When teenager Kori Malenfant and her parents took a trip to New York for her surgery, they didn’t expect to be on the receiving end of such compassion and understanding.
The family’s visit to New York wasn’t for fun – it was to receive life-saving treatment for Kori’s Chiari malformation at the Presbyterian Hospital.
In simple terms, this is a crack or opening that is in the skull which can then lead to the brain becoming dislodged and moving into the spinal canal.
It can be treated, but only with surgery – and that’s what the family was there for.
Kori’s surgery was a success, so she and her parents were ready to go back to Portland in Maine.
After four days of resting, they packed up and went to catch their train.
They hopped on board an Amtrak train in New York, but the train was slowed by the bad weather, causing them to miss their connecting train from Boston.
The next train would arrive in 2.5 hours, which would be fine if not for the freezing conditions.
It was a very cold winter night, and Kori’s family knew they needed to find a warm place to rest up – somewhere that Kori could rest her neck and have it supported.
First, though, they had to put their bags somewhere safe.
That’s when they spotted a group of police officers nearby, and they asked if they could help them to stow their bags so they would not be burdened when finding a warm place to camp out by taxi.
But the officers weren’t just going to let them walk away.
They rang up their captain, Captain Kelley J. McCormick, and he soon arrived to speak to them.
McCormick heard the issue they were facing and told them to get into his vehicle so he could help them out.
The family agreed, gratefully, thinking that he would be taking them somewhere just a short distance away to wait it out.
But then they noticed that they were driving for quite a long time.
Kori’s mother asked what was going on, and McCormick laughed and joked that he was legally kidnapping them.
That’s when it dawned on the family – he was bringing them all the way back to Portland!
He explained that he simply could not allow Kori to be out in the cold right after a procedure like what she had gone through, and he was happy to drive them home.
The family was shocked.
They couldn’t believe that McCormick could be so kind to them.
As they talked, they found out more about the man and learned he was one of the main commanders who had been on duty during the bombing at the Boston Marathon not too long ago.
When the Boston Police Superintendent-in-Chief found out about McCormick’s actions, he wasn’t at all taken aback.
He says that McCormick is the kind of person who always gives and gives.
That was definitely apparent to Kori’s family, who simply couldn’t thank him enough.