Dale Jr. Download: Dr. Jerry Punch - Saving Lives

you mentioned bobby isaac you were with him the night he passed away at hickory yeah bobby was uh he was like a member of our family and um and he had been through some rough times and he had he'd been at the pinnacle you know winning certain land speed records and we'd go to races when i was a kid and he'd be driving to ken k dodge and harry hyde and you know buddy parrot and all those guys on that team but if you'd fall out we'd leave and so what if he ever fell on the race we'd have to leave right then we'd all and so uh uh later in life you know all those years he was winning races and winning land speed records he'd give everything away he got tools and you know so here he is trying to get back and run late model and right so he had quit he had won the national he won the championship and cup and all that and then just decided one day that he wasn't going to race anymore yeah right and he took like a couple year break right he did took a couple years ago climbed down to the car remember at talladega got out of bud moore's car because he heard ghost or whatever i think yeah let's talk about that um there's a race to talladega he's apparently leading the race uh that's the tail um and pulls in the garage and gets out yeah is that true yeah he did he climbed out and he said you know he told bud moore and those guys that i i you know heard voices i i think my personal opinion being around him a lot and as a physician is that he was having health issues do you mind you know my my guess is and i it never i never ask him because he's a very private guy even though just be he and i working on the car um my my guess was that he probably was having chest pain and he that's out of the car that's my guess so he but the old story is is that you know since uh talladega's built on an old indian barrel ground um that it's that it that the land is cursed and yeah he had heard story he was hearing voices as he was going around the track and uh decided to pull off in the middle of the race uh and quit and he and he did he got out and didn't race again so he gets back in a late model a couple years later yeah and suffered a heart attack on on the racetrack is that right right right he did he did we uh we went to hickory that afternoon and uh i came from medical school and uh up there and and i was the only guy he had just me and him really and we had no no we had a couple of volunteer guys were going to be there later yeah but i we kept putting tires on it and he was he was so loyal to goodyear you know from all the years in cup racing but goodyear wasn't the way to go on firestone was the tires and the gene white come they were all there so um so i'm trying to get him to put the firestone zone and he won't so uh he's not feeling good and so uh butch lindley's car pulls in and mike beam is the crew chief of bush lindley and mike comes over and says hey man you know isaac is that the car you guys built for isaac i said yeah he said you're not going to go anywhere those good years on i said i realize that so i borrow a set of fire stones to put on the car and i go get bobby's laying down at the car in the infield hickory he comes he's really a lot faster and he says why don't you get in and run some laps so if i'm not feeling great so if i have to pull in you maybe you drive it and i said well hey you know i'd love to but i'm supposed to work for dead tonight upstairs you know i said i don't know what i do i can't let ned down he's been so good to me we'll be all right so long story short you know he practices a little more and it still doesn't feel good so i go see him and some other guys get there they're going to help out and i go up and sit in the tower ray starts he's running second or third 40 laps to go um starts weaving in the back stretch slows down caution lights come out because someone flipped the caution light uh up in the tower yeah and uh he comes down pit road and they're over to win the net and they talk to him for a minute he goes back out green flag again about two more laps he gets comes down pit road again they pull him out of the car this time they're calling for the ambulance come up pit road i tell ned i gotta go wow and so i i leave i followed the ambulance at a local hospital and it was a catawba more than hickory and uh the local uh hospital doctor was a local general practitioner so i'm in my second year of med school but i still don't know a lot you know and so we i'm talking with bobby there on the and he he says doc old car drove so hard tonight he's got his fire suit off down around his waist it's just me and his wife there and uh and they're gonna do some x-rays on him and they hadn't done an ekg nothing yet and then he he collapses and full of rest and they um they call a doctor in as a cardiologist who lives about lives down in newton he's on the way to the hospital and we're doing all the cpr stuff so here i am this is my hero yeah and i'm on his chest doing cpr and his wife is five feet away crying and uh he just didn't make it he just didn't make it so i boy it was a i i i i didn't know what to do and and i called ned who was already home uh because by the time we got everything done it was one o'clock in the morning and uh i called ned i said hey i'm i'm at the hospital ned and bobby didn't make it he said what and he's i'll be right there and say you got to call pearson so i called pearson at home and his wife said he's on his way back from running the baby grand race with larry and david i mean larry and ricky and i'll tell him suzy gets home so you know it was just a a really really tough tough one that sounds like it man i didn't know all that um you know that's that's uh you've been uh so that is that the first experience that you had where your you know you this profession of being uh you know a medical doctor crosses uh the the you know the life and and and the lifestyle of of being in involved the racetrack this is something that's going to continue to happen to you multiple times over the course of your career um and i you know i was driving over here today and i was thinking about one of the things that i really wanted to ask you and you know you've you you were with rusty at bristol in 88 um you know people don't know how serious that situation was with rusty right um you know you saved uh don marmar's life at atlanta in 1988 um an arc eraser um you were present on pit road when mike rich was killed at atlanta in 1990. um you know you've you've had all these multiple uh you know occurrences and and where you know your professional life as a physician crosses the path of racing and what you grew up around and i've always kind of wondered how you manage that how do you you know you've got these amazing relationships with ned his sons dale and dad and all everybody that you cross paths with right you're building these friendships and relationships but you also are seeing these people injured and killed um how did you how did you separate the two you know and you know that the the isaac night changed my life because i went back to med school and did and was going to walk away and my one of my professors at white he said no he said this this should spur you to be the best you can be you should be that guy you should be that trauma guy that cardiac guy that is a difference maker that if anybody's really bad you're the guy standing over the bed you're going to give them the best chance to make it and so that prompted me to go be the advanced cardiac life support instructor and the trauma guy i wanted to be if somebody had something happen i wanted to be the guy the best guy they had standing over the bed that could make a difference and so getting back into racing the relationships i had with all these people you're talking about as you all know a lot of drivers back then they didn't go to doctors yeah they didn't they didn't trust doctors and if they did go somewhere they'd give them medicine that and these doctors had no idea what they're doing and so they get on a racetrack and 135 degree cockpit at three hours and they get dehydrated and medicine creates problems they get toxic you know all kinds so they'd come to me they knew it was total confidentiality and uh and uh which was a you know a blessing and a curse because you know a lot i mean and but it was you know i loved it because i it was a and i respected them they knew i was never going to say anything you know even though i was a broadcaster my that was professional confidence nothing went on the air um but it was tough i mean i had i had a points leader one night called back before we had motor coaches they were at the hotel in wilkesboro in north wilkesboro and he's on the front row and he's the points leader for a cup and they he calls me at two o'clock in the morning and he's down the hallway having a heart attack he thinks and i run down there and one of his crew members is already at the door and we go in he's balled up in the floor all sweaty and turns out it wasn't a heart attack it was a gallbladder attack and so we get him i always carried a little bag with me we'd get him tuned up and and i said you know tomorrow morning we're going to see we're going to see how see how you're doing i said you know my whole deal with these guys is i'll do everything i can to help you but i will not let you put yourself or somebody else in jeopardy at the racetrack if you'll listen to what i tell you and i'll do my darndest to get you tuned up i called the helicopter at winston-salem baptist hospital it was coming to wilkinsburg said bring this and this and this tomorrow i want to give this guy some iv fluids in the morning which we did nobody knew about it and uh he got in junior's car and drove the race you know so that happened time and time again you know but and you know and it was just the relationships you know um people break a rib and needed it to be blocked and you know because they could drive and you know that kind of stuff happened so yeah it was uh it it was you sort of do you would did you sort of i think that's amazing that you say like uh you know it you chain you position yourself mentally to where like if those guys are going to be in need you want to be the guy that was there you know you wanted you having that relationship with them made you want to be there available for them in that in that moment when they needed you the most or needed somebody like you the most but i have to imagine that some of those situations were so i mean you know racing's a violent sport and some of those situations i don't know how um you could put some of that stuff away and go back the next week and keep going you know keep doing it keep i don't know always work i always wonder that about you because a lot you know when i was a kid i was i was i thought you were that you thought you were a doctor at the racetrack yeah because people called you dr jerry yeah yeah and you were often helping people yeah yeah or trying and um but i know now that you were a broadcaster right you know and there was another you had a doctor yeah um you know and that you did did that ever become ever how did you how do you manage that and what i guess what is the etiquette in the field where there is a medical staff at the track they are there to provide assistance to anybody who's going to be in any kind of problem but you know you're a doctor you're going to jump into action if you see something and somebody who needs help so how does that work when when there was an accident at the track and somebody was hurt and you're you're on the scene how do you work with the team that's already there and responsible for that event well in the early years nascar is different now it's so much more sophisticated down the early years there really at times until race day there wasn't a doctor there wasn't a doctor there when rusty flipped at bristol or wasn't the doctor they had at atlanta back in the old days atlanta was just a retired semi-retired uh general practitioner who really wasn't trauma trained that's what i did for a living five six days a week so when don marmer hit you know and uh i end up going up there and being involved with that you know we're doing the full cardiac we're doing the full trauma trauma code on him trying to keep him alive until i can get the helicopter there i'm on the phone with the helicopter and i'm doing deal how are you on how do you have that um so seconds you know you have seconds to make these how are you on the phone like how do you you are are you going into the event with all that stuff prepared no no no no i'm actually i was actually doing i was doing pit road for the arca race and i'm down at turn one where all the leaders are on the pit road and i know that and it's not a live race it's being taped and we have i heard a loud crunch out there and i and i'm you know we're on a red flag and so i'm walking a pit road an arc official says to me i said hey what bad wreck up there and the official said yeah he's gone and i said what he's gone what do you mean he's gone they told me so i go take off running i get up there and the guys from atlanta south ambulance crew great crew they're trying to get him out of the car and the cars he's he's imp you know he's just pinned in the car and bad situation multiple fractures so i climb in the car with those guys i still got my fire suit on i put my microphone in my pocket and uh next thing you know we're doing i'm putting the line we put a line in his heart we're doing all kinds of stuff there and get him to the care center um the guy the doctor in there just says do what you got to do they don't have a lot of things i need but i knew i could do this this and this try to reduce pressure in the brain and so then they we got the aim of the helicopter on the way but they won't come unless he's stable so i'm sort of fibbed to them on the phone as i'm talking to the driver and we're doing all these things uh i'm telling the helicopter he's st he's not i mean but the only chance he's got is if we get him there get them there and i'm and i'm ventilating him trying to reduce the intracranial pressure so he doesn't i mean just all these things i'm trying to do in a hurry um and and we we stabilize him enough the helicopter gets here they fly him out and you know and he survives and i walk back out and get ready to start the race and i didn't know this at the time all the folks in the tv truck would have been sitting there for 45 minutes listing through my microphone that was stuck in my pocket and i come back and said hey guys i'm sorry i'm back and then i hear all these this cheers erupt you know from the tv truck like holy cow i said well you know what are you guys they said we heard everything you know wow it was uh have you did you have you seen don no no i haven't accidentally but it was about gosh it was about 10 years ago that uh i got a phone call uh gives me chills thing i got a phone call on christmas eve and uh and it was from his son and they said we've been trying for 20 years to get your phone number and he said we're having family christmas my dad's here and i wanted to call you and tell you if i was a family thank you dad's didn't have a race anymore but we got him with us blah blah and thank you dr i mean that meant more to me that thank you from that family there up in chicago area so it was pretty cool that's incredible i still don't know how he managed it i mean like you ask how are you able to manage both and and i think i've come to the conclusion that it's just a gift doc i i don't know how you were able to i know how hard tv is yeah i know how i've heard how hard it is to be a doctor can only imagine how you could just switch it on and off and be at the ready you know it really reminds me and i don't want to underplay this because you're just such a treasure to the sport and and but like that that beautiful scene in field of dreams which is one of my favorite movies where dr moonlight graham is playing he's he's doing what he loves he's got that opportunity and then it there's that emergency where he crosses the line and all of a sudden he's a doctor saves the girl's life you are a real-time moonlight graham is what you are no really i mean i i i it's it's an amazing thing i i was telling dale before the show like i didn't realize and everybody knew the rusty wallace story which we can get into that but i'm like i didn't realize you saved that many people like all the people that you know that rusty was in bad shape that day well you know when he when he hit and tumbled and rolled and uh we went i went through the car and you know he wasn't breathing and i'm i'm literally from me to you when the car comes to rest i'm standing on pit road talking to rick mask exactly and it was just him and your dad on the racetrack and he cuts a tire and balls and rubs a tire and he hits the wall and i look up and i heard his crunch i look up and i see this pontiac grand prix looks like a punt spiraling nose first up and then it gets in the air and the wind catches and it turns sideways and comes down and then barrel rolls four or five times and comes a rest with the with the front of the car on the pit wall and i'm literally from me to junior from the car and i jump over the pit wall and the roof is pushed down the window net's buckled down i can't get the window in off but i can see rusty slumped over he had an open face helmet slumped over in the car and blowed out of both sides of his mouth and i could see his uniform he's not breathing he's not moving so you know i'm i'm trying to get my hands through the window net just to grab his airway because i figured if he's bleeding into his mouth or whatever i can at least get his jaw pulled forward to try to get some semblance of an airway and then next thing i know i hear someone yelling at your dad he stopped his car right behind rusty's and jumps out he's screaming you know what can i do what can i do i said you got to get this roof off you know i got to get to him and so he screams and dick baity jumps across so that nascar you know uh director of officials he jumps across and he says doc you got to back away we got to cut this room i said i can't back away deck i'm holding the airway but you've got to get this roof off and so baity takes his winston cup hat and puts it over my face and he took another hat put over my face and i'm holding him through the window the best i can and they're sawing this roof so i don't get sparks and stuff in my face and we get to rusty and within the next few minutes it turns out fortunately rusty well knucklehead but rusty had eaten a ham sandwich he inhaled a ham sandwich right before he got in the car and when he did tumbles part of that ham sandwich came back up and through his esophagus and blocked his airway so the so the not breathing wasn't trauma related it wasn't head injury related it was it was physically the blockage from the sandwich so the more having an airway and letting him you know we it sort of resolved itself but we didn't have i didn't know that but we needed to have an airway i knew he was going to be in cardiac arrest within a minute if we didn't get an airway to him so we gave him an ambulance he uh he goes to the hospital gets admitted calls back to the track that night via the tv truck and says hey i'm in the hospital i'm fine tell doc i'm good but he looks terrible because i had soot all over my face and paint and but the best part of that whole story was about an hour before the the bushrae started that not now the xfinity series your dad comes walking down pit road write down what right to me is i'm getting ready to start the race you know as a pit reporter and he says hey you know said you probably saved rusty wallace's life today and i'm looking at him like that and he said i don't know he said why would you do that why would anybody do that and i said it did he stroke that big mustache so anyway we got lucky that day was he unconscious through that whole thing yeah when did he regain consciousness right when we we got him in the ambulance and got him on a backboard and got him lifted him out through the roof and gave him the ambulance and i went and was parked right on the straightaway we got an iv in him and he's starting to and i was gonna we were gonna suction him out and he started breathing a little bit more the uniform started moving and we were getting ready to intubate him and put a tube in and he didn't have to breathing on his own so he started coming around in the ambulance and and were you were y'all broadcasting practice no okay so you weren't working at the time i wasn't working i was just doing some homework talking to actually rick mast one of the bush series drivers and getting ready to run that night had you were you ever at the track as a doctor first i i did physicals uh yeah daytona i worked at i worked the infield care center um that's where i started when i worked the infield care center i'd go there and work um i'd work the mornings uh and then i'd go do the pa in the afternoon what year was that i mean gosh 80 80 81 80 early 80s early 80s i would go and then during the during the speed books we initially would do would do driver physicals down there and so i did a ton of guys that i got to know bobby alex and aj ford all these guys would come in and they'd ask for me because they they tried to talk me out of doing the exam and i'd say guys you know this has got to be a complete physical i wouldn't be doing this oh yes you would i said no i wouldn't be doing a service if i didn't know the complete example yes you would do you want to hear the rest of that conversation with dr jerry punch well you can if you listen to the entire podcast the dale jr download available on all major podcast platforms [Music] you

Channel: Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Dirty Mo Media

Views: 100,260

Rating: 4.9597411 out of 5

Keywords: Dale Jr. Download, Dale Jr, Dale Earnhardt Jr, Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace, Bobby Isaac, NASCAR, Dr. Jerry Punch, Doc Punch, ESPN, DJD, Dirty Mo Media, Mike Davis

Id: SK8lHVVU1f0

Length: 19min 42sec (1182 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 05 2021