The Buffalo News
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Baby Lucy arrived Tuesday evening happy and healthy, at 6 pounds and 2 ounces.
But oh, what a delivery.
Her mom is Bethany Hojnacki, who lives on Carlyle Avenue in South Buffalo. Bethany went into labor around 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, as the brutal lake effect storm bore down on her neighborhood.
In milder weather, Bethany and her husband, Jared, would have made a beeline for Mercy Hospital. But Carlyle was largely impassable. When Jared Hojnacki saw firefighters helping a stranded motorist near the house, he tried to enlist the Fire Department’s help for his wife’s cause.
That’s when the family found its first dose of good fortune. While the roads were hopelessly clogged with snow and cars, the stranded motorist was a labor and delivery nurse who works at Mercy Hospital, according to Deborah Hojnacki, Jared’s mother and the baby’s grandmother.
The nurse — whom Deborah Hojnacki knew only by her first name, Denise — decided to stay with the pregnant mom until she could be moved to the hospital.
Hours passed. When word spread through the neighborhood that Bethany was in labor, some of its youngsters hit the street with shovels to try to open a path. But the small army of good Samaritans could not move enough of the several tons of snow choking Carlyle Avenue, Deborah Hojnacki said.
In the afternoon, a Fire Department vehicle arrived to retrieve Bethany and get her to Mercy Hospital.
“They didn’t get stuck on Carlyle,’’ Deborah Hojnacki said.
“They got stuck on Abbott because of all the stranded cars.’’
The fire officials went to Plan B. They took Bethany to the fire station at Abbott Road and Hollywood Avenue. A second Mercy Hospital nurse, who also had been stranded, stayed by her side as well.
Then at 9:31 p.m., Lucy Grace Hojnacki joined the gathering.
“The baby was born, and she’s healthy,’’ grandmother Hojnacki said. She is Jared and Bethany’s second child; they also have a 19-month-old son.
Around 45 minutes Lucy was born, mom and baby were finally moved in an ambulance the final three-quarters of a mile to Mercy Hospital. It was escorted by two snowmobiles and backed up by a piece of heavy snow-moving equipment, just in case.
“They just kind of weaved around streets, and up sidewalks to get to the hospital,’’ Deborah Hojnacki said, after talking to her son.
“We are just very thankful,’’ she said.
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