I haven’t posted in years but today we lost one of our own to COVID. He wasn’t old. He wasn’t frail. In fact he had been downgraded from the ICU just last week and was doing better. This weekend his body shut down. They intubated him and put him on ECMO. Last night they pulled him off life support.
I am so heartbroken for his children. For the men and women he was supposed to deploy with this month. For his brother and for our physician who was his friend and helped his family make the decision to let him pass peacefully.
And I am so angry too.
Angry because he wasn’t vaccinated. Angry because this shot and masks and COVID in general has become so politicized. That there is so much fear and misinformation. Maybe if it wasn’t he would have gotten the shot. Maybe he wouldn’t.
I will never know. But it won’t change the fact that a good man who dedicated his life to helping other people is gone now.
It won’t change the fact that there’s now a hole in our ER family and we are grieving while also carrying on caring for the people who didn’t believe COVID would get them. Carrying on looking into eyes full of fear as we tell them yes you have COVID and it doesn’t look good for them.
Eyes that I’m afraid look just like our coworker’s before they had to sedate him and intubated him during his last conscious moments.



















