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‘I’m glad I’m alive’: How Facebook users, snowmobiles and neighbors helped a mother get home to her kids
“It got heavier and faster than we thought,” she said.
On the way home a gust of wind started to pick up and we were forced off a side street and eventually into a whiteout, trying to find our bearings with GPS. An hour and a half later, they arrived at Target Plaza on Walden Avenue in Cheektowaga. They all started panicking.
Then they tried targets. The door employee not only welcomed them inside, but handed Ms. Sypniewski a steaming cup of her hot Starbucks cocoa and draped a blanket over her shoulders. A seat and a portable heater were waiting nearby.
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It was just the beginning of two days of around-the-clock hospitality provided by a group of seven target workers who are also stuck in the shop. He is one of the worst blizzards in memory and the driver takes comfort and care.
When it became clear that they would be stuck overnight in the closed shop, workers filled carts with inflatable mattresses, sheets, pillows and blankets. Then he spread out to everyone in the store and said, “Please make yourself a small house.”
“They said, ‘We have whatever you need,'” she said.
That means snacks, water, a change of clothes, basic hygiene items, a phone charger, and things to kill time like coloring books and markers. The employee unwrapped the TV and set it up near his Starbucks kiosk in the store the next day so everyone could watch Buffalo his Bills game.
Samuel LeBron Jr., 7, and his sister Natalie LeBron, 11, are looking for books to pass the time.
Samantha Christman
“They deserve recognition,” she said. “They really deserve something to stick with the whole situation with such a positive attitude.
Employees scraped down the ice-covered shop windows to watch more people in trouble. Even on Sunday they kept coming. About 25 people, including an old man and a woman with muscular dystrophy, who were stranded in the car, evacuated to the store.
On Sunday, when everyone was finally dug up and rescued, the workers opened the package and prepared a Christmas meal with mashed potatoes.
Sypniewski has gotten an unexpected response since she got home, she said.
“It’s a dream to spend the night in a store!” everyone says. ” she said.
Jessica Shipniewski and son Samuel LeBron spend the night together.
Photo provided
TikTok user @carlarodxd was also stuck at the store, but when she chronicled the event on her TikTok page, it could explain why so many people were interested in the story. Her real name is Kara Rodriguez. On the way to pick up her mother from the hospital, her weather improved. (Her mother ended up staying in the hospital and she was fine.)
Her most popular video has been viewed 5.4 million times. The gray quilted air underneath her blanket shows her camping on her mattress, surrounded by clothing racks.
Another video with 250,000 views showed her walking down an empty aisle in a store with the “Walking Dead” theme song playing in the background. Others show her companions staring out a snow-filled window, painting, eating snacks, and finally being plowed by a front loader.
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Back home, she posted an update letting her many new followers know she was successful. Several commenters said they were glued to their cell phones as they watched it all unfold.
“Good luck! Your target story went viral at Christmas dinner in Wisconsin,” wrote TikTok user @xcuyr1258.
Rodriguez gave kudos to the workers.
“I feel lucky because of them,” she wrote on TikTok.
People at the store have been criticized for traveling on Fridays when they knew a storm was coming, and Sypniewski said he could understand why.
“Okay. I shouldn’t have been there. I had enough warnings,” Sypniewski said. “Thankfully, thanks to these workers, everything worked out, and we are very grateful.”
