LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Thirty years ago, a young Louisville girl needed to fly out of Louisville for life-saving surgery after a massive snowstorm crippled the city. A movie about that day called "Ordinary Angels" premieres with the actors in the film in New York on Monday.

"Ordinary Angels" features Hillary Swank and Alan Ritchson. It's a story about a 3-year-old Louisville girl in desperate need of a liver, a local church and how ordinary people can do extraordinary things.

What happened locally in 1994 is now a motion picture. Swank plays Sharon Stevens Evans, a hairdresser for the grandmother of Michelle Schmitt, who needed to travel out of Louisville to Nebraska after one of the worst snowstorms in Louisville's history paralyzed the city. 

"My name is Sharon. I'm just a hairdresser with a splitting headache," Swank said. "I'm good at plenty of things -- taking no for an answer ain't one of them."

The real Sharon Stevens Evans, a retired hairdresser who now lives in New Albany, wrote the book "Ordinary Angels" that's the basis for the movie. 

"It was a success story," Sharon said. "That's how we do it in Louisville."

Sharon said she was happy with Swank's portrayal.

"She was amazing in it," Sharon said. "It makes me feel honored that she wanted to play me."

Sharon said she became aware of Michelle's situation after seeing her picture and a story in the Courier Journal telling people she needed a liver transplant. 

"The thing is have faith," Sharon said. Don't think you are unworthy to get a calling. When I got mine with that newspaper, there was no turning away from it. That's how it comes to you."

Michelle was born with a liver deficiency due to a medical condition and needed a liver transplant. Michelle's mother had just died.

"It's unlikely for me to the read the newspaper and I was always in a hurry, and I saw it laying on the counter and started reading it," Sharon recalled. "It was about the family needing help." She said, "It just took my heart. After I read it, I went to the funeral home and met the family and I never walked away."

Sharon then dedicated her life to helping the Schmitt family any way she could, while rallying others to help too. She would later become the hairdresser for Michelle's grandmother. 

She held a "Hair Angels Hair a thon" where the money raised went to the Schmitt family.

Sharon said watching the movie and seeing their story was surreal. "It's never sunk in, even now. I recognized the stories. I don't relate to it being me up there, although it's me and then some."

The Schmitt family, including Michelle's father and grandmother, are also portrayed in the film.

"A lot of people say they're going to do something and don't do anything, and I'm not one of those kind of people," Sharon said. "If I say I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it."

The Schmitt Family had been waiting for years for a call letting them know a donor liver was available. It finally came on Jan. 17 -- a day when Louisville was digging out of the record-breaking snowstorm that blanketed the city in 15 inches. 

"The thing is we did not expect snow the day her call came," Sharon said. 

The snow presented challenges, Sharon said, but they managed to overcome them. Specifically they needed a place for a helicopter to land to airlift Michelle to a plane that would take her to Nebraska. With the runways on both Louisville airports covered in snow and impassable, Sharon mobilized a massive effort by the community. 

That meant getting Mayor Jerry Abramson involved, along with getting the word out on local radio stations. 

"I had preset a jet team up, we were ready to go, and then I went to the Mayor's office and they assisted us to the radio station," Sharon said. 

The community responded quickly to the call for help, and dozens of people rushed to Southeast Christian Church's parking lot at the old location on Hikes Lane. They shoveled a path that allowed the helicopter to safely land. 

"There is no words for this," Sharon said. "You are literally watching a miracle happen before your eyes."

Michelle was able to get the transplant that she needed. 

"There are a lot of messages in this movie," Sharon said. "Don't give up. Stick with it. If you lose something, something better is going to replace it."

While much of the movie is true, Sharon said there are parts that aren't completely accurate. In the movie, Sharon is portrayed as a recovering alcoholic, but that isn't true. 

"I've never been a drinker, I've learned from others' mistakes," Sharon said, adding that her mother was an alcoholic. "Alcohol took her life over, but she was not that person. She passed away by the time I was 21 years old." 

Sharon said she had talked to film makers about the alcohol issues, and wanted the struggle with alcoholism included in the movie.

"I asked them to -- that's the one thing I wanted them to put in there and they invented it to be me because of time.

"At first, I was reluctant, because so many people knew I didn't drink," Sharon said. 

But film makers told her there wasn't enough time in the movie to include that part of the story exactly the way it happened, so Sharon was portrayed as an alcoholic because "that is only the way they could do it. So I told them, go for it. I'm an old lady. What do I care? If it gets a message out, I'm all for it."

'Ordinary Angels' premiere at Southeast Christian Blankenbaker

WDRB file -- This image shows the audience for the screening of 'Ordinary Angels' at Southeast Christian Church on its Blankenbaker campus in Louisville, Ky. (WDRB/archive)

The movie is already getting great reviews from people who have attended earlier premieres. Southeast Christian Church held a premiere in January at its Blankenbaker campus. Thousands of people attended and at the end of the screening, people who helped shovel that day 30 years ago were recognized, as they stood up in the audience.

Sharon and the Schmitt family were also there, along with former Senior Pastor Dave Stone, who is also portrayed in the movie.

Michelle's operation was a success, allowing her to live another 27 years before she died in May 2021 from a stomach aneurysm. Sharon said she knows Michelle would be proud that her story is being shared, and she can't wait for others to see the movie. She'll get to meet Hillary Swank and the other actors at the New York Lionsgate premiere on Monday.

"It's the launch to good things and messages going out to the world," Sharon said. "We are going to be in no less than eight countries." 

Sharon hopes people will continue to spread love. She said, "Be helpful. Be kind. We're in times that we need each other."

"Ordinary Angels" hits theaters nationwide on Feb. 23. 

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