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Tractor clearing snow kills pregnant New York woman, baby delivered by C-section

Posted at 3:54 PM, Feb 13, 2014
and last updated 2014-02-13 17:54:36-05

By Haimy Assefa and Ray Sanchez

CNN

NEW YORK (CNN) — A pregnant woman was killed Thursday after being struck by a privately owned tractor clearing snow in parking lot, but her baby boy was delivered by cesarean section, authorities said.

The nearly full-term boy — weighing 6.6 pounds — was in critical condition at Brooklyn’s Maimonides Medical Center, where his 36-year-old mother was pronounced dead on arrival after being struck as she was loading groceries into her car.

The victim was identified as Min Lin, a Brooklyn resident, police said. Lin arrived at the hospital within 10 minutes of the accident, and the baby was delivered in less than a minute, hospital spokeswoman Eileen Tynion said.

Police said the Bobcat compact tractor equipped with a snowplow was backing up and struck the woman about 10:40 a.m. in a parking lot in the rear of the Fei Long Market. Her husband was with her.

The 42-year-old operator of the private snowplow was being questioned, police said.

The incident occurred during New York City’s sixth winter storm. The latest storm was expected to dump up to 14 inches on some parts of the city.

At least 11 deaths have been blamed on the severe weather across the nation. On Thursday, snow walloped Washington, Philadelphia and Boston. A band of heavy snowfall hit parts of Connecticut, with rates of 3 to 6 inches per hour.

The National Weather Service reported near-blizzard conditions over northern parts of New York City, northeast New Jersey, the lower Hudson Valley and coastal Connecticut.

In addition to the weather-related death in New York, two people were killed in Georgia, and two died in North Carolina as the storm system moved up the Eastern Seaboard.

In Texas, three people died when an ambulance driver lost control on an icy patch of road outside of Carlsbad, the state Department of Public Safety said. A patient, a paramedic and another passenger were pronounced dead at the scene.

In Mississippi, authorities blamed the storm for two traffic deaths.

The-CNN-Wire
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