Ross Jessop - Second Chances

 

It's July 7th, scorching hot, 95 degrees. I'm in a Dodge Durango driving on a dusty road. I'm a cop. I responded to a call where there was a man acting disorderly who was last seen running through a forest. This man had possibly crashed a blue car and he was caring for a baby. 

 

I'm at the end of the road. I'm depressed. I'm struggling. My marriage is falling apart. And in front of me, there's nothing but large bushes and pine trees that had overgrown the road that I was on. Another dead end. I turned my patrol car around to continue the search. The area that I'm searching is Lolo National Forest. It's 2.1 million square miles. That's a little bit larger than Delaware, folks. 

 

I continue searching for hours. At approximately 10:30, my patrol radio breaks silence, since my partner, he says to me, “Ross, we know who the suspect is. He's a man felon wanted out of Oregon. He's a known drug user and he's violent. He has guns and he's made threats towards law enforcement.”

 

I'm 20 miles away, so I go. I meet other officers, knowing that we have about a half a mile walk into the campsite that where he's staying at. I put on my night vision. I take out my long rifle, strap it over my chest. My heart's pounding. I'm nervous, I'm focused and I'm full of adrenaline. I'm ready for combat. 

 

Silently walking in to the pitch-black forest. It's about 40 degrees now. And I see his tent, but it's empty. My partner finds the stash of guns that had been set out to ambush the cops. When we got there, there's no people in the campsite. I open up the tent, and I look around, and I see diapers and dirty clothes and dirty dishes and baby toys. My heart sinks and I'm crushed. It wasn't until that time we were just speculating, but now I knew that we're looking for a five-month-old baby boy named [audio cut] Nobody knows where he's at. 

 

As I'm scrambling my brain to try to figure out what I'm going to do next, my portable radio breaks squelch. It's my dispatch center and it's a broken transmission, “The suspect has been arrested.” So, I run back to my patrol car and I drive as fast as I can to where he's at. I see a man that is dirty, his hair is a mess, he doesn't have any pants on. He's screaming wildly at everybody and just making no sense. He's more concerned about his telephone than anything else. 

 

All that pent up adrenaline that I just had went to the wayside and I just became pissed. I tried interrogating him to no avail. I wanted to just strangle the truth out of this guy, but I didn't. I yelled at him, begging and pleading him to tell us where we could find [audio cut] And he says to me, “[audio cut] is dead. I buried him alive. I crashed off of a cliff. You won't find him. I don't know where he's at.” 

 

Enraged, I'm asking him for more information. He tells me about a bush that he had drove over and started to ramble on and on and on. And the bush in my head just kept echoing and echoing. I knew where I had to go. 

 

I got the help from the forest service with their four-wheeler, and I went up with a forest service officer back up the same road that I had already been up earlier that night. When we get to the bush, we drive around it and we continue driving for less than a quarter mile before what was left of that road completely disappears. Now, we're just on a mountain slope, about 30-degree slopes, no trails, overgrown with bushes and trees. 

 

I'm devastated, because there was supposed to be a car up here, but there wasn't. I want to scream. I'm walking down slope, and I see an overturned boulder the size of a basketball. And I look where that boulder was and there was tread marks in the dirt. I continue to look and soon find a dome light, very dim dome light of a car that had been crashed into a grove of pine trees. I rush to the car and I find debris scattered all around it. A chainsaw that had been stuck in the middle of the tree, because our suspect had tried to cut himself out of the being stuck. 

 

I frantically get into the car, but there's no baby. I start to look around the crash site and I start following a trail of debris, playing cards. Some diapers here and there. And slowly and slowly, we walk down slope of the crash. And about 100 yards here and 100 yards there, I'm still picking up traces of human until I come to the bottom of the ravine where it's just completely muddy. All signs stop. 

 

My partner had to go back to the crash site to meet the search and rescue people that were on their way up. And here I was, alone in the forest and somewhere in Montana, not knowing what differences I make, not knowing why. But I do know one thing. I'm looking for the body of a baby. And it breaks my heart. I'm a father of three. I have three beautiful little girls. I kneel down and I just pray to God, “God, please help me find this baby tonight. Help me find this baby, so that nobody else has to, so that nobody else has to deal with the things that I'm about to see.” I continue my search. 

 

A short time later, I find the suspect's pants in an easterly downslope direction from the crash, and then I find a car seat and the car seat's empty. My portable radio had died. I didn't have any way to communicate with my dispatch center. I'm now in charge of all of the volunteers who are looking for this baby. And everything's pointing, keep searching down slope that makes the most sense. 

 

I tell my partner, “Can I borrow your radio? I'm going to take a walk straight up this mountain.” He says, “No, but I'll go with you.” So, together, we start walking straight up this mountain. 30-degree slopes. We're hot, we're sweaty, we're tired and I'm upset. Maybe more upset than I've ever been in my life. I'm exhausted and I'm breathing hard. About 20 minutes straight uphill, I'm panting, trying to catch my breath. And in between pants, there's a moment of silence in a black forest. And in that moment, I hear this small, precious little baby whimper. 

 

At first, I couldn't believe it. And I heard it again. And if I was to describe this sound, it would be the sound of a baby that has cried and cried and cried and cried and cried until he couldn't cry anymore. I've never heard anything like it and I hope I never have to hear anything again like it. I rush towards the sound. And it's pitch black. My headlights on and my flashlights are on and I can barely see anything. I'm about to step over this pile of debris, and there's [audio cut] buried underneath sticks and twigs, face down. He's wearing a onesie. He's soiled and he's wet. 

 

I remove all the sticks, and I wrap [audio cut] up in a down coat and I kiss his forehead and I cry. I hold [audio cut] and I walk him down the mountain. And the whole time he's coughing up sticks and twigs out of his mouth. I get to the ambulance and turn [audio cut] over to their care. In less than a minute and a half, [audio cut] drinks two bottles of Enfamil, he was that dehydrated. However, [audio cut] a strong kid and he's alive today and healthy. 

 

I go back to my patrol car. I think I'd forgotten to mention this at the beginning of the story, but July 7th is my anniversary. When I left that house that night, I left my wife angry, because I chose not to take the time off, even though I could have. So, when I got home at 07:30 in the morning, way into overtime, I walk into my kitchen where my beautiful wife was drinking coffee, and she asked me, “How was your night?” I smiled at her. I said, “I made a difference last night.”