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Handel History: NORAD Santa Tracker | ‘Medical News’ with Dr. Jim Keany · The Bill Handel Show

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Speaker 1: You're list Saints KFI AM six forty the bill handle
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Speaker 1: show on demand on the iHeartRadio f.
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Speaker 2: KFI AM six forty bill handle.
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Speaker 1: Here on a December twenty four and it is a Wednesday.
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Speaker 1: And if you follow Norrad, of course, Norrad is the
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Speaker 1: US the radar system that anticipates Russian missiles mainly coming
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Speaker 1: in the United States. Santa Claus Santa Sleigh is being
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Speaker 1: followed all over the world. Now, a little bit of
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Speaker 1: history about NORAD. It's kind of a fun history. Originally
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Speaker 1: it was devised by well, the Santa Slay coming in
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Speaker 1: over the United States Territory was devised by the Russians
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Speaker 1: who were masquerading they were giving nuclear weapons to look
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Speaker 1: like the Santa Slay coming in. By the way, that's
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Speaker 1: absolutely not true. Here is the story, and it's about
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Speaker 1: a guy named Harry Shop. Colonel Harry Shop, an Air
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Speaker 1: Force career officer twenty eight years in the Air Force,
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Speaker 1: decorated fighter pilot who was known as a no nonsense
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Speaker 1: commander and a real stickler for rules. And so that
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Speaker 1: makes it kind of really interesting the story because it
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Speaker 1: was December Day right in Colorado Springs, right the day
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Speaker 1: before Christmas or a couple of days before Christmas and
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Speaker 1: the phone rings.
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Speaker 2: On his desk. Now he had two different phones.
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Speaker 1: One was a black phone, which was the regular phone
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Speaker 1: that was used by every office, every home in the country,
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Speaker 1: basically a black phone, and there was a red phone
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Speaker 1: on his desk. And when that phone rang, that was
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Speaker 1: a big deal. Why because it's the middle of the
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Speaker 1: Cold War and that red phone ringing meant really bad news.
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Speaker 1: So at that time he was commander of CONNAD or CONAD,
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Speaker 1: the Continental Air Defense Command, which was an early version
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Speaker 1: of the North American Aerospace Defense Command nor AD, and
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Speaker 1: it is a joint US Canadian operation still in use today.
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Speaker 1: And it was the nerve center of America's defensive shield
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Speaker 1: against an attack, a nuclear air attack, missiles coming in
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Speaker 1: mainly from Russia. It was with the fear in those days.
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Speaker 1: And so if you went there, a really interesting place.
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Speaker 1: You've seen this in the movies. The command center had
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Speaker 1: this huge, massive mask of all of North America on plexiglass,
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Speaker 1: and behind that were a bunch of technicians who were handwriting.
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Speaker 1: They were on scaffolds and they were literally handwriting with
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Speaker 1: these grease pencils where the radar blip was, where the
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Speaker 1: theoretical were the missiles that had just been that just
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Speaker 1: had been marked that they were coming in. Now they
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Speaker 1: had to write backwards. So you have a bunch of
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Speaker 1: technicians up on scaffolds behind this plexiglass and they're writing
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Speaker 1: backwards and noting exactly where a missile or an unidentified
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Speaker 1: flying object was coming into US airspace actually would be
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Speaker 1: Canadian airspace first.
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Speaker 2: And that red phone when it was rained, When it rained, I'll.
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Speaker 1: Tell you why it was a big deal because it
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Speaker 1: was wired directly to a four star general at the Pentagon.
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Speaker 1: And so when that phone rings, Shoote picks it up
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Speaker 1: and he says, Colonel Shop He barks silence on the
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Speaker 1: other end, and then out of that phone, that red phone,
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Speaker 1: comes this little small voice.
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Speaker 2: Is this Santa Claus?
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Speaker 1: And he started getting upset, I mean, he's confused, and
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Speaker 1: then he gets annoyed and he gets angry and thinks
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Speaker 1: this may be a joke, maybe not, And he begins
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Speaker 1: by screaming into the phone because at this point it
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Speaker 1: was not a military situation. It was just somebody going
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Speaker 1: is this Santa Claus? And he screams, what do you
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Speaker 1: think you're doing? And then Shope realizes it was a kid,
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Speaker 1: a child trying to reach Santa Claus. Now this is
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Speaker 1: a gruff military guy who is known as a stickler,
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Speaker 1: And he pauses for a moment, and then into the
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Speaker 1: phone he says, ho, ho, ho, of course this is
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Speaker 1: Santa Claus.
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Speaker 2: Have you been a good boy?
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Speaker 1: And he ended up talking to this kid for several minutes,
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Speaker 1: hearing the wishes for toys and treats and saying, yep,
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Speaker 1: I'm going to be there Christmas Eve. And then the
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Speaker 1: boy asked, can you bring something nice for mommy? And
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Speaker 1: he goes, I will. Matter of fact, can I speak
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Speaker 1: to your mommy? And he tried to figure out what
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Speaker 1: was happening. This came out of that day's local newspaper.
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Speaker 1: The phone number, it was a Sears ad with a
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Speaker 1: picture of Santa and invited the kids call me on
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Speaker 1: my private phone and I'll talk to you personally anytime
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Speaker 1: or day or night. And the number was off by
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Speaker 1: one digit calling into that red phone, which is a
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Speaker 1: top secret number. And then okay, by the way, he said,
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Speaker 1: you answer every phone that you get. He tells at
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Speaker 1: and t set up a new link to Washington. That's
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Speaker 1: going to be the phone number, and a few night later,
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Speaker 1: he goes to have his Christmas dinner with his family
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Speaker 1: with the on duty troops. He walks in the control
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Speaker 1: center and there he sees a little image of a
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Speaker 1: sleigh that had been drawn by one of the military staffers.
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Speaker 1: Because this was a huge plex glass, just this window
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Speaker 1: plex glass, massive of which the military, the folks that
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Speaker 1: were writing on it, walked, wrote backwards and literally pinpointed
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Speaker 1: whatever flying whatever unidentified flying object was coming into view
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Speaker 1: on the radar. And that's how it started. He ordered
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Speaker 1: someone to get the community relations officer. He's on the
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Speaker 1: phone call then to a local radio station. CONAD had
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Speaker 1: picked up an unidentified incoming object, distinctly.
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Speaker 2: North polar origin, distinctly sleigh shaped.
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Speaker 1: The newspapers got involved, the network's gone involved in a
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Speaker 1: tradition was born seventy years now where Norad is publicly.
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Speaker 2: Tracking Santa sleigh.
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Speaker 1: And now you go on their app and there you
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Speaker 1: see Santa going around the world on his sleigh. And
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Speaker 1: now if you go there right now, starting December twenty four,
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Speaker 1: for twenty hours, more than fifteen hundred volunteers are tracking
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Speaker 1: the sleigh and answering phone calls from little kids who
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Speaker 1: want to tell Santa or talk to Santa and say
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Speaker 1: this is what I want, and they have to train
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Speaker 1: these people and conor I don't know if you have.
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Speaker 1: I don't know if you have that recording of one
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Speaker 1: of these volunteers training to be Santa and asking Santa
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Speaker 1: for for favors and telling kids, yes, I'll talk to Santa.
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Speaker 1: And one little boy uh saying just in addition to toys,
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Speaker 1: he goes and my mommy is very sick. She has cancer.
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Speaker 1: Can you please help her? And the staffer says, nope,
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Speaker 1: she's gonna die. Now that person didn't last very long.
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Speaker 1: I must tell you I don't have that one. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that is my favorite training audio that exists. Any case,
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Speaker 1: you can track Santa and you will be Uh'll, It'll
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Speaker 1: be on every news outlet tonight, you bet you as
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Speaker 1: Christmas Eve comes in. That's the story of Norad and
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Speaker 1: Santa coming in all over the world and you can
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Speaker 1: actually follow him. The problem is is what do you
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Speaker 1: do when you're in the country next to Santa Because
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Speaker 1: there's only one sleigh and it's going around the world.
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Speaker 1: Of course it goes across North America, but does it
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Speaker 1: go across Mexico? Probably not. Anyway, great, great story. I've
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Speaker 1: always enjoyed that. Doctor Jim Keeney, chief medical officer for
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Speaker 1: it Dignity Saint Mary Medical Center in Long Beach. Also,
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Speaker 1: as I have told you for twenty five, for twenty
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Speaker 1: eight or thirty years, Board certified er, doctor Jim, last
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Speaker 1: of the year, we get together, good morning, good morning. Right,
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Speaker 1: We've got a lot going on out there. And here
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Speaker 1: is something and I didn't even know this, but it
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Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. And the Christmas Corner Coronary,
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Speaker 1: what is that about?
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Speaker 2: Is it a gift to get people?
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Speaker 3: Yeah?
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Speaker 4: No, the Christmas Coronary is a real thing. I mean
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Speaker 4: every single Christmas inherencated part and we have multiple heart
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Speaker 4: attacks and things like that. It's it happens, I think
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Speaker 4: because you're combining all the risk factors kind of all
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Speaker 4: at one time.
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Speaker 3: Right.
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Speaker 4: There's there's too much salt in your food, there's a
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Speaker 4: lot of stress, there's too much alcohol, you haven't had
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Speaker 4: a lot of sleep, it's colder than normal. Some people
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Speaker 4: have ongoing infections too, like a little flu or cold.
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Speaker 3: Or something like that.
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Speaker 4: It all adds up to you know, that person who
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Speaker 4: was on the edge of having a heart attack, anyway.
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Speaker 3: So right, this doesn't isn't the cause of a heart attack.
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Speaker 4: It's just you're stacking up all these triggers all in
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Speaker 4: one time period, all right, So.
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Speaker 2: I it's I mean, is this discernible. You're there, You
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Speaker 2: are in the R R.
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Speaker 1: Room er department, which of course you've done for so
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Speaker 1: many years and isn't anticipated if you're on call or
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Speaker 1: if you're working. Get ready for a real uptick in
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Speaker 1: this stuff.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, definitely a real uptake.
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Speaker 4: There's a at least in Sweden anyway, there's a study
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Speaker 4: of show fifteen percent higher heart attack risk during the
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Speaker 4: Christmas period. And you know, it's just it's real.
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Speaker 3: We definitely see it.
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Speaker 4: So you know, and Granny who hasn't you know, she's
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Speaker 4: been on her good diet, hasn't eaten any you know,
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Speaker 4: high fat, high salt foods for a long time. All
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Speaker 4: of a sudden it's down in a whole Christmas meal
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Speaker 4: and now all that you know, you know, when people
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Speaker 4: have a heart attack and or when they're dying, especially
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Speaker 4: when we're doing CPR, they usually puke.
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Speaker 3: Up everything in their spect.
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Speaker 4: So we get to see the entire Christmas meal.
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Speaker 1: Oh that sounds wonderful what happens in the ar Christmas Eve?
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Speaker 1: I mean, you've done your fair share. Is it any different? No,
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Speaker 1: Merry Christmas.
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Speaker 2: People end up dying on you. I mean you look
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Speaker 2: at them any differently at all.
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Speaker 4: It's it's a weird night in the er because you've
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Speaker 4: got all this kind of serious illness coming in of
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Speaker 4: heart attacks and strokes and people dying. You have serious
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Speaker 4: mental illness coming in more.
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Speaker 3: Than the usual.
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Speaker 4: So all your rooms, you know, a lot of your
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Speaker 4: rooms are filled with people waiting to talk to a
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Speaker 4: counselor of some kind or possibly thinking about suicide, you know,
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Speaker 4: And I'm glad they're there and not out somewhere else
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Speaker 4: at that point. And then it's not quite as busy
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Speaker 4: often as other times. Now, there's busy times in the
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Speaker 4: day right like that, usually right before the dinner crowd.
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Speaker 4: Everybody wants to get in there and hey, I got
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Speaker 4: family coming over and get fixed. People have injury themselves
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Speaker 4: while cooking because they don't cook as much as anymore,
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Speaker 4: and so suddenly they're in the kitchen doing things they're
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Speaker 4: not familiar with, and there's cuts and burns and everything else.
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Speaker 1: This you know, I'm thinking that it's as you were
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Speaker 1: saying that people aren't going to go to the emergency room,
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Speaker 1: especially Christmas Eve as just for something as relatively minor.
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Speaker 1: And we've talked about that, and people look at the
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Speaker 1: emergency room as their primary physician.
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Speaker 2: So if I get this right, you are this is.
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Speaker 1: When the emergency room really shines because you're dealing with
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Speaker 1: some and a lot of them real emergencies.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean it's like I said, it's
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Speaker 4: it's similar to almost any other day in the er
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Speaker 4: in some ways and other ways.
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Speaker 3: It's just kind of it's got.
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Speaker 4: An odd feeling. There's something just weird about Christmas Eve
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Speaker 4: and Christmas Day because it's not as it's not as busy.
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Speaker 3: In some respects and other respects.
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Speaker 4: You get very busy all of a sudden with a
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Speaker 4: bunch of critically ill people.
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Speaker 1: So do you guys saying Christmas music to each other
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Speaker 1: Christmas songs as you're cracking chests?
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Speaker 3: Yeah? We do, Yeah, we do, We absolutely do.
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Speaker 4: We have Christmas music playing all shift long, and you know,
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Speaker 4: people are wearing hats and and all kinds of stuff.
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Speaker 3: So it's seriously yeah, of course, Okay, all.
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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, that's like Halloween, everybody comes in and you
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Speaker 1: dress up. That's kind of you in there wearing funny
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Speaker 1: hats and Christmas and ho ho ho. And by the way,
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Speaker 1: you're dying of a heart attack right now. Okay, so
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Speaker 1: let me do this one. I'm sick, I don't feel good.
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Speaker 1: Urgent care or er. Which one do you choose?
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Speaker 4: So, yeah, definitely this has got to be You got
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Speaker 4: to make the right choice here because there it's crazy
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Speaker 4: how people will bypass three or four urgent cares when
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Speaker 4: they have just like a tiny cut on their finger
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Speaker 4: or an injury to a you know, an extremity bone
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Speaker 4: that just they want to get X rayed. Those are
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Speaker 4: things that could quickly and easily be done in urgent care.
14:38
Speaker 4: Or you feel like you need a prescription because you
14:40
Speaker 4: have a sore throat or you have an earache, those
14:43
Speaker 4: type of things are great for urgent cares. So you
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Speaker 4: can wait, you know, two to three hours in an er,
14:47
Speaker 4: or you can walk into an urgent care. Now, urgent
14:50
Speaker 4: cares don't take all comers, is the problem. So if
14:53
Speaker 4: you don't have insurance, you end up in the emergency
14:55
Speaker 4: department because we do take everyone. So you know, you
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Speaker 4: have to either have a credit card or insurance when
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Speaker 4: you're walking into an urgent care.
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Speaker 3: But the things you don't.
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Speaker 4: Want to go to an urgent care for are things
15:06
Speaker 4: like chest pain where you're worried you're having a heart attack.
15:09
Speaker 4: That's not the right place. They don't have the equipment
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Speaker 4: to deal with that. Abdominal pain. If it's severe abdominal
15:15
Speaker 4: pain and enough to bring you to the emergency room,
15:17
Speaker 4: you should go to the emergency room because in the
15:19
Speaker 4: urgent care they can't do things like cat scans, they
15:22
Speaker 4: can't get the blood tests back immediately. You know, there
15:26
Speaker 4: are some that may change in the future. There's some
15:28
Speaker 4: urgent cares that are partnering with with different hospitals or
15:31
Speaker 4: other places where they have X ray right next door,
15:34
Speaker 4: lab right next door. But as of right now, just
15:36
Speaker 4: your standard run of the mill urgent care, you don't
15:39
Speaker 4: go there for possible strokes, possible heart attacks, or severe
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Speaker 4: abdominal pain.
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Speaker 1: So you walk into an urgent care and you don't
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Speaker 1: have insurance and your credit card is maxed out, do
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Speaker 1: they throw you out?
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Speaker 4: Yes, they do, one hundred percent. Will say, look, you know,
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Speaker 4: we don't we take care of people at a cost,
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Speaker 4: And so this is like any other service, just like
16:01
Speaker 4: a restaurant. You walk into a restaurant, you don't have
16:03
Speaker 4: money to pay, they say, sorry, we don't do this
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Speaker 4: for free.
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Speaker 2: Okay, fair enough.
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Speaker 1: And one last one, if we knew it fairly quickly,
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Speaker 1: AHHS announces the overhaul of the child vaccine schedule.
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Speaker 2: I mean, this has to be this whole.
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Speaker 1: Litany of reductions and retractions and just the limits that
16:21
Speaker 1: HHS wants doctors or wants people they have in terms
16:24
Speaker 1: of vaccinations have to be scaring on medical science, have
16:27
Speaker 1: to be scaring those of you that are real doctors.
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Speaker 4: Sure, it's thrown us into you know, now we have
16:33
Speaker 4: to make recommendations from the hospital to our pediatricians because
16:38
Speaker 4: they're asking us what, you know, what are we going
16:40
Speaker 4: to do? What are we going to tell parents? And
16:43
Speaker 4: so we have to get through that, and really it's
16:45
Speaker 4: it's creating a lot of work. And if it's creating
16:47
Speaker 4: that much anxiety with pediatricians, you can only imagine with
16:50
Speaker 4: new parents what it's doing. And then them choosing Denmark.
16:53
Speaker 4: It's it's crazy, right, So number one, Denmark is one
16:56
Speaker 4: of the lower vaccinating countries in the world. They didn't
16:59
Speaker 4: pick a centrist country. Almost every other country vaccinates.
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Speaker 3: The same as US or more.
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Speaker 4: The UK actually vaccinates more diseases than we do.
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Speaker 3: And when you.
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Speaker 4: Look at Denmark, it's such a unique little country, right,
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Speaker 4: It's it doesn't have the influx, there's not immigration there,
17:18
Speaker 4: they don't have rampant disease. The population is very stable.
17:22
Speaker 4: They have a very tightly integrated health care system that
17:27
Speaker 4: takes you from birth to death with very good medical records,
17:31
Speaker 4: good prenatal care, everything else. And so they have almost
17:35
Speaker 4: a model you know, health care system as far as
17:38
Speaker 4: getting people well cared for.
17:41
Speaker 2: Right, which.
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Speaker 1: The argument is comparing. Yeah, look at Denmark. They don't
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Speaker 1: vaccinate and look how well they do. It's yeah, kind
17:51
Speaker 1: of nuts. Jim, you have a good one. It's going
17:53
Speaker 1: to be uh looking forward to another miserable year next
17:57
Speaker 1: year with medical care.
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Speaker 4: No, I'm looking for it too, you know. You know me,
18:02
Speaker 4: I'm a problem solver. I'm looking for it to lots
18:04
Speaker 4: of problems and coming up with solutions.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: And this is where Jim and I. He's the optimist,
18:10
Speaker 1: I'm the pessimist. All right, Jim, you have a good one.
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Speaker 1: Say hello to everybody. Take care all right, guys, We're done.
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Speaker 2: That's it.
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Speaker 1: I come back January fifth, where we all come back
18:21
Speaker 1: and start all over again with the normal crew.
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Speaker 2: In the meantime tomorrow morning, it's Jesus.
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Speaker 1: Jesus is doing the show, insisted on doing it, and
18:31
Speaker 1: how do you argue with Jesus?
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Speaker 2: You can't. And then we've got I don't know am
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Speaker 2: I going to do? I? Am I gonna be back for
18:38
Speaker 2: handling the law on Saturday? Yeah? I might, I don't
18:40
Speaker 2: know yet. In the meantime day off, I'll let you
18:43
Speaker 2: have the day off.
18:45
Speaker 1: Yeah.
18:45
Speaker 2: Well thanks?
18:45
Speaker 1: You know what sometimes I mean, you know, I hate
18:49
Speaker 1: everybody I'm with anyway. Yeah, so, and I yell at everybody,
18:52
Speaker 1: So why not yell at people on the radio, because
18:55
Speaker 1: that's even more fun.
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Speaker 2: All right, So I haven't decided, but thanks Heather. That's it.
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Speaker 1: Guy, Gary and Shannon up next. Have a happy, happy,
19:05
Speaker 1: not really on holiday. This is KF I am sixty.
19:11
Speaker 2: You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
19:13
Speaker 1: Catch my show Monday through Friday six am to nine am,
19:17
Speaker 1: and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.