Surgical Intensive Care Unit Nurse Danielle Melapioni, RN, shares some of the touching moments she has witnessed as a nurse during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Members of the Community Medical Center team in Toms River have been tirelessly caring for patients, and one another, as they respond to the coronavirus pandemic. Throughout it all, they have responded with strength, skill, and compassion, and shown who they truly are – heroes.
Transcription
In the ICU, we see the most critical, so we have had loss of life, and you get to hold those hands of those patients, but you get to be there at the bedside and sometimes, you’re the last person they see – you know, the faces of those people. They kind of just stick with you. The first one was hard, and you thought it would get better. It doesn’t. It doesn’t get any easier. Also, I’ll never forget that our ICU team implemented different ways to keep the humanity in all of this. Something that I’ll never forget is the moment of silence for every single patient we have lost. We stop what we’re doing, we come together. Doctors, housekeepers – whosever around – we all stop – and we all give that person a moment of silence. That, to me, it’s really special, that they can do that.