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LI Medics Fight Snow, Blizzard To Help Woman Get Kidney Transplant

STONY BROOK, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP)-- This weekend's blizzard may have been one for the history books, but it wasn't going to stop a determined paramedic from getting a woman her kidney transplant surgery on Long Island.

Melanie Chirichella waited a year and a half for a kidney transplant. When the call finally came in that there was a perfect match, a blizzard was raging up and down the East Coast.

At first, emergency crews told her Saturday there'd be no way an ambulance could navigate through whiteout conditions to take her nearly 20 miles to Stony Brook University Hospital.

Dawn Francisquini, a transplant specialist at Stony Brook, says she wasn't quite sure they would pull it off, but she didn't have to ask paramedic Pete Amato twice.

Amato's brother received a kidney transplant about a decade ago. He knew there wouldn't be time to wait.

"Once the organs are harnessed out of the body, you only get a few hours," Amato told WCBS 880's Alex Silverman.

He navigated around cars spinning out of control and took the 64-year-old to the hospital.

"She was quite amazed," Amato said.

It all came together in the end and Chirichella's doctors say her recovery is going well. The patient calls it a miracle.

(TM and © Copyright 2016 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2016 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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