This was no ordinary trip to McDonald’s — and for one Minnesota family, it’s no ordinary McDonald’s.
The Lino Lakes location, which can be found off Interstate 35, is where Eleanor Evenson was born in October of 2014. Her mother Clare, then 28 weeks pregnant with her, had stopped at the restaurant for a bathroom break, and that’s when the unexpected happened.
Eleanor was born in one of the women’s stalls, and suddenly the Golden Arches found itself busier than usual as paramedics and police responded to get the baby the care she needed.
As Good Morning America notes , Eleanor was born 12 weeks early and diagnosed with a rare chromosomal condition called 22q11.2, requiring her to have multiple surgeries as well as physical, occupational and speech therapy throughout her life.
Weighing just two pounds at birth, she spent the first 113 days of her life in the neonatal intensive care unit at Gillette Children’s Hospital, where she was re-admitted “a dozen times,” Kare 11 says.
A decade later, the family returned to that same location to celebrate Eleanor’s birthday.