A Diary of a Night at Our Central Park Hospital
As night falls in New York City, a dedicated team of medical professionals show up for work at the Samaritan’s Purse emergency field hospital in Central Park.This is the story of the night as they battle the deadly COVID-19 pandemic in the tents.
6:30 PM
The night shift arrives at the emergency field hospital for their shift. Most of them have gotten just a few hours of sleep despite having gotten back to their rooms 11 hours ago. They’re tired but restless, a mixture of fatigue and adrenaline that keeps them tossing around in their beds. Even as they drive back to the site, they know they never actually left it.
7:00 PM
ICU:Nurses begin checking in on patients.
"Every night when we come in, we pray that we won’t see the same faces, that our patients from the night before have graduated to step down. It is heartbreaking to see the same people here every night fighting for life. We love them and just want to see them whole and healthy again."Nurse Anesthetist Corinne
All is peaceful. There are six patients in ICU—four men and two women. They all seem sound asleep. You would never know that they are fighting for their lives. You can hear the sound of the oxygen flowing, like the tent itself is breathing. Nurses check on each patient, stroking their foreheads and holding their hands as they talk to them. There’s no indication that the patient knows what is being said, but the nurses talk anyway, almost as if to reassure themselves that there is still life and connection.
They go about their work meticulously, taking all necessary steps for infectious disease protocol. It is important that they keep themselves safe as well. They have read the reports of healthcare workers getting sick, and yes, even dying. They don’t want to be a statistic, but they aren’t afraid either.
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“We’re all just praying for one night when things go smoothly, when patients don’t code. There’s a moment every night as we’re coming in and passing our colleagues who are coming out. And we see the weariness on their faces. And the weight of all of it hits you—how many people have gotten sick, how many have died. But that’s just a minute. Then you take a deep breath and you pray and you walk into the ward and you see these patients that need you and you get to work.”Nurse Brendan
8:03 PM
ICU:The silence is shattered as a patient is rushed into ICU. He is thrashing, gasping for air. The nurses shout his name and try to comfort him, to calm him. If only he could understand that they’re there to help. But he is fighting this team, who is desperately trying to get him the oxygen he needs. Beads of sweat pool at the line where his forehead meets his curly gray hair. After five minutes of struggle—five minutes that feel like an eternity—he is finally at peace. He has breath again, even though it is breath that goes in and out of his lungs at a frantic pace. The team is then able to get to work. Large tubes go in. Small tubes go in. By 8:22 PM, all is quiet again. The patient’s family calls. The doctor assures them that he’s stable. He’s now on a ventilator. He’ll get good care here. This family is calm. The doctor says not all of them are.
9:13 PM
ICU:A patient wakes up. He’s a man in his 50s. The nurses remove his bedpan and tenderly clean him. He looks embarrassed to be reduced to having someone wipe him clean. They cover him with a new, clean warm blanket, and their eyes smile at him through the plastic protective shield. When they turn him sideways, he is able to help them. They call him “strongman,” and the corners of his mouth try to force themselves into a smile around his breathing tube. His wife has told them that he is stubborn, but that he has a strong faith. She asked if the staff would pray for him and their family. They ask him if it would be OK for them to pray for him at this moment. He nods yes and shuts his eyes again. Later, they say he tries to exert himself too much, and they have had to change his tubes frequently because of the secretions that harden inside of it. They become like rocks blocking the airflow in the tube. It’s like breathing through a coffee stirrer instead of a straw.
There’s camaraderie here. These people have known each other for less than two weeks, and now they have to function as a team. But they’re more than a team, they’re like blood. They know how to work with and around each other. There’s no bickering, no petty complaints. There’s no time for the things that don’t matter. Here and there, they are able to spend a minute or two talking to each other about their hometowns, their families. Sometimes, that’s the only way to cope.
9:53 PM
The strongman crashes. His oxygen saturation drops suddenly and his pulse fades. A team of five rush to his bed. Once again, his breathing tube is clogged by secretions that look like rocks. One of the team hooks up what looks like a plastic two-liter bottle and begins squeezing to breathe for him. They work frantically—turn off the propofol, we need atropine now, please help us Heavenly Father. They are able to get his oxygen saturation back up to 96 percent and can feel his femoral pulse come back strong again. They get his tubes changed. The physical effort of saving his life in that moment would have exhausted anyone. They should rightfully be able to sit down and gather their own breath and thoughts. But there’s no time for that. At 10:07 PM, they thank God for His mercy in saving this patient and thank each other for the teamwork before moving on to care for the other patients.
11:10 PM
FEMALE WARD:A woman in her late 50s is sitting up in bed trying to cough up mucus. Three nurses are gathered around her, encouraging her to get it out. She is struggling; nothing will come. She says that it is hopeless. She is worried that she will get worse. She knows how this could end. She apologizes to the nurses for being so much trouble. Nurse Karman says, “That’s why we’re here, to care for you. We love you.” Nurse Erin rubs her arm with double-gloved hands. She has to wear them to protect herself, but compassion moves through any barrier. The nurses begin patting her back, and finally a large wad of mucus comes out. The nurses encourage her and show her that her oxygen saturation level is rising. She and her family have expressed that she is a person with strong Christian faith when she arrived at the hospital. The nurses ask her if she would like for them to pray for her, and she says, “Yes, I would like that very much. Please.” Nurse Erin begins to softly hum hymns. The patient keeps her eyes closed and leans into the sound. Her oxygen level continues to rise. They ask her if she wants to lie back down. She says that she feels good now and would like to continue sitting up. She has hope again.
Emergency Medicine
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