By BoroPark24 Staff

The historic blizzard of 2026 turned the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge into a ghostly span of white, effectively cutting off Staten Island from the rest of the city. While most of New York retreated behind locked doors, Dr. Joseph Felicia, an esteemed orthopedic surgeon at Maimonides, faced a harrowing reality: patients were prepped for surgery at Maimonides Medical Center, and the specialized expertise required for their procedures was currently trapped behind three feet of snow.

The commute, which usually takes thirty minutes, had become an impossible feat for a standard vehicle. Recognizing the urgency, Chaveirim of Boro Park dispatched a heavy-duty, four-wheel-drive SUV to the doctor’s home.

The journey was a slow-motion battle against nature. Visibility was near zero, with the SUV’s wipers struggling against the relentless accumulation of ice. The Chaveirim driver navigated through unplowed side streets and drifted highways, guided by a singular mission to get the surgeon to the operating theater to perform surgery on three patients. 

By the time the SUV pulled up to the Maimonides entrance in Brooklyn, the city was at a total standstill. Dr. Felicia stepped out of the vehicle and directly into the hospital. Without a moment’s hesitation, he transitioned from the chaos of the storm to the calculated precision of the OR. 

Because of a dedicated team of volunteers and a surgeon’s refusal to let a historic weather event dictate patient outcomes, the scheduled surgeries proceeded successfully. It was a morning defined not by the height of the snow, but by the depth of a community’s commitment to its neighbors.