The Incredible Dr. Pol

This time on The Incredible Dr. Pol,

record-breaking storms are rocking Central Michigan.

.

It is wet.

Raining down chaos.

We have a crazy cow on our hands!

The Pol team battles the elements.

Pull it over!

To respond to a flood of emergency calls.

My husband believes that it's dead.

And a blast from the past may be the

only thing that keeps them from drowning.

Meet Dr. Jan Pol.

He's a local legend, with over 19,000 clients.

And a team that does whatever it takes.

Central Michigan is underwater.

MAN (over radio): It continues to rain,

there are flood advisories, flood watches,

the Chippewa River.

WOMAN (over radio): It is crazy raining, it's not stopping,

and we are flooded in Central Michigan.

After a late-breaking winter,

Isabella County is hit hard by weeks of record-level rainfall.

Everything is flooded,

the roads are closed, Midland schools are closed.

I don't see squat.

You're good.

Look at this.

Holy Moses!

This is like that flood back in the '80s.

The hundred years flood they called it at

that time, wasn't it?

Yup, here comes another one.

Yeah.

The Chippewa River famously flooded in 1986,

causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

If things don't calm down right now,

we might be having the 100-year flood

70 years too early.

Even though the flooding has nearly

shut down the county, Dr. Pol is still on the job.

We're headed to Butch Black's,

he's got a calving.

All we know right now is that it's a first time

heifer and she's been in labor for 4 hours so

it doesn't sound good.

We need to get there right away.

I have a cow out here, wanting to calf.

And right now we have a hoof sticking out.

My husband believes that it's dead.

But, you know, you never can tell.

Hey, have Doc Pol come around this way!

Keep it going, keep it going, keep it going!

Dr. Pol finally arrives only to

find the downed cow stuck in the mud.

The pen that he uses for a calving pen was

just a foot-high of mud.

Got enough mud in there, I tried to put some straw in there.

I know, let's get a rope on her.

The first thing that we had to do

was secure this cow.

Around the big post.

Hang on, hurry up!

Hurry up!

You can't hold it!

Hand it to me, let go, let go!

When the cow is tied up, I check it out.

Oh, shoot.

And I reach in and I find that she is pretty small inside.

She's a first-time heifer.

Yep, I can tell, Charles, chains.

Yeah, coming.

The calf is too big to come out on its own.

Dr. Pol will have to pull it out.

I know I'm going to lose the calf, probably.

Well, we're gonna see.

Gee, come on!

I cannot get the chain around the leg!

Son of a.

This guy's 70 years old and he's

going in there with both hands and giving

everything he's got,

in the pouring rain and thunder.

It just blew me away.

Not much room in there, I tell ya.

It was thunder and lightning, but so what, you know?

You just keep working.

There, there's the other leg.

But then the calf is still too big to be

pulled by hand, so then I'll tell Charles

to get the calf puller ready so we can get it out.

Okay, hang onto this.

Okay, Butch, I'm going to pull her.

Pull her over!

Pull her over that way,

grab a hold of the tail and pull, please.

Grab a hold the tail.

'Cause I am here falling backwards.

Yeah, you're getting stuck in that mud.

Thank you.

Pick it up.

Yup.

.

Let me have that, let me have it.

Push down.

Man, I'm glad I'm not coming out of this small hole.

Up.

.

I got it.

Son of a gun, pretty calf.

It's huge.

Let go.

No, underneath. I got it.

.

I got it, here.

Get it out of there.

Whoa!

Is it alive?

After nearly five hours of labor,

the calf is finally out.

But the fight's not over yet.

The calf's not breathing.

Get a pail, get a pail!

And my dad just immediately is like,

"Water, water!"

More, more, fill up the pail.

I'm trying.

Get that pail.

Come on, buddy.

A lot of fluid, give me a minute.

And my dad just reaches up like, "Come on!"

Come on.

And down.

And the calf started breathing.

Yeah!

There he goes.

It was just the most incredible

thing I've ever seen.

Yeah, ha! Charles!

Yeah.

That's a good job, Doc.

I'm one lucky sucker there, ain't I?

Good job.

The next few hours are critical to stabilize the calf.

For now, Butch and Pamela Black can breathe a sigh of relief.

That was close.

When Dr. Pol pulled it out and

said it was still alive, I was just utterly a-shock.

And then throwing that calf up and bringing it

back down and then pulling on its tongue.

That was pretty good, that's damn good.

Oh that brought tears to my eyes.

Ugh.

Well, we got her and we got her alive.

It's so satisfying to pull a live calf.

It's the, the elation that you get by saving a life.

It's breathing.

Yep.

Never give up, that's the whole motto.

Alrighty, let me see if I can get out.

That's why he's, "The Incredible Dr. Pol."

After the grey skies of the last several

weeks, today's events are a welcome ray of sunshine.

I'm telling you, that was one of the most

amazing things I've ever seen.

.

It was, you know, like you're just like,

"Come on!"

And the calf started breathing and I'm like,

"Oh my God."

And who can resist a little victory lap?

There's a very good-sized river

and that always floods.

If my dad doesn't slow down during

a snowstorm, he's definitely not going to

slow down during a rainstorm.

And it's fun going through.

Watch out.

Oh boy.

I haven't been into an accident with him yet.

Well, that was pretty exciting.

.

The next morning brings more storms.

Dr. Pol is up before dawn to answer an urgent

call from Pohl Dairy, a second generation farm

from another Pohl family.

This is Pohl Dairy Farm, Incorporated.

It's my brother and me and my boy who are running it.

We bought it from my dad.

Gary works a second job as a

school bus driver in order to make ends meet.

My day usually starts about 2:30 in the morning.

I'm out here by quarter to 3.

That's when he discovered one of

his cows was acting a little strange.

And this one was actually going around in circles.

I figured it was nervous ketosis.

Nervous ketosis is a very acute

lack of energy in the system.

So much so that actually the cow's brain