Massachusetts woman gives birth to twins — one in ambulance — during blizzard

The blizzard that dumped nearly three feet of snow across New England was no match for a 28-year-old Massachusetts woman who gave birth to twins during the massive snowstorm.

Paticia Strickland, of Worcester, Mass., started having contractions as the storm was raging — and just after the roads in Massachusetts were ordered closed. An ambulance soon arrived to pluck her from her home.

"All the snow gets plowed to my front door, so to get me out there, we were slipping on ice," Strickland told WCVB-TV. "One of the paramedic guys fell. It was crazy."

As soon as she got into the ambulance, her water broke, she said.

"Like a minute later, I had another big, sudden urge to push, and my son was, like, halfway out of me," said Strickland, who who was 35 weeks pregnant. "That was so crazy, because I just reached down and I could feel him there. I was like, 'Oh my God, my baby's here!'"

The boy, Gabriel, was born in the ambulance. His twin sister, Aliyah, was delivered after Strickland arrived at UMass Memorial Medical Center. The premature babies will be monitored at the hospital for another seven days before going home.

Worcester got 34.5 inches of snow, a single-storm record for the central Massachusetts city.

Strickland said she had been joking with a friend about going into labor during the blizzard. "Me and my friend, we were like, 'Oh, that would be awesome if you went into labor,' and I was like, 'Oh no, don't say things like that,'" Strickland said. "I'm like, 'You're going to talk it into existence.' I always say that. And, like, an hour and a half later, what do you know?"

Strickland's twins weren't the only "blizzard babies" born during the huge storm.

Danielle Smith, of Nantucket, Mass., went into labor just as the power went out on the island, ABC News reported, forcing Nantucket Cottage Hospital to rely on its generator for power.

Smith gave birth to baby Cayden Moore at 3:35 a.m., a hospital official said.