You're not in this Woman's shoes, she's the daughter of a friend of mine and sent me this true story , please don't be stupid and twist it into another political football .

We're all in this together, like it or not, I don't .

As you likely know already, my daughter Rachel is an emergency room/trauma nurse at a major hospital. Today she reported to work for her first 12 hour shift after having six glorious days of reprieve from her stressful job which she loves so much. As is usually the case, she luckily checks in with us to decompress and touch base a few times during the week after work. Knowing how crazy things have gotten lately, we asked her what it was like today.

Her assignment today, which switches a bunch to other positions within the unit just as important, was to be in the trauma bay, where the life and death decisions are made for patients one step away from death’s door whether from stabbing, gunshots, accidents, or near fatal conditions.

My daughter is very experienced, having attained a good degree of seniority among her coworkers and much training in her field. She is also very self driven to do things as best as she possibly can. For the reason I tell you this following fact, you will soon see.

Rachel has done hundreds of intubations in her career. Those are the tubes forced down the throat of a nearly unconscious or totally unconscious patient due to acute breathing problems. As you may know, this is the big issue being talked about these days as relief for all these record number of patients or are projected to be done as a result of the Covid-19 virus so they can be hooked to these ventilators that are so desperately needed.

Bear in mind that patients who come in are to be tested for the virus, but because the results are far from immediate, the tests are done on suspected cases, but until those cases prove positive or negative at a later time, every situation is a “rule out”. In other words, treat them as a virus patient until you can with certainty rule them out having the virus.

Today, a very seriously ill patient was so close to death from breathing problems on the trauma bay operating table, that they desperately needed to be incubated immediately or certain death would occur. As one nurse called out to use PPE, personal protective equipment, the doctor plunged the tube down the throat into the person. Not one person had the opportunity to suit up but likely saved the patients life, although likely we will not know for the purpose of this story.

I tell you this because this exact procedure is what everyone is talking about, that medical staff needs face shields, gloves, masks and gowns. It takes time to don those items even in a slow approach. The reason to use them is because the patient can reflexively vomit, expel virus laden air droplets, or mist, thereby exposing everyone in the room to the virus laden contaminants.

Obviously, everyone in the room has now been exposed. But it is unknown if the patient had been sick to start with or the respiratory problem was caused by some other problem.

Rule out...........

Obviously I am fearful for my daughter and others, but the doctor needed to make a split decision so it is hard to fault him I guess.

We have resigned ourselves to the fact that we may not personally see our daughter especially for many months to come, but this is an accepted risk my daughter has always taken and acknowledged, whether it be SARS, MERS, TB, or Ebola.

When people talk about heroes, believe them. They are in the front line for all of us.

Please share this with whoever you choose. I have no problem with it.

Glenn

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better