Nurses Lead the Nation During Pandemic Crisis
As more and more folks are making the decision to become LVNs in California, the healthcare crisis has loomed over our entire nation. Stories of frontline workers, both in healthcare and other fields, have certainly dominated the narrative on social media and in international news stories.
Nurses deserve every second of recognition we can possibly provide, so we wanted to honor those frontline hero nurses. We hope these stories inspire you, especially if you’re interested in becoming an LVN or are looking into why you should become an LVN in California.
Virginia Nurse Opens a Food Pantry for Struggling Colleagues
The thing about nurses is that they solve problems holistically. When this Fredericsberg, Virginia nurse found out that her colleagues were struggling to find essential household items (and crucial ones like diapers, sanitary wipes, and toiletries), she jumped into action.
“Our ICU is truly like a family, especially now more than ever. We bond together, we celebrate the good times and mourn the bad times,” Mason told CNN. “So when this started happening, we began looking after one another. So I thought, if we can do this as an ICU, why can’t we do this for the hospital and the whole health care system?”
The pantry she put together became so popular with the surrounding community, that the hospital system set up permanent donation and pantry centers at two other hospitals and the corporate offices.
New York Nurse Who Treated First COVID-19 Patient Makes Time 100 List
You may not have heard of Amy O’Sullivan, but her patients will likely never forget her, and thanks to Time Magazine, the rest of us now know her by name.
In addition to being the first nurse in New York to treat a patient in the days before the rest of the country understood the severity of the outbreak, she herself fell ill with COVID. After she spent a few days on a ventilator, and then recuperated at home, she was right back on the frontline in the ER. What can you say about her outside of this: amazing. What a fighter.
Team of ICU Nurse Heroes Save Both Pregnant Mom and Her Baby
Jacklyn Rodriguez has no memory of delivering her baby when she was only 28 weeks pregnant. There’s a good reason for that: she was intubated and sedated when she delivered. While she was unconscious, struggling to survive a COVID-19 infection, nurses immediately realized that not only was she in mortal danger, so was her unborn child.
“Even with forcing as much oxygen as we can into her, her oxygen levels are not staying high enough,” Angela Derochers, the nurse manager at Tufts Medical Center for OB-GYN, robotics and urology told ABC News. “And so we called the OB attending [physician] up, and he looked at me and he said, ‘We need to deliver this baby because they could both die.’”
Both momma and baby needed to spend some more time in the hospital as she recovered from COVID and her premature son got the care he needed. Thanks to that incredible nurse team, both are thriving and doing well. We say this all the time around here: nurses are amazing.
This Headline Really Says It All: “Two Nurses on Their Lunch Break Move Fast and Stop a Car Fire”
Not only were these nurses already working in the ER during the pandemic, they were also ready to stop an emergency in its tracks before it got worse.
From the story:
“The nurses’ quick response even saved the truck from being completely totaled. The scenario provides just another reason to give thanks for healthcare workers, who are ready to help at a second’s notice.”
The incident, which a bystander with quick reflexes managed to capture on video, is pretty remarkable to watch. Check it out here.
This Nurse Hero Follows the Call Wherever She’s Needed
As the pandemic first showed up in coastal hotspots like Seattle and New York City, local responders were struggling to keep up with staffing demands. Hundreds of nurses dropped everything they were doing and literally showed up in those areas to save the day. While we can’t feature all of them, this story really caught our eye.
Dee Dee Wallace, a surgical nurse at INTEGRIS Canadian Valley Hospital in Oklahoma City, OK, left her home to travel to New York to provide critical support in the early days of the COVID outbreak. Not only did she spend weeks there, she then traveled to Texas when cases started surging in the state. A local credit union recognized her dedication with what they call the Proud to Serve Award. We have a feeling that this nurse is proud already of the work she is doing. When she talks about herself, she is humble and full of the kind of humility and grace that is typical of so many of those nurses who are filling in when and where they are needed at this critical time.
“I was more than willing to go because like I said, that’s what we do. You know, I knew that there were people in need and there were nurses being worked, and they needed relief. And I felt like I could go and give my skills and learn in the process in going up there to help out.”
Do you know a frontline nurse hero you’d like us to recognize? Are you interested in becoming an LVN in California? Have you found yourself lately asking questions like “How do I become an LVN?”
Reach out to us today and let us know! We’re ready to help you learn more about our 100% online learning environment, our 20+ year history, our record as one of the best nursing schools in California…and more!
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