Getting to work could wait til after the Feb. 9 blizzard for most of us, but Heather O'Bright and Julio Ortiz say they could not wait.
"We felt the obligation to do it," said Ortiz, a management major at Central Connecticut State. "We needed to feed these residents and we needed to do this walking, just for them, so they cannot go hungry."
He and his girlfriend, Heather O'Bright, an elementary education major at Central, work in the kitchen at Monsignor Bojnowski Manor, a nursing home in New Britain. They were on the phone with each other and two other workers at 4 a.m. during the blizzard, and decided they had to walk to work through the waist-deep snow and punishing winds..
"I made it," said O'Bright, who's had three knee operations after playing sports at New Britain High. "I slipped and I fell down in the snow a couple of times and just rested my legs because my knee was bruised. It's still bruised."
Ortiz made it too, and along with the other two workers they served hot maple cereal, omelettes and toast to the residents. The four of them didn't leave til Sunday night.
"Heather is really amazing," said Ortiz. "I felt really bad at the beginning but I told her I was really proud of her for doing it."
Besides the praise, he served up a Valentine's Day dinner and a dozen roses for her.
Photo Credit: NBC Connecticut/Doug Greene