Reunited after 57 years: he was an intern, she was a preemie not
expected to survive
Mark Leger
| CBC News | Posted: June 8, 2025 9:00 AM | Last Updated: 2
hours ago
Dr. Donald Craig greeted by surprise guest during award
presentation in Saint John
Image | Krista Barczyk and Donald Craig
Caption: Krista Barczyk presented Dr. Donald Craig with the
Founders Award at the New Brunswick Medical Education
Foundation's Champions of Care gala in Saint John in late
April. (James Walsh/Rod Stears Photography Ltd.)
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Dr. Donald Craig was an intern at the old General Hospital in
Saint John on a snowy night in January 1968 when a doctor asked
him for help.
The doctor had to deliver a baby at nearby St. Joseph's
Hospital, but a woman at the General was also about to give
birth. That child was three months premature and expected to be
stillborn.
"Can you handle this?" the doctor asked.
Craig had delivered babies before, but only under the
supervision of a doctor or a resident. So he grabbed a book on
human labour and began to review it.
Then a nurse came and told him the baby was breech — something
the doctor hadn't mentioned. So he went back to his book to
look that one up. A few hours later, a nurse came to take him
to the delivery room.
"She screams at me, 'Craig, she's ready, she's pushing and
she's crying. Let's go.'"
Craig had to break the baby's clavicle on its way out, but he
manged to deliver the baby, still expecting it to be stillborn.
And then the baby started to cry.
"My heart took off faster than the baby's heart, and the mother
started crying, 'Is that my baby crying?'"
WATCH | 'It's small, it's alive. I have to keep it alive'
Media Video | CBC News New Brunswick : As an intern, this
doctor was told to deliver a stillborn. Turns out, she wasn't
Caption: Dr. Donald Craig delivered Krista Barczyk in 1968.
Decades later, Krista, her mother and the doctor who changed
their lives recall that moment.
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The baby was alive and Craig's thoughts quickly turned to her
survival. She weighed two pounds and was three months
premature. Her odds of survival weren't great.
He knew the General had just hired a pediatrician who
specialized in newborn child care and premature births — and
she happened to be in the hospital overnight in case she was
needed during the storm.
Craig said that doctor soon appeared, wearing a bathrobe over
her pyjamas. She looked at him and asked, "Did you deliver that
by yourself? Give me the baby."
He said the doctor "let the mom kiss her baby and said, 'We're
just taking the baby down the hall. We're going to be fine.'
Then she disappeared."
To this day, Craig says the doctor's skilled care was critical
to the survival of the baby, who was in the hospital for a
month before being released. Craig checked on her every day and
gave updates to her mother, who wasn't allowed to stay in the
hospital with her.
"I delivered that baby, but [the doctor] had the skill, and was
trained to handle it from there," Craig said.
A carefully managed secret
More than 55 years later, Craig is retired after a decades-long
career in family and emergency medicine. He has served as
president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New
Brunswick and the Saint John Medical Society.
He also founded the New Brunswick Medical Education Foundation,
which provides scholarships to the province's medical students
who agree to set up practice here — a critical part of the
efforts to increase the number of doctors in New Brunswick.
In April, the foundation gave Craig the Champions of Care
Founder's Award at a gala at the Saint John Trade and
Convention Centre. The person who presented him with that award
was Krista Barczyk, the premature baby he delivered as an
intern decades ago during that January snowstorm.
It was a planned reunion the foundation kept secret from Craig
until the moment Barczyk was called to the stage.
"I didn't hear half of her speech because I was so shocked,"
Craig said. "Then I got a copy of her speech and I printed it
off to put up on my wall."
Image | Alyssa Long, Donald Craig and Krista Barczyk
Caption: Alyssa Long, Krista Barczyk and Donald Craig. Long and
her colleagues spent two months tracking down Barczyk for a
reunion with Craig. (James Walsh/Rod Stears Photography Ltd.)
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Barczyk and her daughter visited Craig's table afterward to
give him a hug and have a chat. Craig said he could see the
multi-generational impact on her family.
"We not only saved her life, we saved her children's lives and
their children and on and on," he said.
For decades, Barczyk has told her birth story, but she really
felt the impact standing next to him on stage.
"If it hadn't been for him, none of what I went through in my
life would have happened. I never would have fallen in love. I
never would have played sports, I never would have gotten
married, had my three children and been able to have
grandkids," she said.
"You can tell your birth story 100 times, but when you're
standing with the man who basically saved your life … it really
hits you pretty hard."
Her mother knew it might be a stillbirth
She's also thankful to the woman who gave her life — her mother
Dorothy Fillmore.
Fillmore went into the hospital that day in 1968 because she
was in a lot of pain. She was only six months pregnant and very
concerned about having a miscarriage.
Fillmore said she was also aware that it would be a breech
birth, and that Craig went to the hospital library to study up
on the procedure. So when she heard the baby's cry in the
delivery room, her joy was tempered by concern that her
daughter might not survive.
Image | Dorothy Fillmore
Caption: Dorothy Fillmore said she was overjoyed when she heard
her baby's cry in the delivery room, but that joy was tempered
by concern that her daughter wouldn't survive. (Graham
Thompson/CBC)
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"I didn't know if she was going to live or die," Fillmore said,
"so I just stayed in that mindset until she started to gain
weight."
For the next month, it was that kind of waiting game — gaining
a little bit of weight each day until she was ready to leave
the hospital at five pounds and 12 ounces.
'I can't get this story out of my head'
The story of Barczyk's birth resurfaced because of the keen
interest of Alyssa Long, the executive director of the medical
education foundation, and fellow staff members David Ryan and
Natalie Boyce.
As part of the preparations for the awards gala, Craig took
part in a video interview for communications materials for the
event. They asked what patient stories stood out the most over
his 43-year career and he began telling them about Barczyk.
"It struck a chord with me. I was about four or five months
pregnant at the time and just thought, 'I can't get this out of
my head,'" Long said.
"It stuck with me and it stuck with my team to the point where
I said, 'What if we could find this baby?'"
It took eight weeks of sleuthing, but they found Barczyk and
invited her to the event. She was living in Memramcook and
working in Moncton for a tech company. She has three kids,
three grandchildren, and is getting married again in the fall.
Image | Krista Barczyk and Donald Craig
Caption: Krista Barczyk and Donald Craig look at her baby
pictures from the hospital taken in 1968. (Mark Leger/CBC)
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Several family members, including her mother and older brother,
came to the event in Saint John.
Barczyk and Craig's story, and their reunion on stage, had a
profound effect on many of those in attendance.
"There were a lot of tears," Barczyk said. "I went into the
bathroom and there were two ladies there. They were both crying
when I walked in, and they both screamed, 'Oh, it's you.' They
came over to me, and they were like, 'Tell us the story again.'
They gave me hugs and one of them said, 'You know, I will carry
the story with me for the rest of my life.'"
Craig and Barczyk met again several weeks later on Craig's back
deck overlooking the Kennebecasis River in Rothesay. They took
a few minutes to look at her baby pictures taken in the
hospital.
She asked him questions about the birth and he told her once
again of the challenges he faced, including breaking her
clavicle as he steered her through the birth canal.
She stretched her shoulder area and laughed, saying "That's why
it hurts when it rains, it's your fault."
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