Desiree Strout was supposed to deliver her third child on Monday, January 22. But as the 27-year-old drove to Remington-Fairway General Hospital in Skowhegan, Maine, excitement quickly turned to horror when her vehicle slid on black ice and crashed into a frozen pond.
The nine months-pregnant mother of two died in an ambulance on the way to the emergency room — but the baby boy miraculously survived after he was delivered by C-section, police told The Patch. He was later transferred to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, where he remains in critical condition.
Harry Weeks, a passenger in Strout’s 2005 Chevy Trailblazer, suffered a punctured lung and a lacerated liver. Strout’s 8-year-old daughter was also in the SUV but walked away with just minor injuries, per Central Maine.
“It was not speed,” Skowhegan Police Chief David Buckham told Central Maine. “She just hit the black ice and lost control.”
Franny MacMichael Clark, a friend of Stout’s, praised her for being a loving mother of two girls.
“Her oldest daughter, Delanie, is such a smart little cookie and I know Desiree home-schooled her kids, so you could tell, it was evident, that she spent a lot of time with them and teaching them,” Clark told Central Maine. “She was a sweetheart — her parents are my neighbors.”
Strout’s uncle Dana Weeks described her as having a big smile. “Now the little man’s empty-handed, you can find a dad figure any place, but moms are golden,” Weeks told local news outlet WGME. “You aint gonna find that ever place, you can’t. You can’t replace a mom, not in my book.”
