(New York, NY)– A lakes area resident who’s a registered nurse can truly tell you what it’s like to battle COVID-19 in one of the hottest spots in the nation for the virus. Diana Montgomery of Arnolds Park is currently in New York City where she has been working at Elmhurst Hospital as well as one in Brooklyn. Montgomery tells KUOO news what she’s been experiencing, at Elmhurst Hospital in particular…
“It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before in my whole nursing career and I’ve been a nurse for 30-some years. It is like a war zone there. It absolutely is. But people have to remember that everybody with the virus is being brought there so it is havoc, it is chaos. I think the hospital, it’s a 585 bed hospital and there’s more than 2,000 admits in there right now. The E-D there has many different sections for trauma one. I’ve been in a couple different sections and usually it’s like one to a room. There can be five or six to a room. There are no hallways. It’s bed to bed to bed. So it is chaos but in the whole picture that is the worse of the worse. Kingston is a little less chaotic, but yes, New York has been hit hard.”
Montgomery says it can be emotionally and physically draining, but she says she’s never had second thoughts about offering her help…
“We carry 10 patients or more a day which is kind of unheard of as a nurse, in the E-D especially. I took my little tracker and I walked way over 10 miles the second day I was there. It’s like that every day.”
Montgomery also commented on the situation with personal protective equipment, or PPE…
“Like we have not needed masks but you don’t change them like you normally, your PPE, you don’t change normally as like in a hospital in Spirit Lake or from room to room. It’s yours for the day and, you know, you do not touch your face. I can tell you that. I have weaned myself from that because yeah, pretty much every time I’ve worked every single patient I’ve had had the virus. Every one. Every single time.”
Montgomery added she’s grateful for the outpouring of support she’s been receiving from those back here in northwest Iowa.
She plans to remain in New York City the next several weeks.
