She never got a chance to hold her baby in her arms — cut down by a snowplow a week before she was due to give birth.
Doctors weren’t able to save Min Lin, 36, but they delivered the Brooklyn woman’s baby after the mom died.
Lin and her husband, Jin Feng Lin, were putting groceries into their trunk in the snow-swept Fei Long Market parking lot on Eighth Ave. near 63rd St. at about 10:45 a.m. Thursday.
The Bobcat plow, driven by supermarket owner Wu Wu, 42, backed into the expectant mom, who was stepping back, police sources said. It wasn’t clear how fast he was going. Wu was packing snow into an empty parking spot next to Lin’s car in Dyker Heights when the accident happened, police sources said.
Paramedics rushed Lin to Maimonides Medical Center. The Sunset Park woman died at the hospital just before 11:45 a.m.
In the wake of the tragedy, doctors performed a miracle. They delivered a 6-pound, 6-ounce boy by emergency Caesarean section, officials said. The newborn was in critical condition at Maimonides Medical Center’s neonatal intensive care unit.
The baby went without oxygen for 17 minutes before he was delivered, a complication that could have damaged the baby’s brain and organs, heartbroken family members told DNA info.
“The family … it’s not real good,” Lin’s roommate Song Qing Huang, 37, told the Daily News, adding that the young mom also had a 5-year-old son, Kevin.
“I asked her husband [Jin], ‘How’s the baby?’ … he said, ‘Not good.’ “
“Doctors say [they need to] check the baby for three more days,” Huang said somberly. “[Jin] watches the baby now.”
To make matters worse, Lin’s son Kevin hasn’t been told that his mother has died, Huang said.
“He’s mommy’s baby, he’s mommy’s boy,” said Huang, adding that little Kevin was staying with Lin’s sister-in-law.
Lin was expecting to give birth next week.
The mom was nervous about going out in the snowstorm Thursday morning, but opted to brave the elements so she and her husband, who works at a restaurant in New Jersey, could make a scheduled appointment with her obstetrician.
“I talked to her in the morning,” Huang said. “[She said] it may be hard to take her son to school. She said [she’d] maybe stay home, but today she wanted to go to see the doctor.
“She’s a very good woman, a good mommy, a good wife,” explained Huang, who moved in with Lin’s family a few months ago. “She was happy for the new baby.”
Neighbors were stunned to hear about Lin’s death.
“Oh, God, a Bobcat?” asked neighbor William Smutko, 20. “I see those things all around, coming up on the sidewalk, I try to avoid them.”
“I saw her a few times,” Smutko recalled. “She was a nice lady, she never bothered anyone. I would see her with the baby stroller.”
Huang said Lin, a native of China, and her husband met in New York and lived on Eighth Ave. before moving to 54th St. about a year ago.
Lin would call her family in China every day and give them updates on the baby’s condition, Huang said.
“She loved the baby … she loved the family,” Huang said.
On the couple’s door is a Chinese New Year charm that, when loosely translated, means “be safe.”
The doting mom always had a smile on her face, neighbors said.
“I’d see her out with the big belly,” said Iris Soto, 42. “I’d see her coming in and out and we would smile at each other. We’d see each other doing things like shoveling and taking out garbage.”
Wu remained at the scene of the accident and later was slapped with three summonses, officials said.
Cops were still investigating Thursday evening, but no criminal charges were expected to be filed.
Workers at the Fei Long Market, considered one of the largest Chinese supermarkets in Brooklyn, said they did not know how the woman was struck.
This is the second time a Brooklyn resident was killed by a vehicle removing snow in the last two weeks.
On Feb. 3, a 73-year-old man was mowed down by a backhoe driving in reverse as it cleared snow in Brighton Beach.
