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Drag Racing Possible in Actor's Death; New York City Train Crash; Disabled Baby Denied Heart Transplant; Mysterious Death after NFL Game

Aired December 02, 2013 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Brooke Baldwin, live from New York. Thanks for joining me here on this Monday.

I want to begin with an absolute tragedy. An eyewitness denies drag racing played a part in the death of "Fast and Furious" franchise star, Paul Walker. Los Angeles County investigators said today they are pursuing the possibility this car was racing. Look at this with me. This is a photograph that shows Walker just next to this Porsche in which he ultimately died in, a 2005 Carrera G.T.

And as more and more details come out about this weekend's crash, so do the tributes to this 40-year-old movie star whose looks turned heads while his good deeds won over fans. Walker was wrapping up his charity event for typhoon and tornado victims when this Porsche crashed and erupted into flames Saturday. And this is video - this is YouTube video capturing the flames, the dark smoke here from this crash. A witness describes how his son ran to try to help.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He took off running. He got up to the scene, saw the car smoking, it was on fire, but it wasn't a big fire yet. He was trying to put it out. He could see Paul and Roger were both in the car when the car decided to blow up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: You will hear more from that eyewitness a little later on this hour, but the driver of that Porsche, Roger Rodas, was Walker's racing team partner. The crash happened just a couple hundred yards from Rodas' shop. Friends and family, they saw the two men trapped, and now, after Walker's death, his many press interviews carry new meaning. I want you to listen to what is believed to be his last. Walker was promoting his new film, which is out next month. It's called "Hours." It's about a new father trying to help his newborn in a New Orleans hospital as Hurricane Katrina bears down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL WALKER, ACTOR: I think - I think the biggest lesson, I think it was just nice to see how simple things can be. So this story is really -- obviously, there's a lot of complications, what this guy goes through, losing the love of his life, and he's in this environment. He can't really see - he can't control anything, you know, and that's I guess (ph) with life. You know, we're trying to control all this stuff and he realizes, in the process, that it's not about all this. It's just about what's in this. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Exactly.

WALKER: The machine is life. Just endlessly cranking. And we're running around and we're trying to juggle all these balls and we're running all over the place. And when they all hit the floor, we panic. But there's really no need because --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everything's smooth.

WALKER: Focus. It's right here. It's what's important. It's of the heart. It's family. It's friends. It's -- the rest -

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: I want to talk specifically about this Porsche in which he was in. Peter Valdes-Dapena with CNN Money.

You know cars. You know this Porsche, so we'll talk here in just a minute. But, Alan Duke, let me just begin with you.

As far as the investigation goes, tell me what investigators are pursuing. Why specifically they are looking at the possibility that drag racing was involved?

ALAN DUKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's one of the possibilities. And it was triggered by a phone call to investigators over the weekend after the crash. They got a tip saying that there could have been a second car involved, possibly racing with this Porsche that carried Walker and Rodas. They don't have any hard evidence that they know of yet, apparently, but it's one of the possibilities.

What they do know is speeding was involved. It's a 45-mile-per-hour speed limit on this very wide street in this very quiet, at least for a Saturday afternoon, industrial or business park area. So it was wide open to put the pedal to the metal, so to speak, down the stretch, but what happened and what caused them to veer into the light post and the car to explode into flames is something that they don't know yet. So drag racing is one of the theories. And as we're probably about to hear, it wasn't an easy car to drive.

BALDWIN: That's exactly what I wanted to get to. Alan Duke, thank you.

Peter, I mean, when you read all these different drivers and professionals who are quoted describing this 2005 Porsche Carrera GT, this is a difficult car to drive. Why?

PETER VALDES-DAPENA, CNN MONEY PRODUCER/WRITER: Yes. It was - it's an extremely powerful car. This actually is - this is a stereotypical race car for the street. A lot of companies like to brag that they make race cars for the street. This really was one. It's a rear engine car, rear wheel drive, not all-wheel drive the way many high-powered super cars are today.

Also, this was 2005. This car did not have electronic stability control, which, again, many of these high-powered super cars have today. That's a computerized system that can actually touch the brakes -

BALDWIN: Override -

VALDES-DAPENA: Right, touch the brakes on individual wheels and reduce the power if you start to get into a skid. This car didn't have that. If you started into a skid, you were on your own and there really wasn't much you could do because the car could tend to spin around easily with the engine in the back, not up front, like most people are used to in a car.

BALDWIN: This was a limited edition kind of car.

VALDES-DAPENA: Yes.

BALDWIN: What was the price tag for this thing?

VALDES-DAPENA: It was, at the time, over $400,000. They're so rare that even today if you can find one they're worth over $300,000.

BALDWIN: It's incredible. And this is what they call your high- performance sports car.

VALDES-DAPENA: Right.

BALDWIN: Why would one need to have this kind of car on the street? Cache?

VALDES-DAPENA: Well, look, nobody needs to have this kind of car on the street. But I'll tell you, if you -- in my life, I saw exactly one of these cars driving on the street. And it turned heads. It's an exotic car. Same reason people buy a Lamborghini. Today, for that money, you could buy a Lamborghini (INAUDIBLE). I'll tell you what, that car turns heads on the streets. The performance is phenomenal. But it's just as much about knowing that you have something really, really special that nobody else has.

BALDWIN: And then just finally, look at these pictures. When you see the aftermath of this crumpled up piece of metal --

VALDES-DAPENA: Yes, carbon fiber, actually. Very expensive.

BALDWIN: Carbon fiber, forgive me, not metal. Forgive me, Porsche. But when you look at this, what does that tell you? You know cars.

VALDES-DAPENA: It tells me that - I mean I don't want to conjecture too much on what was going on. When the police say speed was a factor in that crash, I think you can tell that just from looking at - looking at that. Looking at what happened. Clearly these guys were probably driving this car at a very high rate of speed. I don't know what else was going on, if there was another car, if they were, you know, fooling around, I don't know. But clearly, you know, a car like this is designed to some degree to come apart for safety reasons. Parts are designed to come off in a crash because the idea is to protect the occupants, not it car. But still, clearly that was a high- speed impact.

BALDWIN: Peter Valdes-Dapena, thank you very much. And again, Alan Duke, thank you for the reporting on the investigation. We'll have much more on that.

But I want to turn your attention now to speed and brake failure possibly the fault of the driver here. Let's talk about this train derailment because right now investigators here are trying to figure out, they're examining the wreckage of this deadly train derailment here in New York. This is a metro-north train in the Bronx, came off the tracks as it rounded a bend Sunday killing four, injuring more than 60 others. One passenger telling CNN about the horrific moments inside the carriage as the train derailed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANDA SWANSON, TRAIN DERAILMENT SURVIVOR: I wound up going kind of up one side and then just rode into to where I was technically on the ceiling. And when it landed, I fell to the side where the windows had been smashed out into the ground. All of those windows had broken through, gravel and glass, those big rocks that line the track were all flying into the windows. I managed to put my bag in front of my face. I don't even have any cuts. And then once I stood up, I just immediately was like, I still have my phone. It's shattered, but it works. And I just dialed 911.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: At this point in time, this is what we know. This was right around 7:20 in the morning. This train was carrying 150 passengers on its way to Grand Central terminal from Poughkeepsie. Approached the sharp curve. This is (INAUDIBLE). Look at this. With a speed limit of 30 miles per hour. Seventy miles per hour is the limit on the straightaway and that is what leads up to then this curve. As investigators are looking very closely here at these data recorders, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo tells CNN investigators are looking at what part, if any, speed may have played.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: There are two black boxes, one was in the cab in the front, one was in the back. They've downloaded both. That will give you the speed of the train, whether the train was going too fast. There's a 70-mile-per-hour speed limit just north of where we are. Trains are supposed to slow down to about 30 miles per hour for the curve. They'll tell you if the brakes were applied. If they were, when. So that really should narrow it down. And again, if it was something that could be avoided or was it just operator error.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Joining me now, Nic Robertson there at the scene of the crash.

And I know, Nic, you were at the hospital this morning. Let's talk about specifically some of the injuries that these doctors are seeing, and do we know yet how those four victims were killed?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The details on how the four victims were killed, specifically for each one, it's not clear at the moment. We do know that some people were thrown clear of the train, and that caused some of the injuries that they sustained. What we learned from doctors today, at least 16 people remain hospitalized, three of those are in critical condition at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx where they have nine of those injured passengers. Seven of them are still in the ICU. The doctor there describing to us a little earlier today just exactly some of the injuries they have.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. DAVID LISTMAN, DIRECTOR OF EMERGENCY, ST. BARNABAS HOSPITAL: They vary from the gentleman who has the spinal cord injury. Late yesterday, another spinal column injury was diagnosed. A patient who was found to have a spinal vertebral fracture was also found to have damage to the vertebral artery. So they're being monitored in the ICU. There were some patients also with minor chest contusions, and so they're being monitored in the ICU. Most of them really only for monitoring purposes, to be extra careful with them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: But, you know, Brooke, the doctors said this is just the beginning of the difficulties for these passengers because he expects some of them to really experience, because they used this train, many of them every day of their lives, they're going to experience, he thinks, some trauma, some emotional trouble and difficulty when they try to - when they recover from the physical injuries and then they try to get back out and use the train again. He's warning that could be difficult as well, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Nic Robertson for us at the scene of the derailment. Nic, thank you very much.

Coming up, a man dies after the Broncos/Chiefs game. This happened right outside the stadium, and there are reports of a fight just before he was found.

Plus, a little baby boy is fighting for his life, and his mom says he is now being denied a new heart. The question we're asking is, is this discrimination? CNN investigates in a powerful report, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: This little baby boy was in a desperate fight for his life. Maverick Higgs was born with a heart defect, but his fight for survival got even harder when doctors said he didn't qualify for a heart transplant. Maverick's mother says she believe her son was denied because doctors didn't want to waste the organ on her son. You see, he has this rare genetic disorder. CNN's senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen tells his story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Eight months ago, Autumn Chenkus says she was told her son was going to die.

AUTUMN CHENKUS, MOTHER: He didn't want to play. He didn't want to be touched. He slept all day, every day. It was miserable.

COHEN: Maverick was just six months old and desperately needed a new heart, but his doctors at New York Presbyterian Hospital said no.

CHENKUS: I was scared that he was going to die. Every day I just -- it's the only thing that I thought of, you know? And there was actually a point where we were planning his funeral.

COHEN: Maverick, who's one now, was unlucky enough to be born with two medical problems, the heart defect and a rare genetic disorder. Doctors said he was an undesirable candidate for a transplant because his genetic defect would limit his survival after he got a new heart.

CHENKUS: You just slobbered (ph).

COHEN (on camera): But you did your own research?

CHENKUS: Yes.

COHEN: And what did you find?

CHENKUS: That that is not true.

COHEN (voice-over): Chenkus didn't accept what the doctors told her. She asked some of the world's top experts about her son's disorder, called Coffin-Siris syndrome, and they said the syndrome would not limit Maverick's chances of survival with a new heart. And that's what they told us, too. Doctor Grange Coffin, he's the Coffin in Coffin- Siris syndrome, the scientist who discovered it, told us "it's wrong" to deny someone a transplant because of the syndrome.

So what do Maverick's parents think is the real reason the hospital denied their son a heart transplant? They think it's because his genetic defect makes him developmentally disabled.

CHENKUS: I told them that I knew that they didn't want to waste a heart on him because they felt like he was going to be delayed. Hearts are very rare, and I understand that, but I also understand that Maverick's a baby, you know, and he needed a heart.

COHEN (on camera): Do you think they just sort of discredited his life, discredited his future?

CHENKUS: Absolutely. If they were to say otherwise, they would be lying.

COHEN (voice-over): Maverick was dying. Chenkus pleaded with the doctors.

CHENKUS: I just said, will you guys please reconsider this? Reconsider transplant for Maverick? And, sorry, there's nothing we can do about it. Sorry. And they just get up and walk out of the room. That was it. And just left me there. I remember, I was just - I was laughing because I was in shock. I was laughing with tears streaming down my face because I was in shock. Like I could not really - I could not believe that was really happening. We're talking about my son's life and you're looking at your watch and you just walked out on me.

COHEN: New York Presbyterian declined our repeated request for an interview, and in a statement told us their "evaluations are conducted with compassion and bring the best ethical, medical, and scientific principles to the process."

Maverick's parents didn't give up. They filed a federal discrimination complaint against the hospital and got him transferred to a new hospital that didn't have the same transplant concerns. Eventually, it turned out Maverick got better without a transplant, but that hasn't ended the controversy about whether transplant doctors discriminate against patients with disabilities.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Elizabeth Cohen, you have a bunch of little ones. Can you imagine, as a mother, being told "no"? What's next for this family?

COHEN: Oh, I know, it's just an extraordinary emotional and difficult voyage, you know, journey for this family. What's next is that Maverick will have another surgery in another couple of years. He's doing very well and they expect him to continue to do well. He may need a transplant at some point in his future, and his doctors in Boston, according to his mom, say that his disability would not stand in the way, his genetic disorder and the disability that results from it would not stand in the way.

BALDWIN: You know, in reading about this, it reminded me of the story that you and I talked at great length about, about the little girl in Pennsylvania, is it Sarah Murnaghan, who wanted a lung so badly. It's a different issue, but how frustrating for these families.

COHEN: Right. It's a different issue, but it's a similar journey, you're absolutely right, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Yes.

COHEN: It is so frustrating because there are all of these rules and then also doctors get to sort of have their own say about who gets an organ. And really what has worked for this family, for the Murnaghan family, who you just mentioned, is that the parents really advocate for their child. The parents become empowered parents and they fight, fight, fight, and that's how they eventually get the care that their child needs.

BALDWIN: I know you will continue to follow Maverick's story. Please keep up updated.

COHEN: I will.

BALDWIN: Elizabeth Cohen, thank you very much.

COHEN: Thanks, Brooke. BALDWIN: Some are calling it one of the greatest football games ever, but the way the Alabama/Auburn matchup ended has some disgruntled Bama fans going to the extreme. We'll explain what I'm talking about next.

Also, Bob Dylan, the legendary Bob Dylan, could be facing some legal trouble. Hear what he reportedly said that has a group in France fired up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: I don't know if you know football, you don't know football. I bet you've heard about this. And if not, listen to this. This was a game-ender for the history books. You had Auburn/Alabama. What a finish. Tie game. One second on the clock. Undefeated Alabama tries to kick a long field goal to win. No dice. Auburn's Chris Davis Jr. takes it 109 yards to the house. Listen to this. Never in the history of college football -- look at this -- has a missed field goal been returned to win a game. Never, ever, folks. This is a sport that dates back to 1869. This is a first in the history of this sport.

But to have it happen -- look at those faces -- to have it happen in a game where the stakes are so high, with championship implications for both teams, it was incredible. Students rushing the field. Naturally, Auburn fans took to the streets all around campus. Pandemonium ensued.

Alabama fans, sorry, Alabama, on the other hand. Some of them took to social media actually and sent a slew of nasty tweets to Cade Foster, the 22-year-old kicker who missed that field goal. Some even going as far as saying, quote, "I'm coming for you. You gonna die tonight." Yes, this is happening on Twitter. This is what football means for folks in the South. And, "Alabama as a team played awful, but Cade Foster, if you don't kill yourself, I will." Seriously?

But the Alabama team was quick to rally around their kicker. Quarterback AJ McCarron tweeting, "If you blame this on one guy, you aren't a true fan." A first for college football history.

Kansas City Police, though, they have a mystery on their hand today. This fight in a stadium parking lot after Sunday's football game ended with one person dead. Police aren't saying much at this point in time. They are treating the case as a homicide investigation. And CNN's Ted Rowlands joins me now live from Chicago.

And, Ted, how did this begin? What happened?

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, basically, three guys left the game or found their car in the parking lot of Arrowhead Stadium while the game was still going on, the Broncos and the Kansas City Chiefs, and they found a stranger sitting in their vehicle. A fight ensued and this stranger, a 22-year-old man, died. He ended up dying. And then the investigators came in and the first thing they have to figure out, of course, is, how did this young man die?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DARIN SNAPP, KANSAS CITY POLICE: The medical examiner is obviously going to perform an autopsy, but the hospital says there's no obvious signs of how this person passed away. So we don't know. We don't know if this person had a medical condition that caused his death, but we're going to investigate it as a homicide until we hear differently.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROWLANDS: So after this investigation, the initial investigation, they took the three individuals into custody. They spent the night in jail, in Kansas City. I just got off the phone with the folks in Kansas City, and they say those three are being processed out. They will be free as this investigation continues. An autopsy is also being done at this hour. If it is determined that he died via homicide, this investigation, of course, will continue, and those three individuals may be in trouble.

BALDWIN: Ted, I have to ask, as we are talking football and a lot of drinking happens at football games and we're talking about a football - you know, this parking lot outside the game. Do we know yet, have investigators even gone there, saying that might have played a role here?

ROWLANDS: They know that one thing that didn't play a role, and that was a fan rivalry. It wasn't as if it was a Denver fan and a Kansas City fan were fighting. That isn't the cause. But was alcohol a cause? They're obviously looking into that. And then fan adrenaline. If this same scenario would have happened in the public library parking lot, would this young man be dead right now? Obviously the emotion in those parking lots during an NFL game, they're very high.

BALDWIN: And then remind us of the timing, because this was one year, what, to the day of that Kansas City, the Chiefs football player, the suicide.

ROWLANDS: Yes, Jovan Belcher, remember, last year, to the day, very eerie. He killed his girlfriend, came back to Arrowhead Stadium, shot himself in front of his coach and his general manager. Just an eerie coincidence, but obviously people in Kansas City remember that like it was yesterday, and then to have this happen, pretty tough for the Chiefs organization.

BALDWIN: Ted Rowlands, thank you very much.

And just in to CNN here, not even 48 hours after the self-imposed deadline to fix the Obamacare website, or at least, you know, keep it working smoothly for the vast majority of users, the White House is reporting 375,000 people have visited healthcare.gov today. Meantime, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney says the president is pleased with the progress but says the work is not finished. We will talk about this a little later with this fascinating opinion piece that Dr. Sanjay Gupta has written for cnn.com. That is next hour.

Still ahead, arrested for a good deed. Find out why a man faces legal trouble after giving away -- look at that, that is cash -- hundreds of thousands of dollars here. Hundreds of dollars, I should correct myself, to holiday shoppers. That's not nothing. We're on the case. Plus, could drag racing have led to the death of actor Paul Walker? Coming up next, an eyewitness who was on the scene of that deadly crash talks about what he saw minutes before that fatal accident.

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