A woman from Buffalo jumped into action when she saw a disabled man caught in the historic blizzard.
As the brutal storm hit several parts of the country over the holiday weekend, Sha'Kyra Aughtry was at her home when she heard someone yelling for help on the morning of Christmas Eve.
As reported by CNN, Aughtry and her boyfriend Trent found 64-year-old Joey 'Joe' White - a local movie theater worker - outside suffering from severe frostbite.
When the mother of three tried to call 911 for emergency help, no one came. She then became worried for his safety as she doesn't have a background in medical care.
Aughtry took to Facebook to share what had happened and said that White was so frozen they had to cut his socks off, use a hairdryer to dry his pants that were frozen to his legs, and cut the straps of a Wegman's bag from his hands.
The couple also used big shearing clippers to cut a ring off his finger, which was swollen and turning black.
Watch her first livestream below:"I’ve called the National Guard. I’ve called 911. I’ve called everybody - they just keep telling me I’m on a list. I don’t want to be on a list," Aughtry said on her Livestream. "I don’t care about nothing else. This man is not about to die over here."
"I can't do it," she emotionally pleaded on the live stream. "He is 64 years old. His name is Joe. Y'all need to come and get him, I don't care who comes and gets him, but y'all need to get this man some help."
Eventually, Aughtry's appeals were answered. She posted another Facebook livestream of her and a group of men taking the elderly man to a hospital on Christmas night.
"I'm in the car with him and some nice Samaritans that came and snowplowed us out," she said, explaining that one of the men said he saw her first livestream and came over to help.
The livestream shows Aughtry reassuring White in the back of the car on the way to the clinic, saying: "You’re doing an excellent job, Joe," adding, "You’ve just got to breathe, right?"
White suffered terrible fourth-degree burns and ended up receiving specialist treatment. His sister spoke with CNN about the terrifying ordeal and said that she is so thankful to the mother.
"We were all trying to help each other and it was wonderful," she told the outlet. "And now I feel like I have a sister and three nephews,” she said, referring to Aughtry and her sons."
White’s employer, Ray Barker, who is the program director of North Park Theater, has known him for more than 30 years. He said that the worker got confused after leaving his group home on Christmas Eve morning during the snowstorm.
The theater director explained that White may have assumed that he needed to go to work that day, even though he had the day off.
"The theater is really his whole life," Barker told CNN. "We’ve been worried sick about Joe. We know that he’s getting good medical care at the moment and we can’t wait for him to get back to the theater."
The theater started a support fund on GoFundMe for White, which as of this writing has amassed $44,430 in donations - surpassing the $20,000 fundraising goal.
They also honored Aughtry for her courageous help by starting a fundraiser for her family, which has garnered $79,533 in donations.
Under the donation box, the employees wrote that without the brave mother's "generous spirit and fierce determination" to help White help, he would've tragically passed away.
"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," they added.