02/02/2003

A lot of babies may have been conceived during the Blizzard of '78, but only a handful of women were unfortunate enough to go into labor during the height of the storm.

Brenda Keeling, of Burrillville, was one of them.

"My husband came home and said, 'You better not go tonight.' Then, around suppertime, I said, 'Uh oh, we'd better go.' "

During the next 5 1/2 hours, Brenda was shuttled from one rescue vehicle to another until she arrived at Women & Infants Hospital. Her husband, Glenn, drove Brenda to Chepachet, where she was picked up by a rescue vehicle from Harmony. That truck took Brenda as far as Johnston, where another rescue crew transported her on the final leg of the journey.

"We got stuck around Providence College and students came out and pushed cars out of the way," Brenda told The Journal 24 years ago. "There was a doctor in one of the parked cars and he came over to look at me. I was getting nervous so I kept asking when we were going to get there. They kept saying, 'five minutes, five minutes,' and it would be an hour, another hour."

Meanwhile, Glenn was plowing through the storm in his truck, taking back roads and cutting across lawns. To his surprise, he got to the hospital two hours before Brenda did.

In the end, Jessica Lynn took her time. She wasn't born until the following day.

Her 25th birthday is Friday.