A Buffalo couple cared for the body of a stranger who collapsed and died outside their home on Christmas Eve during a rescue attempt by the woman’s family.
Antwaine Parker said he will always be in debt to David Purdy and his fiancée, Cassieopia Layhee, for trying to save the life of his mother, Carolyn Eubanks, and sheltering her body at their Ideal Street home for an entire day.
Cars remain abandoned on the Scajaquada Expressway and Delaware Avenue "S-Curves" several days after the Blizzard of 2022. The nearby 1901 Pan American Exposition neighborhood is a winter wonderland buried beneath a deep layer of snow.
“They’re two beautiful people. They didn’t have to let me in,” Parker said on Tuesday. “I had to thank Dave and Cassie, two strangers I’ve never seen in my life, never met. They allowed my mother to rest in peace on their living room floor.”
Purdy said he was heartbroken that he couldn’t do more to help Eubanks, 63, and Parker.
“It’s saddening. This lady was six months younger than my mom. My mom lives a couple blocks away and is on oxygen, and if she needed help, I’d hope there would be people out there to help her, as well.”
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Purdy said he plans on attending Eubanks’ funeral and will keep in contact with Parker.
“I think we did make a friend for life under the worst circumstances possible,” he said.
Eubanks had a heart condition and needed electricity to run an oxygen machine.
Parker knew his mother wouldn’t survive in her Lovejoy home with no heat and no electricity. Her portable oxygen canisters were almost empty.
Parker said 911 operators told him there was nothing they could do to respond in the blinding blizzard.
More people in Western New York have died due to this storm than died as a result of the Blizzard of '77.
Knowing it was a risk, Parker and his stepbrother Kenneth Johnson decided to drive Saturday afternoon from Cheektowaga to Eubanks’ Lovejoy home. The trip in normal weather takes less than 10 minutes by car. It took Parker and Johnson seven hours on Saturday, because they continually encountered stuck vehicles that needed to be pushed out. Parker ended up parking his Jeep Cherokee nearly two blocks away from Eubanks’ house due to the road being jammed up by other cars.
Parker and Johnson gathered up Eubanks as best they could and began walking with her back to the vehicle. But Eubanks quickly fatigued.
“She’s like, ‘I can’t go no further.’ I’m begging her, ‘Mom, just stand up.’ She fell in my arms and never spoke another word,” said Parker.
Parker pounded on several Ideal Street doors for help. Eventually, Purdy opened his door to the stranger in a ski mask, and when Parker explained what was happening, Purdy burst outside in a T-shirt and slippers to help carry Eubanks inside.
Ultimately, it took Parker, Johnson, Purdy and another neighbor – using a kid’s sled – to get Eubanks to the porch through snow drifts as high as 3 or 4 feet.
Inside, Parker and Purdy took turns trying to resuscitate Eubanks, but it soon became clear that she had died.
When Parker told his wife by phone what had happened, she became distraught and was planning to drive to Ideal Street. Parker and Purdy agreed it would be best for Parker to return immediately to his Cheektowaga home and leave Eubanks’ body at Purdy’s house, Purdy said. It would have been too difficult to get her body to Parker’s vehicle, he said.
Purdy said he kept the body covered inside the house, and when power and heat returned on Sunday, he moved the body to his porch to slow down decomposition. He said he called Parker to make sure that was OK.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer said Tuesday he spoke with Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to urge the feds to launch a “whole-of-government response” to the historic snowstorm.
“I done it as respectful as I could,” said Purdy. The body remained at his home for about 24 hours before it was taken to Erie County Medical Center.
Purdy was clearing his driveway Sunday when a group of first responders showed up on Ideal Street with snowmobiles, a front loader, and a pickup truck with a plow.
Purdy yelled out that he had a dead body on his porch, and the first responders loaded the body into the pickup.
“They said her body was going to ECMC and would be there within the hour,” he said.
In addition to her son, Eubanks was survived by four stepsons, two stepdaughters and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
“She loved her grandkids, spoiled them rotten,” said Parker.
Parker said his mother surely would have died in her home alone if he had not tried to rescue her, and he does not regret his actions.
“I didn’t give up and let her die by herself. She didn’t die alone. I can live with that for the rest of my life, knowing that I fought for my mother. She tried and tried until she couldn’t go any further,” said Parker.
Watch as a City of Buffalo worker uses a wheel loader to plow through the three feet of snow covering Norwood Avenue in the Elmwood Village.
Jay Tokasz
Reporter
My byline has run in the Ithaca Journal, USA Today, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle and the New York Times. I have been a staff reporter at The Buffalo News since 2002 and currently am part of the watchdog team.
