Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.

What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC

Sounds.

Hello and thank you for downloading the podcast of Witness History from the BBC World Service,

firsthand accounts of events that have shaped our world.

I'm Susan Hume. Today we're going back to October 1987 when the United States

was transfixed by the 58-hour struggle to save a toddler who'd fallen down a tiny Welshhaft in Midland, Texas.

I was getting ready to go to work and heard the police car and my neighbor

came out and says hey they need help over here let's go see what they need.

Joe Faulkner lived close to where 18-month-old Jessica McClure had been playing with other

children outside her aunt's house when she disappeared down a tiny hole and into a well.

We walked into the backyard.

Somebody commented to a kid fell down the hole.

Well, to be honest, the first reaction was,

are you kidding?

If you were to hear that when somebody fell into a well, what kind of well would you think?

You think it was a water well or something, you know, a thing that you'd see at your grandmother's

house or something like that type of well. That whole is not that big around. It's roughly 8 inches but I mean that's not

...