Kathy Fiscus

The failed rescue attempt received nationwide attention in the US as it was carried live on radio and on television—a still-new medium—by station KTLA and their reporter Stan Chambers at the beginning of his career. It is regarded as a watershed event in live TV coverage. Stan Chambers devoted two chapters to it in his book KTLA's News at 10 and added "Historians in 1994 agree that the Kathy Fiscus telecast marked the beginning of the long form of television news coverage."

Kathy's story was recalled nearly 40 years later during the successful 1987 rescue of Jessica McClure.

On the afternoon of April 8, 1949, Kathy was playing with her nine-year-old sister, Barbara, and cousin, Gus, in a field in San Marino when she fell down the 14-inch-wide (36 cm) shaft of an abandoned water well. Her father, David, worked for the California Water and Telephone Co., which had drilled the well in 1903. He had recently testified before the state legislature for a proposed law that would require the cementing of all old wells.

Country singer Jimmie Osborne wrote and recorded the 1949 song "The Death of Little Kathy Fiscus" (King 788). It sold over one million copies and Osborne donated half the proceeds to the Fiscus family. Other artists recorded versions of the song, including Kitty Wells and Howard Vokes.

Kathryn Anne Fiscus (August 21, 1945 – April 8, 1949) was a three-year-old girl who died after falling into a well in San Marino, California. The attempted rescue, broadcast live on KTLA, was a landmark event in American television history.