ICU nurse compares working at Ground Zero after 9/11 to battling COVID-19
ICU nurse Anthea Noel on why the coronavirus crisis is worse than the aftermath of 9/11.
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A New Jersey intensive care unit nurse, who worked at Ground Zero after 9/11 and is now on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic, got emotional during an interview on “America’s Newsroom” on Monday when she compared what it was like treating patients during the two tragedies.
“When I went to Ground Zero I was a new nurse. What I saw, it was acute trauma. Everything happened at one time,” Anthea Noel said. “Now we’re seeing people stagger weeks and weeks and a few months after the fact. They’re still coming in and it’s an illness. It’s not trauma.”
As she wiped away tears she noted that “people are dying” in a staggered fashion and “it’s a lot.”
During a coronavirus press briefing, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the numbers have been “flattening, but flattening at a terribly high level … Put in to context 9/11, which was supposed to be the tragedy of my lifetime, 2,753 lives lost, we’re now at 9,385.”
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“It’s like there’s no end,” Noel said. “We have patients coming in and as soon — if one expires or somebody recovers, we have another ventilator coming in and it’s just over and over.”
“It’s nerve-racking. It’s emotionally disturbing,” she continued. “We’re trying our best, but we feel like our best sometimes is not good enough.”
She went on to say that in the midst of all the tragedy, there are some glimmers of hope.
She brought up an example saying that on Sunday, at the hospital where she works, St. Michael’s Medical Center in N.J., she took two recovering COVID-19 patients off ventilators.
“To see these patients extubated, taken off the ventilator, is so gratifying,” Noel said. “To be able to call their families and tell them, ‘Your loved one is going to be okay. The worst is over.’ That was such a good moment. [As] opposed to the other calls that we have to make about patients expiring.”
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“Yesterday was triumphant,” she continued as she wiped away tears. “We were so elated, so happy.”
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