Christmas Eve during the Blizzard of 2022 will be remembered for more than snow. It’s the day one woman saved a stranger’s life.
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Sha’Kyra Aughtry was on her couch inside her Thatcher Avenue home when she heard someone outside scream for help.
A man she did not know was literally freezing.
“The winds were sweeping him away. I seen his body and then I didn’t see his body. He was stumbling and falling,” she said.
Aughtry didn’t know the man and was hesitant about opening her door, but she saw he needed help.
“I told my boyfriend Trent, hey, there is a guy outside we gotta bring him in,” but she said he wasn’t on board right away.
He went outside and had a hard time bringing him indoors because the man was nearly frozen, “Ice balls was on his hands. He was like frozen, his pants were frozen, his shoes were frozen.”
She managed to cut a frozen bag off his hands, and get a ring off of his finger as she noticed he was losing circulation.
Aughtry called a family member out of state who is a nurse to get assistance on how to proceed with frostbite and poor circulation due to the cold.
She asked the man his name and he gave her the number of his sister. It’s when she made the call and learned that the man Joe White, known as Joey was from a group home in the area. He was trying to go to work at the North Park Theatre.
Joey ended up staying with the family for two days. She was trying to get help through 911, and the National Guard to get him to a hospital in the blizzard.
Frustrated with no response, she made a plea on social media for help to get him to a hospital. Good Samaritans responded, including former football player Doug Worthington.
Two other men arrived in a truck after seeing the outcry for help and transported Joey to ECMC. He remains hospitalized.
“He said to me in the car and it touched me he said I’m scared. I said I’m scared too and he said am I gonna die. I said we’re not talking about dying.” Comforted with her by his side, she said Joey then, “looked at me and said I love you and I said I love you too Joey.”
Her lifesaving effort has not gone unnoticed. Her name along with her boyfriend’s name is now on a marquee at the North Park Theatre on Hertel Avenue in Buffalo.
A worker there started a gofundme to show her appreciation.
“I appreciate it and my family appreciates it. I was just paying it forward like we all should do,” Aughtry said in an interview with Two On Your Side’s Claudine Ewing.
The mother of three owns Heartfelt Cleaning LLC and works for Global Industrial Services Inc. as a janitorial manager.
Christmas morning, Joey wanted pancakes and she made them for him and they watched football.
“He will forever be a part of my family, no matter the color of our skin,” she said, “we have to work together.”
On Monday, we spoke with Aughtry and she said Joey is making major improvements and hopes to be out of the hospital in about a week.