Superstorm Sandy was no match for super-dad Jeremy Donovan.
Donovan’s sister had called at 11 p.m. on Oct. 29, 2012, to say she heard on the news that NYU Langone Medical Center, where his son, 3-week-old William, was recovering from heart surgery, was forced to evacuate its patients because its basement was flooding with stormwater.
Susan Watts/New York Daily News
The happy families have a strong bond in their storm experience. One couple chose to give their daughter the middle name Sandra just as they were leaving the hospital.
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Despite the raging storm, the father from Stony Brook, L.I., braved whipping winds and dark, flooding streets to walk the mile from where he was staying in Manhattan to the hospital at E. 30h St. and the FDR Drive.
Susan Watts/New York Daily News
Front row (l-r): Luz Martinez with Emma, Tamar Weinstock with Stone and Daria Shurba with Maria. ‘It was an adventure,’ said Weinstock, reflecting on her Sandy experience.
“I have to see my son!” Donovan recalled pleading with an NYU security guard as hospital officials were in the midst of transferring 322 patients by ambulance to uptown hospitals.
Susan Watts/New York Daily News
Dr. William Schweizer with Tamar Weinstock and baby Stone. Schweizer remembers going around and around with his stethoscope last Oct. 29 ‘just trying to hear everyone’s heartbeat.’
“When I finally got inside, I raced up 15 flights of stairs, and then rode with him to Mount Sinai Hospital in the ambulance. It was the most surreal night.”
On Tuesday, the Donovans were among 15 relieved and happy families who gathered at NYU Langone Medical Center to celebrate their babies’ first birthdays, and to reminisce about the heroic NYU nurses, doctors and staff who got them safely through their harrowing ordeal.
Susan Watts/New York Daily News
The babies, who have close birthdays, will one day come to learn the significance of their shared experience.
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There were “Sandy” moms who remembered giving birth by the light of glow sticks and flashlights.
Susan Watts/New York Daily News
Luz Martinez and Michael Pimentel with baby Emma.
Moms like Tamar Weinstock, 33, of Long Island City, Queens, who delivered her 7 pound, 1 ounce baby boy at 10:39 p.m. on Oct. 29, 2012 and less than hour later was strapped to an orange plastic sled and carried down to an ambulance that whisked her and her family to Mount Sinai Hospital.
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Susan Watts/New York Daily News
Tamar Weinstock, of Long Island, with baby Stone. Less than an hour after giving birth, Weinstock was strapped to an orange plastic sled and taken down to an ambulance that carried her and her family to Mount Sinai Hospital.
“It was an adventure,” said a beaming Weinstock, as her doe-eyed son, Stone, smushed a vanilla birthday cupcake into his mouth.
And Dawn Charmatz, 38, who delivered her blue-eyed girl, Juliana, at the darkened hospital at 9:54 p.m. on that unforgettable October day, aided by glow sticks and a headlamp that her husband, Brian, brought along in a hurricane preparedness bag. Not long afterward, they were told they had to leave the building.
Susan Watts/New York Daily News
JPMorgan Chase Internet technology project manager Daria Shurba says Maria ‘is a special baby, and I think she will be a special girl and special young woman her whole life.”
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“I literally got myself dressed, and the baby dressed in a fleece onesie. I was nervous, it’s a hurricane. I just thought, ‘I need her to be warm.’ And then I went down to the lobby on a plastic sled.”
Susan Watts/New York Daily News
‘It’s so nice to feel recognized for the ordeal we all had together,’ said a Connecticut mom at the Tuesday function. Families gather to share a photo.
As those in the room on the one-year anniversary of the storm Tuesday sang a heartwarming ‘Happy Birthday’ to the 15 Sandy babies, OB/GYN Dr. William Schweitzer beamed with pride.
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He recalled running around with his stethoscope and a fetoscope on Oct. 29, 2012, “just trying to hear everyone’s heartbeat” — as 15 million gallons of contaminated water filled NYU’s basement, crippling the institution.
“Many of the kids we brought down were premature, many weeks early, and they are here today — all great, happy and healthy,” he added. “Seeing all these beautiful children today beginning to walk and babble, you just realize that life does go on and we get over our adversities and we are better for it.”
Connecticut mom Daria Shurba felt like one of the lucky moms, all things considered. She gave birth to a healthy little girl, Maria, early in the day of Oct. 29, 2012, before the heart of the storm hit. So she had the rest of the day to rest before it was time to evacuate.
“It’s so nice to feel recognized for the ordeal we all had together,” said Shurba, who is an IT project manager for JPMorgan Chase. “Maria is a special baby, and I think she will be a special girl and special young woman her whole life.”
PHOTOS: HURRICANE SANDY: BEFORE & AFTER
Her husband, Dmitri, looks forward to telling his little girl when she is old enough the story of her birth. The tale they will tell her will highlight how she got her middle name: “Sandra.”
hevans@nydailynews.com
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