889: There’s Something About Hail Mary
This This American Life episode explores desperate situations where people attempt long-shot solutions with uncertain outcomes. It features stories including a woman with mysterious illness symptoms who tried an unproven IV treatment, defense attorneys racing to save a death row inmate's life, and immigration detainees communicating with advocates by throwing bottles over detention center fences.
Summary
The episode, titled "There's Something About Hail Mary," examines situations where people in dire circumstances attempt unlikely interventions despite low odds of success. The first segment follows Ora, a woman who experienced debilitating symptoms for five years including blurred vision, brain fog, fatigue, and physical pain. After multiple doctors dismissed her symptoms or misdiagnosed her condition, she pursued various alternative treatments including hyperbaric chambers, infrared saunas, and specialized diets. Eventually, a doctor suggested an intravenous treatment using a common drugstore product that is classified as a toxin and explicitly warned against by the CDC and Infectious Diseases Society of America. Despite risks including potential death, Ora received four IV treatments and her symptoms resolved, though experts cannot explain whether the IV caused the improvement or if another factor contributed. The second major segment excerpts Serial's new podcast series "The Last 12 Weeks," which follows death row defense attorney Greg Warchuk as he works to prevent David Wood's execution in Texas. Wood was convicted of six murders based primarily on jailhouse informant testimony and limited physical evidence. With 12 weeks before execution, Warchuk's team investigates potential tunnel vision by police, discovering claims that detectives coerced witnesses, fabricated evidence, and may have ignored another suspect, Michael Plyler, who some sources claim actually committed the crimes. The investigation includes interviews with Ramona Dismukes, who recounts strange interactions with police and alternative theories about the real perpetrator. The final segment describes the Otay Mesa Detention Collective's efforts to communicate with ICE detainees at a San Diego facility. Organizers gather weekly outside the detention center and collect A-numbers (alien registration numbers) shouted by detainees through fences, allowing them to deposit money for phone calls and commissary. The communication method escalates when a detainee throws a lotion bottle containing a note describing 290 days without fresh food, constant sickness, and indefinite detention. After a reporter publishes the story, facility officials allegedly retaliate through temperature changes and yard closures.
About this episode
We spend an hour in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter, behind and desperate, with people trying any damn thing they can think of. Visit <a href="https://thisamericanlife.supercast.com?utm_id=lifepartners&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners</a> to sign up for our premium subscription.<ul><li>Prologue: Five years after Ora first started experiencing mysterious and debilitating health problems, she decides to try a treatment that she knows very well might kill her. Host Ira Glass talks to her about the experience. (9 minutes)</li><li>Act One: Two lawyers have just 3 months to stop their client's execution. In Texas, where this story takes place, these kinds of appeals to get people off death row fail 94% of the time. (38 minutes)</li><li>Act Two: At the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, migrants figured out an ingenious way to communicate with the activists gathered outside of the detention center’s walls. (13 minutes)</li></ul>Transcripts are available at <a href="https://www.thisamericanlife.org/889/transcript" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">thisamericanlife.org</a><a href="https://www.thisamericanlife.org/page/privacy-policy" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">This American Life privacy policy.</a><br /><a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Learn more about sponsor message choices.</a><br /><br />🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:<br />Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?<br />👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:<br /><b><a href="https://goo.su/XwNQm" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">https://goo.su/XwNQm</a></b><br />(Updated for each story)
Key Insights
- Ora's doctors initially attributed her serious physical symptoms including blurred vision and heart palpitations to being in love, demonstrating how medical professionals can dismiss patients' symptoms as psychological rather than investigating physical causes.
- Ora spent two years taking antibiotics and other medications based on a Lyme disease diagnosis from a non-FDA-approved test, showing how false diagnoses can lead to prolonged ineffective treatment.
- The doctor who treated Ora with an unproven IV therapy explained it wasn't being used widely because pharmaceutical companies had suppressed it due to cost, employing a conspiracy theory argument to justify an untested and potentially lethal treatment.
- Three Lyme disease experts and researchers could not explain why Ora's symptoms resolved after the IV treatment, and even her own doctor refused to clarify which of her many treatments he believed actually worked, leaving the cause of recovery scientifically unclear.
- Texas death row appeals fail 94% of the time, creating a systemic situation where defense attorneys must pursue long-shot strategies despite these overwhelming odds.
- Detective Johnny Guerrero told officers investigating David Wood that he had 'none whatsoever' doubt about Wood's guilt despite significant evidentiary weaknesses and conflicting witness accounts.
- Police allegedly transported jailhouse informants to El Paso for scenic drives and meals before presenting them with case materials and suggestions that they could receive money or reduced sentences for testifying against David Wood.
- Ramona Dismukes claims police took her to the desert and threatened that she could become the killer's next victim if she didn't write a false statement accusing David Wood, despite her actual encounter with him contradicting the narrative.
- Michael Plyler, who some evidence suggests may have been involved in the murders, was on a list of 36 police suspects but was not pursued while police focused exclusively on building a case against David Wood.
- Greg Warchuk's defense team discovered Plyler's name buried in 12,000 pages of case records only weeks before the execution, illustrating how solo defense attorneys cannot feasibly review all available evidence without last-minute urgency.
- Detainees at Otay Mesa detention facility had to throw notes in bottles over 14-20 foot fences with barbed wire, covering approximately 90 feet of distance, because they had no reliable way to communicate with the outside world about their conditions.
- After a reporter published details about detainees throwing bottles with messages, facility officials allegedly implemented retaliatory measures including temperature adjustments, shower restrictions, and closing yard access during Sunday organizing hours when advocates gathered outside.
Topics
Transcript
A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeaped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. Desperate times, my friends. Got for desperate measures. Ora was in college when something mysterious happened. She was at her computer, editing. And I was editing, editing, looking at this computer, and my eyesight started to go blurry. And I just, like, couldn't really see the computer that well. And I was like, I need to stop. I can't really see anymore. And I was walking home, and, like, everything's just blurry. And eye doctor examined her, said there was nothing wrong with her eyes to cause the blurriness. And…
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