Another amazing rescue out of the Buffalo blizzard is making headlines. Around 6:30am on Christmas Eve, Sha’Kyra Aughtry heard someone screaming for help outside her Buffalo home. She went out into the storm and found Joey White in a snowbank, White's sister tells the Washington Post. Aughtry and her boyfriend carried the 64-year-old in and saw signs of severe frostbite. They cut his frozen socks from his body and used a hair dryer to loosen and peel off other clothing as they tried to warm him up. Then they called his sister, whose phone number he had memorized, and together, they tried to get medical help to White. His sister lives 20 miles away and couldn't get to him due to the ice and snow on the roads.
Meanwhile, Aughtry "covered him up, she did everything for this man. She washed his clothes, she bathed him, she fed him," White's sister tells the Post. But emergency services had been severely impacted by the storm as well, and no medical assistance arrived. On Christmas Day, Aughtry posted a live video to Facebook, which went viral, and also asked for help on a local Facebook group. Neighbors arrived to plow snow around Aughtry's home and transport White to a medical center, where he was diagnosed with fourth-degree frostbite and is still being treated. Aughtry traveled with him to the center and reassured him.
White's family says he has mental disabilities and left his group home amid the storm, possibly to walk to the movie theater where he has worked as a janitor for about four decades, despite his boss having told him not to come in. "For someone who’s used to being in a pattern, I think it’s hard not to engage that pattern," says White's boss, who adds that White continued to show up for work even when the theater shut down during the pandemic. "Joe is used to his pattern." A GoFundMe campaign for White has raised more than $40,000, while one for Aughtry has raised more than $70,000. "Without hesitation, she put aside her family's plans for Christmas and treated his sores as best she could," the campaign says of Aughtry. "Without her generous spirit and fierce determination to get Joe help, my friend would be dead." (More Buffalo stories.)
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