Couple with Four Children Survive Two Days in Nevada Mountains; GM Names its First Female CEO
PIERS MORGAN, HOST: This is PIERS MORGAN LIVE. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. Tonight, breaking news, a dramatic rescue. A couple with four children lost in the snow in Nevada mountains. How they got out alive, and the rescuers who saved them. Plus, never underestimate the power of a woman. GM named its first female CEO, and (inaudible). Lululemon's founder gets the boot after telling women their bodies are to blame for yoga pants that don't fit. I'll talk to a former Lululemon worker, who says fat shaming was standard operating procedure. Also, what are the son of a billionaire investor and a Hollywood actress have in common?</s>MORGAN: This is a kind of beauty and the beast. And I'm not (ph) looking at you with the word "beauty" in my mind.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not the first time I've heard it.</s>MORGAN: Eva Longoria and Howard Buffett here for their first prime- time interview together. Plus, parting advice from a 9-year-old.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wait, wait, wait, don't put with that old piece of junk.</s>MORGAN: Does it mean a fun -- listen, old people like me use old club.</s>MORGAN: I'll begin now with our Big Story, the dramatic rescue of a couple and four little children that are lost for two days in sub zero temperatures in the Nevada Mountains. They're all doing well tonight and the CEO of the hospital where they're being treated says the couple did a fabulous job keeping the children warm and alive. Joining me now, family friend Jo Ann Weagant, who joined in the search, also Paul Burke who coordinated the rescue effort. Let me ask you first of all Jo Ann. I know that you've been down to the hospital, get a chance to speak to the family at all or picked up any information about how they're all doing.</s>JO ANN WEAGANT, FAMILY FRIEND OF MISSING COUPLE: I haven't got to talk to them myself but from what I'm told, they're all doing great, you know, except for being cold and hungry. The kids are doing good and Jay and Christine are doing well.</s>MORGAN: That's terrific news and certainly, it looked pretty bleak last night. Paul Burke, you helped direct with search and rescue effort. First of all, many congratulations on a really triumphant ending to this. A great credit to you and the team. How difficult was it to find them and in the end, what was the key breakthrough?</s>PAUL BURKE, NEVADA DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY: The difficulty in finding them Piers is really being able put the right resource in the right area using both community resources and train resources around the state, put them in the right spot at the right time to find them. The most difficult part of this basically fighting the weather and the chances that may not have come out as well as they did.</s>MORGAN: And it sounds of what we now think happened, Paul can you talk me through the chronology. We know the family went down to play in the snow. What happened next?</s>BURKE: Well, some period of time during the course of the traveling through this dirt roads and snow in some pretty rural area. The vehicle got caught in some type of detour gravel pit and made a real slow roll. The vehicle rolled on to its top and couldn't go anywhere. And as result of that, rather than trying to escape or walk away from the site, they stayed together. One of the passengers decided to make a fire. They tried to keep each other warm. They kept fluids in them and really that's the point that they survived from.</s>MORGAN: And we believe, I think, Paul that the man James Glanton was pretty ingenious here that he lit a fire outside a warmed up rocks that he then put inside the car to keep the car interior warm and therefore let the children inside.</s>BURKE: I have to tell you I've never heard of such a thing, but I thought it was pretty clever of him to be able heat something up that would retain the heat, give it to the children. The interim would stay warm and eventually, everybody in the vehicle stayed warm. So to the extent that he was pretty ingenious about it, that's one for the books.</s>MORGAN: Yeah, quite extraordinary. Jo Ann, you know James, you know the family here well. Does it surprise you that he was so quick thinking and possibly saved their lives in that way?</s>WEAGANT: He's a smart guy. That's all I've got to say. He and my son run around together in high school and my grand son and he's oldest boy run around together, very smart guy, very smart guy. That's all I can say. I'm not surprised at all. I'm very proud of him. I'm very, very proud of him.</s>MORGAN: And so you should be. And Paul we understand the condition that everyone is pretty good, everyone's health appears stable, no frost bites and exposure issues, and obviously a bit of trauma, or I guess for the kids involved here. Are they expected from what you understand to make a complete and full and speedy recovery?</s>BURKE: I would expect that they would make a full recovery. Of course, I'm not a doctor, but I've been through countless searches in the middle of winter in Alaska and of course down here in Nevada and I'm very surprised, very pleased with the outcome on this. It makes a great Christmas story.</s>MORGAN: And in terms of your advice Paul for anybody watching who maybe exposed to similar treacherous conditions, almost I guess the first bit of advice is if you can avoid going out and stay at home but if you are out and you do get caught like this, what is the recommendation?</s>BURKE: They did the exact thing that they should. They stay together. Their survivability increases dramatically if they all stay together. The other thing is it's very dry in spite of the cold so for them to retain fluids, make sure that they have plenty of water if they can and of course, staying warm and by staying together, staying warm, and staying in one place, it helps both the trained searchers, aircraft, everybody else find them much quicker.</s>MORGAN: In terms of their cellphone, there was, we believe a signal but it wasn't strong enough for them to make any calls out but it was strong enough to be able to track it, is that right?</s>BURKE: That's correct. We used it, the term called cellphone forensics. It's a sign behind the cellphone signal determining what towers will work and there's a lot of technology rounding that but basically, through the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center, they were able to track the cellphone, they're able to -- it gives a lot additional data to help search by.</s>MORGAN: A certain irony of course with all the debate in the moment about privacy in the NSA spying on Americans and of course it was the very same technology I guess that led to them being identified in terms of their location.</s>BURKE: Well certainly this is a good use of that technology and certainly it helped us pinpoint a little bit better where they were.</s>MORGAN: Jo Ann, obviously I know you'll be looking forward to speaking to them all, but in terms of the reaction from all the rescue people involved, there's a huge community effort wasn't it? You were part of this, did you have fears start to increase as the hours went by that you may not have a happy ending to all this?</s>WEAGANT: Well, I never want to thought -- nobody wanted to think that at all. I just, you know, in my thoughts are with all the prayers of Lovelock, all the people that were helping and I truly believe, I don't know about anybody else, there was an angel in the sky watching over them. And we've just worked it to give a -- just, it wasn't a thought in my mind that that was going to be the scenario, it could be -- it's Christmas time.</s>MORGAN: Yes it's ...</s>WEAGANT: It's Christmas time.</s>MORGAN: It's a very joyous ...</s>WEAGANT: And we got a Christmas wish.</s>MORGAN: Yes, it's a very joyous Christmas story. Tell me a little bit more if you can, Jo Ann about the family what kind of family are they?</s>WEAGANT: Oh, well they're a (good) family, you know, like I said they -- he was a good friend to my son in high school and they're still friends and just a close knit family, you know, all the kids they do everything together, you know, they're good people with good heart, you know, and they're close to their family and that was the important thing. That's what got them through I think.</s>MORGAN: And Paul obviously it's ended fantastic way on this occasion it could have been a complete disaster. If you were being critical at all and now it's not probably not the right time, but I'm going to put it to you anyway because you are a guide that will be in the thick of all of this again and again in other similar situations. Is it slightly reckless of a family when the temperatures are so cold and the blizzard is so strong to venture out looking for a bit of trill seeking in this kind of situation.</s>BURKE: You know as for -- it's really Piers, people go out for all kinds of reasons and I'm certainly not in the position to -- to either criticize or praise their activity. Our job is to make sure that if people do go and get in trouble that there's a community resource, the Local Sheriff's Agency, state resource and there was even federal resource that was involved in this search. So our job is to recover them, bring them back as best we can. I've never been in a position nor would I even begin to try to put myself in their position and criticize what they've done. They did good things that caused their survival, that basically relate ended up making them survive through the -- what was a pretty terrible ordeal. So I'm just happy that he uses his own ingenuity, I'm happy that the community was able to come together, provide resource for us, provide resource for the Sheriff here who did a tremendous job and the Sheriff would probably be here were he not exhausted and he did a tremendous job for this community.</s>MORGAN: And that moment Paul when you heard that it was good news and they were alive and well, there was must be one of the most satisfying parts of your job isn't it?</s>BURKE: It's what we call the psychic income. It's the kind of thing that we get that doesn't matter how little or how much I'm paid. The fact is that's what makes this such a good job, all right. It could be tragic but today was a great outcome and we live with that.</s>MORGAN: Well I want to congratulate you Paul again and your entire team they've done a spectacular job, I could have say when we reported on this last time I spoke to the mother of one of the children. It was obviously extremely anxious about what may happen and she can now have a great Christmas with her little girl and indeed everybody involved and it's going to be great Christmas. And I thank you and applaud you and the team for the tremendous effort that you did to save their lives, and to you Jo Ann when you get a change to speak to them all. And tell them I love to speak to them, I think it's such a happy story we would love to have them on the show, so I'm going to use you as my personal emissary ...</s>WEAGANT: Yes.</s>MORGAN: ... is that OK with you?</s>WEAGANT: OK. No problem. I can do that.</s>MORGAN: Well I ...</s>WEAGANT: Thank you very much ...</s>MORGAN: I'm very ...</s>WEAGANT: ... that would be great, they would love it.</s>MORGAN: I would love that and I'm very pleased for you Jo Ann and for the friends and family who took part on the search, it's great to see it end this way. So thank you both indeed for joining me tonight.</s>WEAGANT: Thank you for caring.</s>BURKE: Thank you very much.</s>MORGAN: Great ends to what could have been a horrible story. That and tonight Don Lemon takes a look at our extreme weather from coast to coast and what's behind it, that's the 11th Hour tonight. And when we come back a shocking suicide in the middle of a crowded mall, was it caused by too much shopping?