dr. john torres, an e.r. doc himself, to the front lines at mass general in boston. >> reporter: kyler bachman, once a healthy athlete in pennsylvania, now dead at 21. his mother in shock. >> i just think he ignored it and thought it would go away like most people. >> reporter: in new york, a surge of patients hospitalized at montidies. >> you are coughing as well? >> reporter: across the country, a dire situation as flu tightens its grip in almost every state stretching resources thin. >> i need you to bring some gatorade. >> reporter: at boston's mass general today, many patients who need critical fluids are getting gatorade instead of an i.v. >> we're at all-time low. >> reporter: the bags are in short supply at hospitals everywhere after hurricane maria slammed major manufacturing plants in puerto rico. are you getting new supplies at all? >> right now in the small bag products, we're not getting any new supplies. >> reporter: none. so that the flu impact is going to make it even worse. >> could make it w

dr. john torres, thank you. >>> now to the scandal swirling around a gop rising star. the governor of missouri, a former navy s.e.a.l., admitting he cheated on his wife, but he's denying explosive allegations that he threatened to blackmail the other woman. and there's late word tonight prosecutors in st. louis are launching an investigation. nbc's blake mccoy is in missouri with the story. >> reporter: hours after delivering his televised state of the state speech -- >> thank you to sheena, my beautiful wife and our first lady. >> reporter: missouri governor eric greitens, a former navy s.e.a.l. and republican rising star, released a joint statement with his wife admitting an extra-marital affair. >> before eric was elected governor there was a time when he was unfaithful in our marriage. this was a deeply personal mistake. eric took responsibility, and we dealt with this together honestly and privately. the admission follows a bombshell local news report with a man who says he's the ex-husband of the other woman. his identity concealed by the tv station. he says he s

dr. john torres, nbc news, dallas. >> some important information there. >>> now back to the question we've been asking, will she or won't she? after a frenzy of speculation in recent weeks, we're finally hearing again from oprah winfrey herself on whether she may run for president. nbc news white house correspondent kristen welker with more now on what oprah had to say. >> reporter: oprah winfrey all but closing the door on a potential presidential bid. the famed star telling "instyle" magazine, it's not something that interests me. i don't have the dna for it. and acknowledging she's getting a lot of pressure to take on president trump. speaking to "instyle" three weeks earlier at the golden globes. >> the new day is on the horizon! >> reporter: calls for an oprah candidacy have only grown louder. #oprah2020 trending for days. the president himself weighing in. >> oprah would be a lot of fun. >> reporter: a recent poll shows the president trailing oprah 51-42%. a tv titan who many democrats believe could be a strong challenger to take on the former reality tv president, but publicly oprah

dr. john torres, nbc news, dallas. >> still ahead, how this weekend's grammys will address the me too movement emotional surprise ellen had for one very lucky member of her audience. you're watching "early today." bye grandpa. and if you have heart failure, entrusting your heart to entresto may help. entresto is a heart failure medicine that helps improve your heart's ability to pump blood to the body. in the largest heart failure study ever, entresto was proven superior at helping people stay alive and out of the hospital compared to a leading heart failure medicine. don't take entresto if pregnant. it can cause harm or death to an unborn baby. don't take entresto with an ace inhibitor or aliskiren. if you've had angioedema while taking an ace or arb medicine, don't take entresto. the most serious side effects are angioedema, low blood pressure, kidney problems, or high blood potassium. ask your doctor about entresto. and help make more tomorrows possible. ♪ ltry align probiotic.n your digestive system? for a non-stop, sweet treat goodness, hold on to your tiara kind of day. get 24/7 digestiv

dr. john torres, nbc news, santa clara, california. >>> a disaster at sea tonight after a tanker carrying iranian oil collided with a chinese freighter and caught fire off china's east coast. the chinese government said 32 crew members on the tanker we are missing, most of them iranians, the ship was sailing from iran to south korea with just under one million barrels of oil. officials said the crew of the chinese ship was rescued. >>> and in the south pacific, a long dormant island volcano in new guinea has come to life forcing the evacuation of the 500 people who live on that island. at this point, the volcano is spewing ash, but there are concerns the eruption could become explosive. there is no confirmed record of that volcano ever having erupted before. >>> with just one month to go before the winter olympics in pyeongchang, south korea, this was a big weekend for team usa. one of the highlights of the games, of course, will be figure skating, and we now know who many of the americans competing will be. including some fresh faces. here's joe frier. >> reporter: it's only fitting brad

dr. john torres has the answers you need in this flu emergen emergency. >> reporter: in the growing number of young people die this flu season, there's now another. florida seventh grader dillon winnick. >> to think that my little brother, i've never going to see him again, it's unexplainable. >> reporter: his heartbroken family stunned by how quickly he died at home. >> his temperature was 98 degrees. then just within a couple of hours they found him. and he had already passed. that's why we don't -- we can't understand how that happened. >> reporter: his parents thought his sniffles and exhaustion meant he had a cold, but now they believe it was the flu. so how can you tell the difference between a bad cold and the flu? stuffy nose and cough? could be either. severe body aches that come on quickly and nausea, a sign of the flu. as are vomiting and diarrhea, though mostly in children. a high fever above 101 degrees usually means the flu but not always. this brutal flu season has a lot of people on edge. >> we do have an ambulance on the way. >> reporter: near dallas ambulance calls for fl

dr. john torres, nbc news, orange, california. >>> coming up, the surprise move a major american city is making now that recreational pot is legal there. >>> and mystery solved. we finally know what was in the blue gift box sfx: muffled whistle text alert. i'm your phone, stuck down here between your seat and your console, playing a little hide-n-seek. cold... warmer... warmer... ah boiling. jackpot. and if you've got cut-rate car insurance, you could be picking up these charges yourself. so get allstate, where agents help keep you protected from mayhem... ...like me. mayhem is everywhere. are you in good hands? use pantene shampoo together with 3 minute miracle daily conditioner. their pro-v formula is like a multi-vitamin. making your hair 2x stronger see the difference when you add 3 minute miracle daily conditioner. you know how painful heartburn can be. for fast-acting, long-lasting relief, try doctor recommended gaviscon. it quickly neutralizes stomach acid and helps keep acid down for hours. relieve heartburn with fast- acting, long-lasting gaviscon. and helps keep acid down for h

dr. john torres has the details for us. >> reporter: a simple walk with her dog is a miracle for cynthia dodd. less than a year ago the 46-year-old suffered a massive stroke in her sleep. >> i would have died and if i did live, i would be complete vegetable. >> reporter: by the time she was found in the morning, it had been more than six hours, which had been considered too late to remove the brain clot and save the patient. but now new guidelines from the american stroke and heart associations say doctors have up to 24 hours to use clot-busting devices like this thin wire. >> it's a massive game changer. we've had these devices now for a period of time. now we've expanded the window that we can intervene and act on patients. >> reporter: that's the life-saving part. >> life-saving and recoveries. >> reporter: one study found expanding the window of time to even 16 hours cut in half the number of deaths and severe disability. >> with these treatments you more than double the chances of someone being independent in the time after their stroke rather than being severely disabled. >> report

dr. john torres reporting from a busy e.r. in pennsylvania. >> temperature is okay. just a couple beeps. >> reporter: when camry woke up with a fever this morning, she rushed her to the doctor. >> scares me because i see the horror stories. as a mom, you think the worst. so i hope it's not. >> reporter: she's right to be concerned. already this season 30 children, many of them healthy to begin with, died compared to just 5 deaths last year at this time. so this is the tent. >> this is the surge hospital. >> reporter: the frightening rise in flu cases is forcing hospitals across the country to use mobile triage units for the overflow of patient. it's like an e.r. >> it's a full functioning e.r. anything i can do in the main e.r., i can do here. >> reporter: this one in the parking lot of lehigh valley network in allentown. >> we've seen a massive rise in our volume in surges and we wanted to get the patients seen as efficiently as possible. >> reporter: in some places hospitals are restricting visitors, rescheduling surgeries, even facetiming appointments. now new evi

dr. john torres and matthew nussbaum. gentlemen, thank you. we'll probably have you back when we learn more about the president's health. >>> and coming up for us here tonight, another troubling week for republicans. where it pertains to upcoming elections. steve kornacki at the big board with that. stay with us. building a website in under an hour is easy with gocentral... ...from godaddy! in fact, 68% of people who have built their... ...website using gocentral, did it in under an hour, and you can too. build a better website - in under an hour. with gocentral from godaddy. congressman darrell issa's decision not to run for reelection is making the math even tougher for the gop if they hope to hold control of house during upcoming mid-term elections. 31 house republicans have so far announced they don't intend to run for reelections had. and democrats are eyeing the 24 seats they need to flip control of the house. with all of it at the big board on a friday night we're so happy to say steve kornacki or national political correspondent is her

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dr. john torres is in the house. welcome, first of all. the white house doesn't have to release this, do they? >> there's no law, there's not even really a precedent. they don't have to get a physical exam at all. they don't have to release any information. they can control what information gets released. >> do we even know what's going to be addressed? obviously in the last week there's much talk about mental fitness. people are talking about things like dementia and alzheimer's and that's a stretch because it's easy for us, you're a doctor, but for people to say things like that. but those are aggressive accusations. we can't dictate what's going to be addressed in that meeting. >> exactly. what we do know is dr. ronnie jackson, obama's doctor as well, is going to be the same physician here. was essentially what a physical i would do in my clinic. just a basic physical of blood, cholesterol levels, physical examination, height, weight. but not a psychiatric evaluation. that's actually not the place for a psychiatric evaluation. it is the

dr. john torres reports, it's a new technique of how treatment is being customized for each patient. >> reportery once meant exotic trips and beach vacations. last year the 54-year-old lawyer suffered a heart attack. >> shocked. absolutely shocked. >> reporter: what was even more shocking, an unexpected discovery that would put her life on hold altogether. parts of her aorta, the largest blood vessel in the body, were so swollen they could burst at any moment. a deadly condition called an abdominal aortic aneurysm. she had two of them. surgery would be dangerous. >> one day it would open me up and just blow. >> reporter: nearly 200,000 americans have these. the problem is, it's almost impossible to treat. doctors sometimes use a stent to repair but in most cases it doesn't work. they are often in places where the stent doesn't fit. so patients end up living with their own personal ticking time bomb. >> each anatomy of the patient is different. that's the problem. >> reporter: but now doctors at the mayo clinic have pioneered a personalized approach to treating what was once a death sentence. the

dr. john torres reporting from a busy er in pennsylvania. >> it's just a couple beeps. >> reporter: when tori's daughter woke one a 105 degree fever this morning, she rushed her to the doctor. what do you think of that, she might have the flu? >> it scares me. as a mom, you think the worst. i hope it's not. >> reporter: she's right to be concerned. already this season 30 children, many of them healthy to begin with, died, compared to just five deaths last year at this time. so this is the tent? >> yes this is the surge hospital. >> reporter: the frightening rise in flu cases is forcing hospitals across the country to use mobile triage unit force the overflow of patients. it's like an er. >> it's a full functioning er. anything i can do in the main er, i can do in here. >> reporter: this one in the parking lot of lehigh valley health network in allentown. >> we put this up during the flu season because we see a massive rise in volume and surges. we wanted to get the patients out and seen as efficiently as possible. >> reporter: in some places, hospitals are restricting visitors, reschedul

dr. john torres. >> reporter: the country is in the middle of an unprecedented iv fluid shortage. it turns out, they are largely made in puerto rico and those factories were shut down because of the hurricane. the fast number of flu patients are making the situation even worse. i'm at i'll talk about this on "nbc nightly news." >>> digging out of debt. join the millions of people trying to do the same thing. your credit score can really suffer the deeper you're in. consumer reporter susan hogan is working for you to improve your credit score by 20 points. >> okay. so the average credit score is around 679. this is according to wallet hub. so most people have some room for improvement and you can actually save a lot of money as a result. so first, what is your credit score? you can get it for a small fee from the credit bureaus or you can ask your bank. sometimes they will offer it to you for free knowing what your score is really gives you an accurate sense of your starting point and enables you to track your progress over time. the best way to improve your credit is to maintain a

dr. john torres, a practices emergency room physician and matthew nussbaum, practicing white house reporterolitico and a veteran of our broadcast. doctor, excellent health is a big thing to say about your patient. what are the labs, what's the bloodwork and what are the details you're going to hear about tuesday? >> excellent health is very subjective. it depends on the doctor and the patient and the relationship they have. what we know from his prior physicals is the lab work we looked at, his cholesterol is the main one. he's on a statin medication because he presumably has high cholesterol, on an aspirin and we know he's overweight and his diet is not that good and he doesn't exercise all that well. the main labs will be the cholesterol levels to see if they've changed from last year. >> matt, why has there in your view -- i can't remember this much attention surrounding -- we journalists always call it the routine physical examination at walter reed. i can't remember a time when it had this much attention. >> i think that's right. one, the president's age. he's the oldest first-term pre

dr. john torres is with us now. john, the president is not required to do this formal physical.do and there is information that the white house released. what do you think we're going to see? what is the precedent? >> there is no standard or requirement for this type of physical. the presidents in the past is to give a fairly comprehensive physical. this doctor was also president obama's doctor during the last term and during that last physical he released a fairly detailed one. this one head to toe. vital statistics height, weight, blood pressure, pulse. those are released as far as physical exam. everything head to toe. eyes, ear, throat, lungs, stomach, the whole bit. then he went through the laboratory examines looking at his blood levels, cholesterol levels his immunizations and his past medical history. this doctor we know has done comprehensive exams in the past and we're not sure what will happen here. >> i know you'll watch that and back on this network later on today. thank you for joining us on this show. i want to bring in on set robert dallek whose latest book "fran

dr. john torres. >> year's flu season, one of the worst in recent years, could germs like this impact that>> definitely. what people now, work out, rub your eyes, rub your nose, scratch your match, germs get in your body, once there, you get the flu or whatever they carry. >> reporter: we're warming up. if i go over to the machine, swabbing the handles, you have to hold these. all right, moment of truth. oh! getting off -- this is gross. 268, nearly three times the acceptable level of bacteria, just from working out on this thing. the biggest surprise of the day is here perhaps the most popular machine in the gym. the treadmill. getting the buttons, what everyone touches. sweaty hands. all right. here we go. brace yourselves. you're not going to believe this, folks. 2,134, one of the highest readings we've ever got. not only is that gross, but if it's staph or mersa or worse, you get sick, or worse, it's deadly. >> reporter: how do you not get sick? wipe down equipment before and after you use it, but just in case other people don't, always wash your hands before and after a workout. here'

dr. john torres. we are hearing a lot about the flu season this year, one of the worst in recent years. germs like this impact that? >> oh, definitely. the thing people don't realize is when you're working out, if you think about it, you rub your eyes, wipe your nose, scratch your mouth. that's how the bacteria and germs get into your body. once they get into your body you get the flu or whatever is there. >> but we're just getting warmed up. i head over to the elliptical, swabbing the handles. you have to hold on to these. all right. moment of truth. getting off the elliptical. this is gross. 268, nearly three times the acceptable level of bacteria. just from working out on this thing. but the biggest surprise of the day is here at perhaps the most popular machine in the gym. the treadmill. getting the buttons. this is what everyone touches. grimy, sweaty hands. all right. here we go. brace yourselves. you're not going to believe this, folks. 2,134. that's one of the highest readings we've ever gotten. >> not only is it gross, but if it's staph or miles an houra, it can be deadly. how

dr. john torres for more. hello. >> how are you doing? >> 2018 is hopeful. are a lot of changes that are ahead. and one of the big categories that's been capturing a lot of headlines, especially this year, is how people are managing their pain. and that -- you think things are going to be different? >> you can see a huge change because of the opioid epidemic. one of the things you'll notice is opioids last is the new mantra. when you go to the emergency room -- in the past, we knee-jerk react and had said let me give you percocet or vicodin. now that's the last thing we'll do. we'll try everything else first. >> so are doctors all on board with that? or is it something that's going to take time to work its way into the system? >> doctors are on board with it. patients, not yet. and so it's going to take time, because they're going to be asking for it. on top of that, you might notice also that you get a pain contract, whether you go to the emergency room or you go to your doctor. and you're going to sign a contract that's going to say essentially, i understa

dr. john torres. >> we are hearing a lot about the flu season this year.alize is, when working out, think about it. you rub your eyes, wipe your nose. scratch your mouth. that's how the bacteria and germs get into your body. once in your body, you get the flu or whatever's there. >> reporter: but we're just getting warmed up. i head over to the elliptical. swabbing the handles. you have to hold on to these. all right. moment of truth. ooh! getting off the elliptical. this is gross. 268. nearly three times the acceptable level of bacteria. just from working out on this thing. but the biggest surprise of the day is here at perhaps the most popular machine in the gym. the treadmill. getting the buttons. this is what everyone touches. the grimy, sweaty hands. all right. here we go. brace yourselves. you're not going to believe this, folks. 2,134. that's one of the highest readings we've ever gotten. not only is it gross, but if it's staph or mrsa, even worse, can get you sick and on top of that be deadly. how can you make sure you don't get sick? mike sure to