A Buffalo woman found a stranger crying for help in the blizzard with a tote bag frozen to his hands. She scrapped her Christmas plans to care for him.
Courtesy of GoFundMe
- A woman in Buffalo rescued a disabled man stranded in a Buffalo snowstorm on Christmas weekend.
- Sha'Kyra Aughtry said she heard the man screaming for help, frostbitten from the extreme cold.
- A GoFundMe has been set up to help the man finance his hospital bills.
A Buffalo woman rescued a stranger who was stranded outside during the deadly snowstorm that has left at least 31 people dead.
In a Facebook post and video on December 25, Sha'Kyra Aughtry said she found a man with special needs screaming for help on the street on the morning of December 24.
Aughtry and her boyfriend decided to take the man — who has been identified as Joe White — into her home, bathing, feeding, and tending to his injuries.
"I currently have a 64-year-old white man in my house," Aughtry said in the video, adding that the man "was being blown up and down the street — it was out of control."
Aughtry said White suffered injuries from the extreme cold, including having "hands with ice balls" on them. She said White had a tote bag frozen to his hands and that she had to blow dry the ice off of them.
She also said she called emergency services for help, but that no one was able to come to their aid.
"They keep telling me I was on a list. But I don't want to be on no list," Aughtry said. "This man is not about to die over here," she added.
It took two days before White could be transported from Aughtry's home to ECMC Hospital in Buffalo, where he is currently being treated, per a GoFundMe page White's coworker Chris Dearing set up to help White cover his medical bills.
Dearing wrote on the page that White, who is mentally disabled, "did not understand the true severity of the storm." As of December 28, the GoFundMe had raised more than $42,000, more than doubling its goal of raising $20,000.
White is in stable condition and "in good spirits," but it's unclear if he will have lasting damage to his hands, per the GoFundMe page.
Dearing has also set up a GoFundMe page for Aughtry, who "put her Christmas plans aside and tended to his wounds the best she could." Aughtry is a mother of three children, according to her Instagram profile.
"Without her generous spirit and fierce determination to get Joe help, my friend would be dead," Dearing wrote on the GoFundMe page.
"Sha'Kyra did all of this without any thought of reward, but she deserves one, and so does her family. She's a hard-working young mother, and I want to show her at least a fraction of the support she gave my friend Joe," he continued.
The page has since raised nearly $75,000 — far outpacing its goal of raising $20,000.
Aughtry and GoFundMe did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.