Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Stem Cell Trial Proves Successful for Paralyzed Woman; Terminally Ill Woman Chooses Death Date; Mike Rowe Previews New Show

Aired October 08, 2014 - 08:30   ET

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

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just felt like my body was going to shut down.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The couple has filed a lawsuit against the city of Hammond saying the manner in which they were pulled over was, quote, "highly aggressive," and placed them, quote, "in fear for their safety," the reason they say they did not exit the vehicle.

According to the complaint, Jamal (ph) was struck in the right shoulder while Lisa (ph) and her two children in the back seat were hit with shards of glass. Officers say they feared for their own safety after seeing Jamal reaching into the back seat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not (INAUDIBLE) you right now. I got my kids in the car. You're drawing your weapon.

CANDIOTTI: The Hammond Police Department saying in a statement, quote, "Hammond Police officers were at all times acting in the interest of officer safety and in accordance with Indiana law." And that Indiana law gives them the right to ask even the passenger to leave a vehicle.

Susan Candiotti, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Love to hear what you have to say about this case. You can find me on Twitter @alisyncamerota. And be sure to join Don Lemon tonight for his interview with the family involved in that incident. CNN tonight airs at 10:00 p.m. Eastern.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, now let's turn to this week's "Human Factor." A split second decision forever changed the life of one 26-year-old who refused to quit despite the odds. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta has her story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was driving down on Interstate 5. A drive that I'd done hundreds of times.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): But this drive turned terribly wrong. Sarafi (ph) says the last memory she had of that day was unbuckling her seat belt and reaching down to grab a can of soda that was rolling around the floorboard. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I didn't really think anything of it. I've

done it before. You know, you kind of reach over, grab your purse, grab whatever on the passenger side.

GUPTA: But Sarafi's car veered off the highway, ejecting her from the back windshield.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And that -that was it. I snapped my back in half, compressed my spinal cord.

GUPTA: Instantly paralyzed from her mid chest down. Just days after the accident, Sarafi was asked to participate in the world's first human embryonic stem cell trial for spinal cord injuries. Doctors need volunteers like Sarafi to act as human guinea pigs in order to test the safety of experimental treatments.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would like for future injuries to have an option because I know it's -- it's very hopeless in the beginning and you just think your life is over.

GUPTA: Two years since the accident, Sarafi's life is far from over. She's back to school, has become a young advocate for stem cell research and this summer she even learned how to surf.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Our thanks to Sanjay for telling us another very important story.

A 29-year-old newlywed facing terminal cancer. It's just a horrible situation to see someone so young in. Well, she wants to die on her own terms. So, why can't she? It's a heartbreaking story that is shaking the law. That's coming up.

CAMEROTA: All right, Chris, look who I found in our green room doing some light reading in here? It's Mike Rowe. He's known for doing dirty jobs, but his new gig is a little less messy and a little more weird.

MIKE ROWE, CNN HOST, "SOMEBODY'S GOTTA DO IT": Have you read this? It's excellent.

CAMEROTA: In high school.

ROWE: Yes. I mean, it's a page turner. It still holds up.

CAMEROTA: It does? We'll talk to you about "Hamlet" and your new gig.

ROWE: Tis a conservation (ph) devoutly to be wish (ph).

CAMEROTA: Coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: This is a story you're really going to want to think about as much as just learn about. Twenty-nine-year-old Brittany Maynard has a set death in front of her and she wants to control it herself. Now here's her story. Five months ago, Brittany was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. And given the promise of just months to live, followed by the process of a horrible death. Well now in an online video, Brittany says it's not going down that way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRITTANY MAYNARD, DIAGNOSED WITH TERMINAL BRAIN CANCER: I will die upstairs in my bedroom that I share with my husband, with my mother and my husband by my side. I can't even tell you the amount of relief that it provides me to know that I don't have to die the way that it's been described to me that my brain tumor would take me on its own.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: This is one of those stories that really combines what is so impossible to accept with figuring out what is possible in terms of what you can do about it. Brittany and her husband have moved to Oregon. Now that's a state where death with dignity laws are in place, allowing Brittany to end her life when she wants with specially prescribed medication. This is sparking a debate across the nation.

Let's bring in someone who really understands the debate, Arthur Caplan. He's the head of the division of medical ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center.

Professor, thank you for joining us.

ARTHUR L. CAPLAN, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF MEDICAL ETHICS, NYU LANGONE MED. CTR.: Thanks for having me.

CUOMO: This is the combination of can you and should you. Let's start with the can you. What is the law here? What does it provide?

CAPLAN: So, 14 years ago, Oregon became the first state to permit assistance in dying. It says, if you're terminally ill, certified by two doctors, if you make a request and you're not psychologically or psychiatrically depressed, you have to make the request three times over a period of time, they will give you a lethal dose of barbiturates basically, and you must take the pills. The doctor doesn't administer them. So you have to reach out and say, I'm going to take these now. It's been in place, as I said, for more than a decade. Washington state has followed. Vermont just created the same policy. Two states, New Mexico and Montana, have court opinions that look like they're going to allow this.

CAMEROTA: So if she were in one of these other 47 states that does not allow it yet, what would happen? What would the punishment be?

CAPLAN: If she had a large dose of barbiturates and killed herself, she'd probably void her insurance policy. She'd have fiscal penalties. If the husband stepped over and said, I'm going to give you these with a glass of water, he could be prosecuted in many states for assisting a suicide.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: So here's - here's the thing now. We talk about ethics, right, and compassionate care and -

CAPLAN: And we need to talk about ethics.

PEREIRA: And we want to talk - but we do and we want to talk about that because I think so many people are struggling with this. You have concerns about it. Talk to me about your concerns.

CAPLAN: So I think the concerns about legalization here, which I will come out and say I do favor, but there are concerns. One is, are you going to go down a slippery slope. This is restricted to terminally ill people, like her. She's got a terrible brain -

CUOMO: Who says that you're terminally ill? You say two doctors. But what means terminally ill and -

CAPLAN: Is it an allergist and a dermatologist, so it hasn't been tight that way? People are going to press and say, you know what, what if I have Alzheimer's? What if I have some sort of ALS. I'm not terminally ill immediately, but I don't want to live this way. In Europe, we've seen some slide toward allowing people to die who just say I'm horribly depressed. Belgium, the Netherlands have done that. So slippery slope issues are there. You've got to worry about those.

The other is, with a woman, you know, my heart goes out to her, but when you announce I'm going to kill myself on day x and bring the family in and we're all going to say good-bye, there's a little bit of pressure there. It's sort of like, you've got to perform what you said you were going to do.

PEREIRA: Especially going on camera saying, you know, right in, (INAUDIBLE) what you're saying.

CAPLAN: Yes. Yes. So you don't want to coerce yourself. I mean this assisted suicide is for people who say, you know, I feel horrible, I can't go on, it's too much for me.

PEREIRA: Right. Right.

CAPLAN: Now we're going to do it, not I'm going to do it on date x.

CUOMO: But there's help - there's help for people who have depression.

CAPLAN: So -

CUOMO: Is there any help for her?

CAPLAN: You know, there is a little bit of help and we don't want to forget it. We've seen the rise of hospice, (INAUDIBLE) care, pain control, emotional support, spiritual support, those are keys. What I would say is this. In the U.S., if we're going to see legalization of assisted suicide, of assistance in dying, we always have to have hospice and (INAUDIBLE) care first. It should always be a last option.

CAMEROTA: And, of course, we all know stories in our own lives and then anecdotally something that was supposedly a death sentence, and there was a miracle. PEREIRA: Yes, there was a miracle. Right. Yes.

CAMEROTA: And somebody recovered.

CAPLAN: Well, I didn't want to say - I didn't want to say it happens a lot. The difference here is, she's 29, she's got this brain tumor, there's some chance. When you get to somebody who's 89 and they have four strokes and three heart attacks and a cancer, there you're a little more certain about where you're headed.

PEREIRA: Well, they downgraded her outlook. They had originally given her years to live and then it turned into mere months.

CAPLAN: They did. I think somebody probably got a peek at her tumor using this new DNA analysis we can do and said, oh, this is a bad one. But nonetheless, you don't want people pulling the rip cord to go unless they really feel like there's no other option. By the way, interesting fact about Oregon, only 30 -- about 30 percent of the people who ask for the pills never take them because they like the ability to say, I'm in control, but then they want to go on.

CAMEROTA: Interesting. It's empowering somehow.

CAPLAN: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

PEREIRA: Absolutely.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Art Caplan, thanks so much.

CAPLAN: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: All right, we are going to shift gears. Have you ever wanted to know what it may be like to squeeze into a wet suit and dangle 30 feet from a theater ceiling in Las Vegas? Yes you have? I hope so. Because Mike Rowe has. He's done it. He's here to tell us all about it and preview his new show on CNN.

ROWE: Yes, I will - I will do that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

ROWE: That's right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here's Chris.

ROWE: (inaudible) Chris has just told me that my wet suit's on backwards and I might care when I go down to depth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, everything squeezes.

ROWE: Oh.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You may want to go change that.

ROWES: Zip me?

(END VIDEOCLIP)

PEREIRA: No shame in his game. That was our colleague Mike Rowe suiting up back stage at the aquatic show in Las Vegas. Mike, of course, newest member of the family here at CNN. His new show "SOMEBODY'S GOTTA DO IT," the show taking a look at people doing unique, interesting, odd work with passion, and once you see them in action you certainly will not forget it. The program premieres tonight at 9:00 p.m. and Mike is here with a preview.

Vegas, baby.

ROWE: Oh, yes.

PEREIRA: In a wet suit. Man, you do it in style.

ROWE: What happens there this time does not stay there, I assure you.

CAMEROTA: You did not know the wet suit was on backwards.

ROWE: Honestly, I have no recollection of large chunks of that day, but that's really not unusual.

CAMEROTA: That's Vegas.

ROWE: We've been living on the road now for the last four months, shooting pretty much constantly. The adventure started in Vegas. We went there because a year ago I saw that show called, it's called La Reve, and I think it means - -

PEREIRA: Mind boggling.

ROWE: - - I think it means the dream. If you ask me what the plot is about I couldn't tell you , but all I know is sitting in the audience, watching people who appear to have no bones in their body drop from great heights into a giant pool of flaming water, not to reappear left me with questions along the lines of how do they do that, and who is in charge? So on "SOMEBODY'S GOTTA DO IT" we went back to find what I believe is the greatest stage hand in the history of the world, Dale Hurt, who oversees the whole thing. And it's just amazing.

CUOMO: You really wound up attaching to some great characters at the end of the day. Every story is about that. How much of it comes as a surprise, how many of these people do you go in there looking for?

ROWE: We don't do a second take on "SOMEBODY'S GOTTA DO IT" like my previous gig. We never stop shooting. I don't want the viewer to see a production. There's certainly no scripts, no actors.

PEREIRA: You lift the veil.

ROWE: I mean, it's, look, if you're going to be, if you're going to have a script, make it great, right? Make a "True Detective," make it "Game of Thrones," but if you're not going to have a script, tell the truth, warts and all, make it a hot mess and make sure everybody's in on the joke.

PEREIRA: So that's the thing that people will probably feel is familiar with the other show you did, but that's sort of where it ends, aside from the fact that it's your handsome mug there leading us through it.

ROWE: Well, shucks, thanks.

PEREIRA: Quite welcome.

ROWE: Look, it's a romp. You know, you've got a small crew going across the country, essentially relying on my Facebook page for ideas, of which there are many thousands. Look, the idea is sooner or later you run out of dirt and you run out of jobs.

(LAUGHTER)

ROWE: It's not a secret, but you don't run out of people.

PEREIRA: No, ever.

ROWE: And whether it's a stagehand, or whether it's a proprietor of a unique museum, or whether it's an entrepreneur, an inventor, a bloody do-gooder, the country is full of people who I think deserve 15 or 20 minutes on the tube, and in this format, the country gets to tell me who I should introduce to you, which I love.

CAMEROTA: You say a unique museum. Do you mean a hair museum?

ROWE: Why, that's exactly right. I was referring to that. I was in -- - After Vegas on unrelated business I was in Kansas City doing a thing, the crew was with me. I hopped on Facebook, I said Kansas, who do you know? I got 3,000 replies, but somewhere near the top were people saying you have to go meet Leila, she runs the only hair museum in the world.

She's a sweet, just a sweet little, old lady. In a strip mall, not three miles from Harry Truman's ancestral home outside of Independence. Now, these are words I've never seen grouped up in a sentence before, so I said let's do that, so we did. And you're going to learn everything there is to know about hair, why people collect it, and the role it played in, believe it or not, genealogy. Moderately worried, but not horrified.

PEREIRA: But what's interesting here is it's to that point that you made. You might have set out with a plan, but that hair museum took you to very, very different direction, my friend.

CUOMO: Hairy places.

ROWE: You can't go into a place, well you can't shoot a show like this if you're too deeply in love with your plan, because in every single case it goes off the rails. In a fun way. But look, I honestly believe that's what's for sale today. I mean, as a viewer, I'd rather see an authentic, unscripted show than a carefully produced thing.

PEREIRA: It was supposed to be what reality TV was, but that's a whole other topic.

ROWE: That word doesn't mean what we think it means anymore.

PEREIRA: It sure does not, it sure does not, and it's actually really refreshing to meet these. And that's why it's interesting. You look at Vegas, Kansas City, Missouri, you see three different places that have distinct different personalities, yet within them there's that thread of character.

CUOMO: And the value of work.

PEREIRA: Yes.

CUOMO: That's something that, you know, that you bring, you bring on a lot of different levels and I love it. You know, you find people who do a job, they have passion for the job, and it may not be the most glamorous thing, you know, that you put up there on a pedestal.

ROWE: Yes.

CUOMO: What you want to do, but they love it.

ROWE: Well, look, I keep a journal and over the last ten years I've been to every state, we shot 330 little adventures, right? But along the way, I met hundreds of people who I would have loved to have put on the show, but it just simply wasn't dirty enough. The truth is, you know, it's really, scrape all the dirt away and it's about work ethic, it's about passion. It's not about just vocation. It's about advocation. It's about waking up a little afflicted because the world's not quite the way you want it, and if that means I have to run a hair museum at a strip mall, then that's what I do.

CAMEROTA: So be it.

ROWE: If that means I have to oversee the most dangerous show in the history of Vegas, I'll do that.

CAMEROTA: So, does anything surprise you at this point, or what has surprised you in putting together your show?

ROWE: I'm surprised by, honestly I'm surprised by what happened on Facebook. I'm surprised when - I mean, I'm very late to the social media party. I've just been out there a year, but when I ask people for ideas - - Yesterday, right in this building, we did a little Q&A on CNN's Facebook page. I hopped on, I said look, I have an hour, I'd like to answer some questions. Apparently we snapped a bunch of records. We had 15,000 questions immediately.

PERIERA: That was just from Chris Cuomo alone.

ROWE: That was just from Chris, really. And Chris, excellent questions by the way. No, no, look, people are genuinely anxious to have a hand in programming the show they want to watch.

PEREIRA: Sure.

ROWE: So, without making it too highfalutin, we're only talking about the Democratization of television in the 21st century.

CAMEROTA: And the world.

PEREIRA: Do you drawn a line, though, if there is a suggestion, is there something there that you're like, like you have fears. You looked a little trepidatious jumping 80 feet, or 30 feet, into the water in Las Vegas.

ROWE: It was 500 feet, to be clear.

PEREIRA: My bad.

CUOMO: I think it was 20 feet.

(CROSSTALK)

ROWE: I said show me - - yes, I did, I did, I did.

CUOMO: Alright, that's what I thought.

ROWE: Look, its really, I mean, thank you for pointing that out. It's important. The tube is full of what I'll call self-subscribed stunt junkies. I'm not one. I'm a regular guy. I have a healthy fear of that which I think would frighten most sane people. I don't deliberately insert myself into situations because, wow, that would be, you know, fascinating. I do it because I'm shoulder to shoulder with people who do it every day, and my job is not to host the show. I'm not an expert in anything. I'm kind of an avatar for the viewer and it's a really great way to manage expectations. I don't need to succeed, Chris. I need to try, which I can pretty much do all day.

CUOMO: Too late, you've succeeded on many levels and I think many more to come.

ROWE: Nice of you to say.

PEREIRA: We have to point out that Mike's new show "SOMEBODY'S GOTTA DO IT" airs tonight, it will air every Wednesday at 9:00 p.m. Set the DVR. You will not want be disappointed. It is entertaining. My friend, you make me smile. Thank you so much.

ROWE: No bad news and "SOMEBODY'S GOTTA DO IT."

CAMEROTA: There you go, how often can you say that? Good work.

PEREIRA: Thanks, Mike.

ROWE: Sure, guys. Thanks

CUOMO: And a nice set of forearms, and you know where else you can get some good news? Listen to this. It's coming up right here.

ROWE: That's so weird.

PEREIRA: So weird.

ROWE: A real traffic - - That's why I sent 15,000 questions.

CUOMO: We have a real traffic jam, but we want you to see what one well-intentioned band did to ease everybody's trouble during an hour's long traffic tie-up. It's the Good Stuff. It isn't just Mike Rowe doing Good Stuff. It's us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: The Good Stuff. Nothing says traffic like a good steel drum. Listen to this. There's this accident on I-76 in Pennsylvania that's no good. Shut down traffic for hours, so what do you do? You get angry, you yell at your windshield, you look at each other like well, maybe you take a nap. But if you are the Trinidad North Steel Drum Band, you do this.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

CUOMO (voice-over): They're not just playing at a wedding with a lot of traffic behind them. The band was trapped in the traffic, too, so they unpacked their drums and brought their unique talents to bear on the situation. And, of course, everybody loved it, brightened everybody up and that wasn't all that was going on. Motorists - -

CAMEROTA (voice-over): Oh, they did not.

CUOMO: - - they get in on the action. Soon it becomes, really wait for it, a real traffic jam.

PEREIRA (voice-over): Get it?

CUOMO: Complete with a limbo. By the time the traffic cleared, new friends were made, tempers soothed. So, good on you, Trinidad North Steel Drum Band. You are the Good Stuff.

PEREIRA: Well done. That's awesome.

CAMEROTA: That's so great. Why can't my commute be like that?

(END VIDEOCLIP)

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: You can't fake a happy limbo, they were happy.

CUOMO (on camera): Try that in the city, they'll beat you with your own hands.