseballs sixty teaching a little
boy how to ride again. Everything I've done in my
life professionally rest on the lessons and the gifts that
Jack Buck gave me as a kid. Those gifts of
sixty Baseball's changed my life. The last time I saw
(25:49):
Jack Buck was at my college graduation. I'm twenty two,
I'm captain, gowned up. Jack Buck comes to the college
graduation with a package and a note. The first was Kid.
I'm not sure Jack Buck ever knew my first name
was John. He called me kid every single time we
were together. Kid, Kid, this, kid that. So he writes, Kid,
(26:10):
this means a lot to me. I hope it means
a lot to you too. Enjoy it's yours. So I
open up this package, look inside. See something kind of
shiny glaring back at me. I lifted up with both
my hands, and that's when I read something that says
Major League Baseball Baseball Hall of Fame, Jack Buck. It's
(26:32):
the crystal baseball that Jack Buck had received when he
went into the Hall of Fame. He said to me
as he hands me this baseball, Kid, there's only one
like it in the entire world. It's priceless, don't drop it,
And the final words he ever spoke to me, it's yours.
(26:52):
He hands me this baseball, walks away, and that's my
last interaction with Jack Buck, this side of eternity. And
this is the part of the story I hate sharing.
After he gave that baseball to me, I took it
home that night I put into a sock drawer. Not
for safe keeping. I put it in that sock drawer
(27:12):
because I didn't want anybody to know that I was
friends with Jack Buck, because if they had found out
how close we were, they would also ask me, how'd
you guys meet in the first place. I wasn't telling
anybody how I was burned nobody, why would you talk
about the bad stuff? And I never, until unfortunately after
his death, felt truly worthy of that type of friendship
(27:34):
and that type of love. Jack struggled himself with Parkinson's
disease and eventually lung cancer, and I was never able
to be the friend to him that he was to
me because I never felt worthy of that friendship in
the first place. For five months he sat in the
hospital bed and I never went to visit him, Not
because I didn't love him, not because I wasn't praying
for him daily. But every single time I pulled up
(27:58):
to that hospital, I always eventually left that hospital parking
lot realizing someone more important than I was already in
front of him. And that is a lowsy way to
go through life. When I got out of hospital, the
commitment I made quietly to myself was I will be normal,
which is a worthy commitment to strive for and yet
ultimately impossible to achieve. And that's for all of us,
(28:21):
but in particular when that first you're in a wheelchair,
when you have scars that cover you from your neck
to your toes, when your arms are locked at ninety degrees,
when your fingers are missing on both hands, I will
never be normal. But I tried. I try to become
the version of normal for everybody else. And so I
masked up through humor, through alcohol, by trying to be popular.
(28:44):
And I did that until my late twenties. That started
to change in a church service, when I was told
by a pastor that my life was a precious, priceless gift.
I had one job. It was to say yes to
be in use for good. It's not about me, man,
It's about God's grace. It's about showing up for others.
It's about being a Jack Buck, even when you don't
feel like it, even when you don't know what to do.
(29:06):
Jack Buck showed up for me, and now I'm trying
to I'm trying to be more like that for others
in my life. And so it was only after learning
that my life was a precious, priceless gift and I
had a job to be used for good, that this awkward,
introverted kid who struggled academically, struggled with self worth and
self belief, who was a lousy friend to Jack Buck,
(29:28):
grab that ball from the darkness, bring it back into
the light, and start reflecting that goodness into a world
longing for it. I'm still trying to make up for that.
I won't be able to do it for Jack, but
I'll be able to do it for others in hospitals.
I'll be able to do it do it through encouragement,
through love, through prayer, through my life, and each time
reflecting the goodness that Jack reflected my way first.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
And what a story we just heard, And what a
story about friendship, about love, about just a stranger loving
another stranger, and not any stranger. Here's Jack Buck, not
seeing himself as some world famous broadcaster, but it's a
guy who could help another person, the story of John O'Leary.
Here on our American Stories.
And we returned to our American stories. Up next, a
miraculous story of survival, faith, and friendship from John O'Leary.
John is the author of the best selling book on Fire,
Seven Choices to Ignite a radically inspired life. Let's get
into the story. Take it away, John.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
If you had to draw a picture of Americana back
in the eighties, I think it would be a picture
of our backyard. We had a picket fence, We had
a golden retriever. My mother taught third grade history, and
in her spare time, she raised six kids. I'm the
fourth one of those six. My father did not sleep.
As far as I know, I never saw the man
in bed. I never once saw the man sick. I
(00:50):
never saw the man angry. I saw a man who
was hardworking and industrious, and faithful and loving and tender.
He served in the US Army, was a small business
owner and an example of true, beautiful masculine love to
not only his sons, but to his daughters. He came
home for dinner every time, sat around the dinner table,
(01:12):
held hands while we prayed. Mom made dinner almost every
single night, except on Fridays when we went out together
as a family for pizza. Both set to grandparents were alive,
and maybe the biggest argument we had growing up, the
two grandpas would fight about who had it worse, the
grandpa who fought in Europe or the grand who fought
in the Pacific. We had a wonderful, faith filled, idealistic
(01:34):
upbringing prayers before bed, prayers before meals, Church on Sundays,
pancakes afterwards. I remember, this is a story I've never shared.
Our take home exercise at school I went to a
little Christian school was to draw a picture of Jesus.
And I drew this picture of this boat being rocked
by the waves, and then this one apostle stepping out
(01:56):
of that boat toward Jesus. And as I was coloring
this picture, I knew back then as a little boy,
if I ever got called out of that boat, I
could walk on water too. My mom and dad gave
us that type of faith as kids, really candidly before
we needed it. That'll just be honest. I mean, the
sun shines very brightly over the Leery house for a long,
(02:18):
long long time. I don't know if we understood how
fortunate we were, but in my life and in the
lives of my five siblings. There would come a day
for all of us when all of us would need
that type of faith. Back in the eighties, we wouldn't
have technology. Man, we spent our lives outside, kind of
getting in trouble in creek beds and people's backyards. So
(02:38):
these kids were playing with fire and gasoline in their backyard.
They would drizzle a little bit of gasoline, stand back
a couple feet, throw the match on top, and this
little gasoline puddle would dance to life. And these were
boys I looked up to. They were about eleven, and
I figured if they could do it, so could I.
So the following weekend, my mother was out with two
(03:00):
of my sisters, my father was at work. It was
seven point thirty bent over a five gallon can of gasoline.
What I remember is it was too heavy to even budge,
filled to the brim, So I lit a piece of
cardboard on fire. I set it down on the concrete floor,
and then very carefully bent down, poured a little bit
(03:21):
of gasoline on top. And man, it was so heavy
I couldn't even move the thing at first. So I
bare hugged this thing, tilted it and as I waited
for the liquid to come out. The fumes must have
pulled the flame into the can. It created this massive explosion,
split the metal can into it, picked up the nine
year old boar that's me, launched me twenty feet against
(03:42):
the forest side of the garage. I remember coming to
Everything around me was either pitch black or on fire.
And when you're little, you're taught to stop and drop
and roll. But when you're the one on fire, you
know that's not what you naturally do. You run. And
so I'm pan extrucked, I'm in pain, I'm burning, although
I'm not even sure if I know it at the time.
(04:03):
So I just run on fire, through the smoke, through
the flames, back toward my mom and dad's house. I
opened up this little garage door, came into the front hall,
stood on top of this rug. Man. My mom and
dad had this oriental rug in the front hall, and
I remember standing on this rug just screaming for a hero. God,
I'll take anybody, I'll take anybody. And I see my
(04:27):
brother Jim coming from the upper steps, and still distinctly
remember as I'm seeing Jim coming toward me, I remember thinking,
oh my gosh, anybody else man not him. I need
a hero. I need a parent, I need a firefighter,
I need a neighbor. I need someone who can do
something here for me. Jim was the kind of brother
who my mother would ask, Hey, make everybody peanut butter
(04:50):
and jelly sandwiches, and Jim would and he would add
tabasco sauce to all the sandwiches. And yet, on that
morning it was January seventeenth, brother Jim picks up a rug,
the kind you're supposed to wipe your feet on. He
runs over to me. He begins beating down the flames.
After swinging down a couple times, he dropped the rug
(05:12):
because he started catching. And then I remember, Jim sees me,
and he picks up the rug, and he comes in
and he beats me down a fourth time and a
fifth time, and now he's burning, and he beats me
a sixth time and a seventh time. For two minutes,
this seventeen year old brother of mine, burning himself in
the process, beats down the flames of my body, wraps
(05:34):
me in that rug, carries me outside, throws me on
the ground. Once we get out there, jumps on top
of me. We roll around in the front yard. He
then says, stay awake, I'll be right back. He runs
back inside, gets my two other sisters out of the house,
gets our golden retriever out of the house, calls nine
to one one. Nineteen eighty seven, the life saver of
(05:56):
the Year for the state of Missouri was not a firefighter.
It was not a first responder, was not a police
officer or a veteran. It was a seventeen year old
boy high school junior named Jim. It was lightly snowing
that day, was cold outside. I'm in the front yard.
My clothes had been burnt off, and my skin has
been burnt off, and I'm naked in the front yard
(06:19):
of a burning house. When my brother Jim went in
and chased the two girls out of the house out
of the smoke, one of them walked over to me
and she just put her arms around me. Her name
is Amy, and she says, John, it's okay, have faith
and fight. The best is she had to come. And
I remember hearing her say that, and just like kind
(06:41):
of in disbelief. I remember looking down and when I
looked down, when I saw my legs and my hands
and my body all burnt. So I looked up and
when I looked up, I saw my house and their
flames leaping through the roofline. There wasn't a lightning strike
that caused that fire. I'm the one that caused it.
And I remember looking up at her and saying, Amy,
it's not okay, not this time. Do me a favor.
(07:04):
Go back into the house, get a knife, come back
out of here, and just finish me off. This time.
It's not all right. And this little girl pulls me
even closer. She's eleven, and she says, John, shut up,
what is wrong with you? Have faith and fight? The
best is she had to come overhearing this dialogue. Is
(07:27):
our younger sister, Susan. This is the little girl that
my brother Jim would make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
with Tabasco sauce for me. I would hate him for
but I would learn from and then I would make
her peanut butter and jelly sandwich is with Tabasco sauce.
I've just given her the green light to maybe do
what she always wanted to do. She unbelievably goes back
(07:50):
into a burning house. A few seconds later, she comes
running back outside, and then she threw a cup of
water right into my face. I'm simmering, I'm dying, I
want out. And this little girl just went into a
burning house for a cup of water, begging me to live.
(08:10):
And after she threw that first cup of water in
my face, she goes right back into a burning house
a second time, comes back outside, throws a second cup
of water in my face, and then she turns and
she runs right back. In one of my favorite scriptural lines,
is no greater love with her than this than to
be willing to lay it on one's life for one's friends.
(08:31):
She doesn't lay it on her life that day for me,
but she was willing to. My entire body was burned
on January seventeenth, nineteen eighty seven. One hundred percent, eighty
seven percent of what was burned third degree. That's as
bad as it gets. The part that was not burned
third degree was my face and my scalp, which is
(08:52):
why I'm able to not only have my face still,
my ears still, my nose still, What a blessing that is,
but also the scalp is where they took every layer
of skin to replace the parts of my body that
had lost the skin and the doctor's and was vacchi
evash In credits my sister's love on the day I
was burned with how he was able to salvage that
donor site. So not only did she embody selfless love,
(09:15):
she may have given me back the opportunity of life
beyond that day.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
And you're listening to John O'Leary, author of the best
selling book on Fire, share his story. He grew up
in a good home, a joy filled home, a prayer
filled home, and well, on this one occasion, this one day,
he's playing with fire and with gasoline too, and there's
an explosion. It launches him against the garage and he's
(09:44):
on fire. When we come back, this remarkable story of
faith and fighting, it continues here on our American Stories,
John O'Leary's story when we come back, and we returned
(10:09):
to our American stories and John O'Leary's horroring story of survival.
When we last left off, John had just set himself
and his family's house on fire. Let's return to the story.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
So I'm in the hospital room, I'm amongst strangers. I'd
never been away from home. I'd never even been a
summer camp. I'd never been sick, I'd never been in
a hospital. And then I hear my father's voice down
the hall, Where is my boy? Where is my boy?
And my first thought was, oh my gosh, my old
man has come to finish me off. He's going to
(10:43):
be so mad once he finds out what I did
to the house. He's going to kill me. He marches
in military style left right, left, right, points down at me.
So I shut my eyes. And then I hear my
father say, John, look at me when I'm talking to you.
So I look up at my dad, and then he says,
(11:05):
I have never been so proud of anyone in my
entire life. And then he says, I love you. Hearing this, thinking,
oh my gosh, nobody told my dad what happened. Clearly
he does not know the cause of this thing in
his son's life. And what I did not know back
(11:27):
then as a kid was the power of grace, was
true unconditional love. As an adult now looking back on
the story, as a man, as a father, myself, man,
I get it now. I got a picture of the
prodigal father hanging up in my office. I did not
understand what it looks like to look over the hillside
to see a son coming home and to go sprinting
down the path toward him. I didn't get that as
(11:48):
a kid, but I felt it as a kid. I
felt that I'm conditional love, and I'm telling you changed
me in the emergency room. It did not make the
journey forward easy, like how do you recover quickly from
burns your entire body? But I think my dad's love
on day one, on moment one, made that journey possible.
And that was a turning point. Right behind my dad
(12:11):
came my mom. She takes my right hand. My fingers
are amputated on both hands now, so you can imagine
what they might have looked like on the morning off.
But she just boldly walks and she takes my right hand,
pats my bald head, and she says, I love you.
So I look up and I say, Mama, am I
going to die? She looked me in the eyes and
(12:34):
she said to me, baby, do you want to die?
It's your choice, it's not mine. I don't want to die.
I want to live. And her response was good, to
take the hand of God, walk the journey with him,
and you fight like you have never fought before your daddy,
(12:56):
and I will be with you every step. You're never
going to be on your own, but you got to
do your part. And on that morning, it was January seventeenth,
nineteen eighty seven, a lifetime ago, man, almost four decades
ago now, a little boy shut his eyes and took
God's hand and just walked forward. I never heard of
burn care, never heard of amputations, never heard of the breatment,
(13:17):
never heard of donor sites, none of that. That has
what made the journey not only endurable, but ultimately miraculous
and possible. The math they used to run on patients
as they arrived into emergency departments and ultimately in the
burn centers, they would take the percentage of the body burned,
they would add age, and that would give them mortality.
(13:39):
So get your calculators out. One hundred percent if the
body was burned the child was nine, which means this
little boy has one hundred and nine percent likelihood of dying.
That's just the cold, hard facts. My mother doesn't know this,
so right after she visits me, she has an opportunity
meeting with the doctor for the first time. His name
is Vacchi evaj and doctor Evajen is explaining how badly
(14:02):
her little boy is burned. And starting to talk about
what the first procedures might look like, and talking about
the first night and what they've got to do right
away to get this thing going. And finally it's beginning
to sink in with my mother how desperate this fight
will be. And so she says to him, doctor, are
you telling me that my baby's got a fifty to
fifty chance of surviving this thing? And the way my
(14:23):
mother told me later on was he took off his glasses,
looked her in the eyes and said, missus O'Leary, you
are completely misunderstanding me. I'm not a betting man, but
if I had to put odds on your son's chances
to survival, I would say that he has less than
one half of one percent chance of surviving this first night,
and those odds will never improve every night. It will
(14:46):
be less than one half of one percent chance of
surviving that night. We know how the story ends, and
the unbelievable thing about my parents' faith. Gosh, I get
emotional even sharing this. The day I was burned, my
dad left the hospital in a snow store because he
(15:07):
hears there's a prayer surface, you know, in Saint Louis,
we don't get that much snow, and when we do,
basically they call the National Guard man. Stay in doors,
don't go outside. Well that night, in seven inches of snow,
my dad goes up to the church and it is
sold out. They're not selling tickets, but there's nowhere to sit.
The church is packed. No one goes to church when
it's snowy, not even on a Sunday. This is a
(15:29):
Saturday night, it's late. My dad walks in. He kneels
down in front of these guys he probably used to
try to impress. He kneels in front of all of
them the hand of a microphone, and he just thanks
them all for coming. He talks about the situation as
it is right now, and then he says, but I
need to turn this over to God. So he sends
up this prayer. God, you gave us your son John
(15:51):
to love in a race. We now give him back
to you. We give him back to you. But our
prayer are expectant. Prayer is that you will heal our boy.
He asked this through Jesus Christ. He stands up, he
walks out. The prayer service continues. My dad goes back
to work at the hospital, but that little prayer, God,
(16:13):
you gave us this boy to love and to raise.
It remained as prayer during that five and a half
months in hospital. They realized what a surgeon may not
be able to do, God can. God can, and so
the prayers began to go out. You know, there was
an old device that your grandparents once had in their
home called the telephone, and the dad was burned. My
(16:34):
next door neighbor, her name was Carol Bauer. She was
a widow. She called a friend, who called a friend,
who called a friend, and her game of phone tag
ultimately led five relationships deep to a girl named Colleen.
Colleen called her dad. Her dad was an old cardinal
player in the back in the teen he's in sixties.
His name was Red Shandings, and Colleen mentions that a
(16:57):
little boy was burned in our community. He's probably gonna
keep him in your thoughts in prayers though. Red Shandean's
then goes to a charity auction that night. He's seated
at a VIP table in Saint Louis, Missouri, and while
sharing with the table of nine others, you know, celebrating
baseball and the promise of spring, he also shares that
a little boy in our community was burned terribly. Keep
(17:17):
him in your thoughts in prayers. Well, at that table
was a guy named Jack Buck. Jack Buck was in
seven hall of Fames, Baseball Hall of Fame, the Football
Hall of Fame, the Hockey Hall of Fame, the Broadcasters
Hall of Fame, the Radio Hall of Fame. This man
was everywhere. He was influential nationally but also locally, hugely
(17:40):
powerful locally. And Jack Buck hears the little boy is
gonna die. There's a man from the greatest generation. He
fought overseas, picked up a purple heart. He understood pain,
but he also understood what happens when people show up
for one another. He leaves the charity auction that night.
Jack Buck is the voice of Saint Louis Cardinals baseball.
(18:01):
In other words, he is the voice of my childhood.
And I'm laying in the hospital bed dying. I'm tied
down to this bed. My arms and legs are tied down,
so I can't move my arms from my legs. My
lungs have been burned, so I can no longer breathe
on my own. There's a trick force an oxygen into
my lungs my eyes are swollen shut, so I can't see,
I can't communicate. I'm cut off from the world, but
(18:25):
I could listen, and I remember the night I was burned.
The door opens up from the outside. I hear footsteps,
I hear a chair, I get pulled across close. I
hear a cough, and then I hear the voice of
my childhood.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
And you've been listening to John O'Leary's story, and what
a story it is about the power of faith and
grace and my goodness, I encounter with his father and
hearing his father's voice, where's my boy? And his dad
says those words, I've never been so proud of you
anytime in my entire life. I love you, And there
it was the power of grace, true unconditional love on display.
(19:08):
Anybody who's a parent out there, if this isn't the
relationship you have with your kid, it's never too late.
When we come back, what happens next the story of
John O'Leary here on our American story, and we returned
(19:39):
to our American stories and the final portion of John
O'Leary's beautiful story of survival, faith and as you'll soon hear,
friendship let's pick up where we last left off, with
the great late Jack Buck visiting John O'Leary at the
hospital in Saint Louis. Here again is John O'Leary.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
The sound of our summertime was baseball from March until September,
and if we were lucky more and the sounds of
baseball for us was a guy named Jack Buck, the
voice of Saint Louis Cardinals baseball. He's in six different
Hall of Fames. He's a celebrity in and of his
own right, but more than a celebrity to me, he
(20:21):
was my connection to the thing I love more than
anything else, baseball, because back in the eighties you weren't
watching the games on television. The way you watch baseball
as a kid was to shut your eyes and listen.
When my mom and dad would tuck me in in
the summertime, they would walk out of that room about
seven feet down the hallway, one of the floorboards would
(20:43):
get this little squeak, and I knew Mom and Dad
weren't coming back into my room, and that's when I
would turn on the radio eleven twenty Camelax. The voice
I heard every night was the voice of Jack Buck,
and The voice I heard on the first night of
being burned was Jack Buck, and the voice said to me, kid,
wake up, wake up, you are going to live, and
(21:06):
once you get out of here, we are going to celebrate.
We'll call it John O'Leary Day at the Ballpark. Keep fighting.
Mister Buck stands up, he walks out of that room,
leaned his head against a glass story just started crying.
One of the nurses came over, explained that the little
boy wasn't going to survive. And then mister Buck goes
(21:29):
home that night, cries, he prays, He journals on one question.
The question was what more can I do? And the
following day, I'm laying in the hospital bed. Now it's
January eighteenth. The door opens up, footsteps walk back in,
Cherry comes across the floor, and then I hear the
voice of the radio kick on again. When Jack Buck
says to his new little friend, kid, wake up, I'm back.
(21:55):
You are going to live. You are going to survive.
John O'Leary d at the Ballpark will make it all worthwhile.
See as soon he would come back into the room
almost every single day while I was in hospital. When
he went out of town for spring training with the Cardinals.
He would send in sick players, guys who were injured,
(22:15):
like a guy named Ozzie Smith, an outfielder named many
van Slike. He'd send in hockey players. And he began
championing this little boy, this little boy he had not
met previously. I'm not a celebrity, I'm not famous, our
family's not wealthy. He just saw an opportunity to serve
someone in need. John O'Leary Day at the ballpark. So
(22:38):
I've just celebrated my tenth birthday, and as part of
the celebration, would go downtown Saint Louis to Bush Stadium.
The person who greet us in the parking lot is
a white haired guy in a beautiful red blazer named
Jack Boch. Helps get me out of the car into
a wheelchair, rolls me into the stadium, takes me onto
the field for batting practice, and then we go into
(22:59):
a place called players Only Clubhouse. Buck was never much
of a rule follower, so we walked right in. There's
twenty five athletes in various stages of undress. We make
a right hand turn, and one by one he introduces
me to twenty five Saint Louis Cardinals as if I'm
one of them. And what I remember most distinctly about
(23:19):
that is the first guy was Willie McGee, came over,
shook my broken right hand as if I belonged. And
then a fellow named Terry Pendleton, and then there's there's
Ozzie Smith, Keith names and down the line we went
one by one. These guys all made me feel as
if I belonged, and then we went upstairs. That night,
(23:40):
the broadcast begins. Jack Buck begins with a call, it's
John O'Leary did at the ballpark. The New York Mets
are in town, kid, Are you having fun? So I
look up on live National radio and I respond, that's right,
no noise. I'm nodding my head violently up and down.
I'm like, yes, I'm excited, but I haven't found my
(24:02):
voice yet physically it's returned. But man, I'm in the
presence of a hero of mine, so I don't say
much to him. All night. That night, though, was not
a blur. I remember almost a body any frame by frame. Eventually,
the Cardinals coming back in the bottom of the eighth
and winning the game against the Mets four to three.
Year final. What an awesome game. I also remember Jack
(24:25):
Buck had learned that night that little John Leary can't
do much with his hands. So the following day at
our house, arrives in a brown box a little ball
that says, kid, if you want a second baseball, write
a thank you letter to the man who sent the first.
And inside that box was a baseball signed by Ossie Smith.
(24:45):
So my mom looks at me and says, baby, I
guess if you want a second baseball, you gotta write
a thank you letter. Unable to write up until that point,
I begged my mother for a pen or pencil. She
brings one over. There are two occupational therapist to push
my hands together, we break through scar tissue. We wrote
a note, and two days later we got a second
(25:08):
baseball from another Cardinal player, Tommy hur that read, kid,
if you want a third baseball, write a thank you letter.
So I did. Then I got a third baseball that said, kid,
if you want a fourth baseball, Kid, if you want
a fifth baseball. Nineteen eighty seven, Jack Buck, a very
busy Hall of Fame radio announcer, sends a ten year
(25:29):
old boy in a wheelchair with no fingers and no
real chance at life's d Baseballs sixty teaching a little
boy how to ride again. Everything I've done in my
life professionally rest on the lessons and the gifts that
Jack Buck gave me as a kid. Those gifts of
sixty Baseball's changed my life. The last time I saw
(25:49):
Jack Buck was at my college graduation. I'm twenty two,
I'm captain, gowned up. Jack Buck comes to the college
graduation with a package and a note. The first was Kid.
I'm not sure Jack Buck ever knew my first name
was John. He called me kid every single time we
were together. Kid, Kid, this, kid that. So he writes, Kid,
(26:10):
this means a lot to me. I hope it means
a lot to you too. Enjoy it's yours. So I
open up this package, look inside. See something kind of
shiny glaring back at me. I lifted up with both
my hands, and that's when I read something that says
Major League Baseball Baseball Hall of Fame, Jack Buck. It's
(26:32):
the crystal baseball that Jack Buck had received when he
went into the Hall of Fame. He said to me
as he hands me this baseball, Kid, there's only one
like it in the entire world. It's priceless, don't drop it,
And the final words he ever spoke to me, it's yours.
(26:52):
He hands me this baseball, walks away, and that's my
last interaction with Jack Buck, this side of eternity. And
this is the part of the story I hate sharing.
After he gave that baseball to me, I took it
home that night I put into a sock drawer. Not
for safe keeping. I put it in that sock drawer
(27:12):
because I didn't want anybody to know that I was
friends with Jack Buck, because if they had found out
how close we were, they would also ask me, how'd
you guys meet in the first place. I wasn't telling
anybody how I was burned nobody, why would you talk
about the bad stuff? And I never, until unfortunately after
his death, felt truly worthy of that type of friendship
(27:34):
and that type of love. Jack struggled himself with Parkinson's
disease and eventually lung cancer, and I was never able
to be the friend to him that he was to
me because I never felt worthy of that friendship in
the first place. For five months he sat in the
hospital bed and I never went to visit him, Not
because I didn't love him, not because I wasn't praying
for him daily. But every single time I pulled up
(27:58):
to that hospital, I always eventually left that hospital parking
lot realizing someone more important than I was already in
front of him. And that is a lowsy way to
go through life. When I got out of hospital, the
commitment I made quietly to myself was I will be normal,
which is a worthy commitment to strive for and yet
ultimately impossible to achieve. And that's for all of us,
(28:21):
but in particular when that first you're in a wheelchair,
when you have scars that cover you from your neck
to your toes, when your arms are locked at ninety degrees,
when your fingers are missing on both hands, I will
never be normal. But I tried. I try to become
the version of normal for everybody else. And so I
masked up through humor, through alcohol, by trying to be popular.
(28:44):
And I did that until my late twenties. That started
to change in a church service, when I was told
by a pastor that my life was a precious, priceless gift.
I had one job. It was to say yes to
be in use for good. It's not about me, man,
It's about God's grace. It's about showing up for others.
It's about being a Jack Buck, even when you don't
feel like it, even when you don't know what to do.
(29:06):
Jack Buck showed up for me, and now I'm trying
to I'm trying to be more like that for others
in my life. And so it was only after learning
that my life was a precious, priceless gift and I
had a job to be used for good, that this awkward,
introverted kid who struggled academically, struggled with self worth and
self belief, who was a lousy friend to Jack Buck,
(29:28):
grab that ball from the darkness, bring it back into
the light, and start reflecting that goodness into a world
longing for it. I'm still trying to make up for that.
I won't be able to do it for Jack, but
I'll be able to do it for others in hospitals.
I'll be able to do it do it through encouragement,
through love, through prayer, through my life, and each time
reflecting the goodness that Jack reflected my way first.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
And what a story we just heard, And what a
story about friendship, about love, about just a stranger loving
another stranger, and not any stranger. Here's Jack Buck, not
seeing himself as some world famous broadcaster, but it's a
guy who could help another person, the story of John O'Leary.
Here on our American Stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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