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#Out of all of them... Milo and Amanda got the most development!
skunkox · 2 days
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Country Lovin Darlin and Rambles.
Is this gonna be self indulging? Very much so. I'm starting to realize no one can stop me, but hear me out real quick. Forgive me if you do decide to read all the way through. It's a lot. 🥲
Before moving to Dahlia, Darlin' used to spend half their summers with their grandparents in Texas. Sorta old money/ retired folk. Big land, but not too much on it. Plenty of room for the shiftsr grandchildgren to play. Passively still making money via whool sales. Yeah, there's other animals, but it's not a giant operation. They do have other empowereds working as ranch hands for them, though.
Anyways, a good moth or so out of each summer as a child, Darlin would help around the ranch, learn to cook and bake, and even participate in town events. (I'm telling you the fucker can cook. Just not for one person.)
Lazy Sunday mornings were spent in front of the TV with their grandfather watching old westerns or things like "The Andy Grifith Show," "Little House on the Prarie," and "Tales of Wells Fargo".
Not even halfway into they stay, they'll have developed a country accent. They still struggled to get be friends with most of the kids their age. Was it because they picked up a garden snake like it was just a piece of rope? Was it because they alegedly chased a kid girl with it that had been giving them hell? Who knows.
I wholeheartedly believe that Darlin was a pageant kid at some point in their life. Regardless of how ruff and tough they are, they were a cute kid. Don't pay the bandaid brand character bandaid any mind.
This is where I say this is really just my version of Darlin and a little bit of Sweetheart. It's Redunk Time.
Specifically for my version of Darlin (fem), "Southern Bell" like fair competitions are what her grandmother would enter the kids in. The one day out of the year she's happy to put on a frilly dress and bows. Not a whole lot of confidence for themselves on stage for the most part, though.
Diving more into the idea that Darlin and Sweetheart used to be friends before the move idea. Sweetheart has gone with them once or twice. Especially when the older cousins were visiting for less time, if at all. The old wolves like a full house, so they had no problem hosting another empowered child.
Sweetheart loved taking pictures and video of their adventures. Still currently holding footage to a misshap of sorts that they swore to never tell anyone about. They also have footage of competitions from the fairs. Including the pageants. Do they plan on telling the pack? Yes. (That's a post for another day)
The duo thought it was weird that the they would be leaving at separate times. They noticed the soured moods of the grandparents but the older wolves couldn't bring themselves to say anything on it in the days leading to their departures. Sweetheart took the flight home alone. Darlin was under the impression that the family was taking a short trip to California before summer ended.
Much to their distraught, their parents had either been moved and or found new jobs in Dahlia. The move was in the works for nearly half a year and they had no idea. Their older siblings knew, but they did everything their parents told them. They got no warning that they wouldn't see their friends anymore. That they wouldn't be attending school that fall with the same kids. That they wouldn't even get to say goodbye to their old house. No proper goodbye to Sweetheart.
Summer visits to Texas were just about haulted. Their parents wanted Darlin to better acquaint themselves with the other pack children. This was a struggle for years.
Sweetheart moving to work for the department and finding themselves with Milo was one thing. But the first time they happened to see each other in a pack meeting was rough. They knew almost instantly who each other were.
Sweetheart had seen a photo in Milo's living room. It was framed next to a lamp. The picture was of Christian and Amanda who awkwardly sat side by side. Hands just nearly touching. On one end of a log. David sat facing forward while Asher sat crooked with an arm thrown over David's shoulder. Both had been laughing. Milo and Darlin had been on the ground and back to back. Darlin had thrown up a rock sign with a small smile, attempting to no ruin the picture with their resting pitch face. Milo sat leaning on one knee, trying his best to look cool and composed.
To make a long story short. Both played dumb as to knowing each other for one reason or another. It wasn't till the Quinn situation, and Darlin coming back to the pack did the two start to speak. It took it all being over for them to finally become close again.
Back to the country thing
Hearing Sam speak for the first time really took them back especially at the end of their conversation with "Didn't your mama teach you not to talk to strange men in the dark, all alone?"
It felt familiar. It disarmed them and put then at ease. Sam's voice is something Darlin couldn't and still can't get enough of. They slip into an accent every once in a while. To them it feels right. Some slips happen in front of the pack and they've been teased for it. Sweetheart knows thr truth and is waiting eagerly to spill the beans on their country loving friend.
So... didn't mean for this to be as long as it is. Really putting a lot into Darlin's character cause it feels right. I like old TV. I mean sorta staticky box tv vibes. My grandfather was into a lot of it. My mom started me on LHOTP and I recently discovered a live channel for it and only it.
I really do apologize for how messy this all looks. It was an accident. Anyways, some bits and pieces of this will eventually be drawn out. Got weeks worth of stuff to do for this Fandom alone 😭
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jupitermelichios · 4 years
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DC: The High-School AU: The Series: The Staff (the musical)
So I finally cast the school staff and teachers for my DC High School AU, which I thought some of you would have some fun with! I took the subject list from a fairly fancy looking private school, because only schools you have to pay for have their subject lists online, so I’m probably offering way more classes than your average state school, but hey, it’s my AU and I wanted to cram in as many supervillains, obscure heroes, and bad jokes as possible.
Admin & Staff
Principle - Amanda Waller
Deputy Principle & Treasurer - Noah Kuttler (the Calculator)
Nurse - Myra Mason (she was Dr Midnite’s nurse and love interest in the 40s & 50s, then got fridged, but I’m unfridging her and giving her a job with much better survival prospects)
Councillor - Ethel Peabody (she’s a psychiatrist from the Gotham TV show, and also in my headcanon, Amanda Waller’s sister)
Librarian - Stanislaus Johns (The Librarian. I considered bookworm for this job but he’s literally called the Librarian, what was I supposed to do, not use him?)
Admin Staff - Laura Conway (Superman supporting cast and occaisional vampire), Mabel Martin (Riddler’s secretary), Theresa Collins (Goldstar, also Booster Gold’s secretary)
Business
Loren Jupiter (aka Mr Jupiter the richest and therefore most thrustworthy man in the world) - Business 101, Business Law, Entrepreneurship
Wesley Dodds (Sandman) - Business Communications
Annabeth Chamberlain (Brimstone) - Marketing, Hospitality & Tourism (she doesn’t work in tourism, but I figure anyone who can waitress while also having the power to set people on fire and damn them to hell and keeps her job probably knows a whole lot about customer service)
Family & Consumer Science
Miss Tribb (Lobo’s childhood teacher who inexplicably survived the extinction of their species) - Childhood Developement, Early Childhood Education
Neil Richards (The Mad Mod) - Texiles/Sewing, Fashion
Tenzil Kem (Matter-Eater Lad) - Food & Nutrition
Finance
Noah Kuttler (The Calculator) - Personal Finance
Foreign Languages
Matron Bertinelli (Nu52 Huntress, who I’m declaring a sepperate character and the aunt of pre-52 Huntress because they’re radically different characters and I like both of them) - ASL, Italian
Chang Jie-Ru (Nu52 Yo-Yo) - Chinese, AP Chinese
Yolanda Montez (Wildcat II) - Spanish, AP Spanish
Barbara Minerva (Cheetah) - Latin
Health Sciences
Myra Mason - Emergency Medical Responder training
Charles McNider (Dr Midnite) - Anatomy & Physiology, Health Class
IT
Brian Durlin (Savant) - Computer Programming, Web Dev
Jennifer Lyn-Hayden (Jade) - Digital Art 101
Arnold Wesker (Ventriloquist) - 3D Animation, 3D Graphics (I don’t know why but the idea of Wesker as an animator just tickled me. Obviously his real passion is stop-motion, but he learnt 3D because there were more jobs)
English (the fancy private school called this ‘language arts’ which is so prentious it makes me feel slightly nauseous)
Wesley Dodds (Sandman) - English Language, AP English Language
Rac Shade (Shade the Changing Man) - English Literature, AP English Literature
Chloe Sullivan (the worst character in the Smallville TV show, a hotly contested position) - English Language, Communications 101, supervises the School Paper and the Yearbook
Shelly Gaynore (The Whip III) - Englist Literature, Creative Writing
Basil Karlo (Clayface) - Intro to Shakespeare
Nick Scratch (officially his supervillain name is just Scratch, but I refuse to consider that a code-name, looking at you Drake) - Communications 102: Public Speaking
Mathematics (which has a 100% villain make-up, which seems accurate from what I remember of high-school maths)
Noah Kuttler (The Calculator, because I think I’m funny) - Pre-Calc, Calculus, AP Calculus
Harlan Graves (The Underbroker) - Stats, Algebra 1, Algebra 2
Angelo Bend (Angle Man, becuase I know I’m funny) - Geometry, Trigonometry
PE (I realise this is probably too many PE teachers but there are a lot more caonical althetes than just about any other job in the DCU except maybe scientist)
Lawrence Crock (Sportsmaster, you knew this was coming) - Gym, Weight Training, coaches Baseball, Basketball, Tennis & Hockey
Lisa Snart (Golden Glider) - joint-coaches Cheerleading, coaches the Drill Team, Wrestling
Randy Hanrahan (Stallion) - PE, joint-coaches Cheerleading & Cross-Country, coaches Football
William Everett (Amazing Man) - PE, joint-coaches Cross-Country, coaches Track & Field
Matron Bertinelli (Huntress, sort of) - coaches Soccer & gymnastics
Performing Arts
Lisa Snart (Golden Glider) - Dance
Hartley Rathaway (Pied Piper) - Music 101, Music Theory, Composition, teaches Guitar & Percussion
Isaac Bowin (The Fiddler) - Music 101, AP Music Theory, leads Jazz Band, Orchestra, Marching Band
Siobhan Smyth (Silver Banshee) - part-time, leads the Choir and teaches singing
Basil Karlo (Clayface) - Theatre, Theatre 101
Simon Trent (Grey Ghost) - Theatre, Theatre 101, Film Studies
Ted Kord (Blue Beetle) - Theatre Tech
Mary Louise Dahl (Baby-Doll, from B:TAS) - Film Studies, Video Production
Betty Bates (Lady-at-Law, who is technically owned by DC now due to corporate buy-outs) - Debate
Science (do you have any idea how hard it is to pin down areas of specialisation for comic book scientists? TNT is on this list entirely because he’s the only actual honest-to-god professional chemist I could find)
Kirk Langstrom (ManBat) - Biology, AP Biology
Pamela Isley (Poison Ivy) - Biology, Environmental Science
Thomas “Tex” Thomas (TNT) - Chemistry
Achilles Milo (Professor Milo, again not really much of a code name) - Chemistry, AP Chemistry
Will Magnus (I refuse to even dignify it as a code-name) - Physics, Earth Sciences
Ray Palmer (The Atom) - Physics, AP Physics
Adam Strange (DC is just doing this to fuck with me, personally) - Astronomy
Social Studies & Humanities
Barbara Minerva (Cheetah) - World History
Maxie Zeus (ffs) - World History, AP World History (fun fact, Maxie was canonically just a normal history teacher before he got lightning powers, became convinced he was Zeus incarnate, and set out to become a criminal, making him my favourite DC mobster by a country mile)
Terry Long (aka one of the only characters to really deserve to get fridged) - US History, AP European History
Eobard Thawne (every code-name he has is stupid, but lets just go with Reverse-Flash as the least awful option) - US History, AP US History
Nick Scratch - US Government, AP US Government, AP Comparative Politics
Rex Tyler (Hourman) - AP Art History
Magdalene Kyle-Burton (Sister Zero, she’s a sometimes-nun and a sometimes-sister to Catwoman) - Comparative Religion
Michael Carter (Booster Gold) - Economics, AP Microeconomics, AP Macroeconomics
Jonathan Crane (Scarecrow) - Psychology (there is exactly one heroic psychiatrist in all of comics, and I’d already used Dr Fate elsewhere. Scarecrow seemed like the least bad option of the remaining pool for being around children, and he does at least have teaching experience)
Adam Strange - Sociology
Betty Bates (Lady-at-Law) - Law
Richard Occult/Rose Psychic (it’s complicated, lets just say Dr Occult and leave it at that) - part-time, Criminal Justice
Technology & Engineering
Ted Kord (Blue Beetle) - Electronics, CAD, Woodworking
John Henry Irons (Steel) - Engineering, Metalworking
Will Magnus - Robotics
Visual Arts
Linda Lee/Danvers (she’s Supergirl, but I’m making her a different character from Kara Danvers/Kent because the DCU is really short on artists and I needed someone to teach the damn class, although the only thing that really makes her distinct from other supergirls is that she fucked a horse that one time and IDK how that will translate into a personality...) - Ceramics, AP Studio Art: 3D Design, Art 101
Rex Tyler (Hourman) - Graphic Design, Drawing, AP Studio Art: Drawing
Jack Knight (Starman) - Painting, AP Studio Art: 2D Design, Art 101
Jennifer Lyn-Hayden (Jade) - Photography
So there you go - I’ll be honest I still don’t really understand how high-schools in the USA work, and I have no idea what Design studio art even is so I kind of assigned those ones at random, but now it’s done and cannot be changed.
As always this universe is open to prompts so if you want a chapter focussing on any of these characters just drop me an ask or a comment and I’ll see what I can do. Making Dr Occult & Rose Psychic a single gender-fluid person is already on my list to do, since that’s who I thought they were for a longest time when I started reading comics and I’m still kind of annoyed that isn’t canonically what’s going on.
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lagtim3-archive · 5 years
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Can I ask what is your: Otp, brotp and notp from MML?
You can, indeed! Sorry that this turned into a Wall-’o-Text, ‘Nonnie. I haven’t thought about this in-depth before, and I got a teeny bit carried away! 😅
TL;DR:
OTP A: Dakavendish (Also a BROTP!)
OTP B: Milanda
OTP C: Drakotts
BROTP A: Zack ‘n Melissa
BROTP B: Mort ‘n Bradley
NOTP: Uh… Vinnie ‘n Brick, I guess?
OTP A: I’m an absolute sucker for Dakavendish. What can I say? They’re good characters that play off each other really well, and I like that they have a complicated relationship that’s not all sunshine and roses. Still, they can really bring out the best in each other; Dakota encourages Cav to let loose and be more accepting of life, while Cav can coax Dakota into being a more productive and driven person. Excellent banter is also a big plus!
At the same time, I also love Dakota and Cavendish as a BROTP because… well, for one, aside from any potential for romantic love that may or may not exist, there’s definitely platonic love there. Plus, they’d be hilariously awful wing-men for each other. It’d be a disaster, and I love it!
And, let’s face it guys… this is a Disney show, and Disney ain’t exactly known for their willingness to push the boundaries of what the general viewing public is comfortable with. I’m not holding my breath for canon Dakavendish, so I’m pretty okay with the BROTP dynamic as it stands.
OTP B: Milanda! Milanda is definitely my favorite toy ship of the show! Milo, obviously, doesn’t much care to deal with any more chaotic excitement than he has to on the regular, so I can see where he’s coming from when he starts crushing on the no-nonsense paragon of organization that is Amanda.
On the other side of the coin, I’ve really liked watching Amanda develop an appreciation for Milo’s ability to keep calm under pressure, and how he seems to effortlessly manage the absolute chaos that is his life. Seeing Amanda learn by his example to hit the curve-balls life throws at her, instead of losing her head and striking out? Good! Excellent! Fantastic! I love!!!
OTP C: You can blame @drakotts​ for this one, but I got totally suckered into the Scott/Drako rarepair, which is called… Drakotts. You get three guesses as to who coined the ship name, and the first two don’t count.
Why this ship? Glad you asked!
A sun-avoidant vampire (?) would totally love a sun-free, underground environment.
Scott and Drako are both eclectic as all hell, and likely far more open-minded to one another’s oddities than most other people would tend to be.
Scott may not exactly have all his cords plugged into the right sockets, but he’s obvs pretty lonely down there and is covering it up by drawing faces on objects. Regular human (?) interaction would do him good.
Dude, Chad would absolutely lose his pea-pickin’ mind over the sewer mutant / vampire alliance that’s undoubtedly going to take over Danville.
These two side characters just don’t get enough love in general.
What can I say? It’s a cute ship, dammit!
BROTP A: Zack and Melissa! Their interactions have always felt really brother-sisterly to me, y’know? They share a sense of humor and they switch places playing the straight man to one-another. Plus, as someone with plenty of their own not-blood siblings, they just really give me that vibe, y’know?
Plus, I’ll be honest, part of this is a personal bias against the ‘Pair the Spares’ trope. Why–when the protagonist gets a significant other from outside the main character group–do the remaining boy and girl a l w a y s have to end up as a couple? Not that the trope is inherently bad, it’s just so damn over-used that I’m bloody sick to death of it.
Let them be sibs from different cribs! Stop devaluing best-friendship by making it always escalate into romance, as if friendship is a just a lower rung on the relationship ladder or something! Sheesh!
(The above frustration is directed at the trope, not the ship–if you ship Zalissa, more power to you! It’s still cute, I’m just salty that it’s probably gonna end up canon because, of course it is. Very original, no-one saw that coming.)
BROTP B: Mort and Bradley are just great together, and it’s a cryin’ shame we don’t get to see ‘em interact more! We usually only get to see Mort and Chad hanging out, and they’re a fun dynamic to watch, but they’re also really alike. Bradley’s a bit of a smug jerk with jealousy and insecurity issues, and Mort is a totally chillaxed, spiritual kid with good empathy skills. They play off each other so, so well! I can smell the character development from here! Dwampy! Pls!
NOTP: Y’know… I don’t actually have any? I don’t actually dislike Zalissa enough for it to be a NOTP, it just kinda bugs me due to personal trope biases. TBH, I haven’t yet seen an MML pairing that I didn’t think ‘Yeah, okay, that’s pretty valid, I could defo see how that would work.’
For the most part, if the ship isn’t, like… obviously morally gross (ex., a person and a non-sapient animal, or an adult/child ship,) I don’t really care. Hell, I saw someone post a Mort/Milo fic on Ao3 the other day and it was really cute! I end up lowkey shipping a lot of things ‘cause of this mindset.
But, all that is kind of a cop-out answer, so… I think the closest I’ve come to a NOTP is Brick and Vinnie. I’m just really ‘meh’ on it, mostly ‘cause we’ve gotten very little canon interaction between the two, and from what we’ve seen so far, I have a hard time seeing the two as compatible at all.
I dunno, if someone writes a good fic for it I may just change my mind. (That being said, I’m really invested in ‘More Than Survive’, which does have Brick/Vinnie, but that’s one-sided and gets nixed as viable in-story, so I don’t count it.)
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fountainpenguin · 6 years
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What kinds of AU pieces go in the Off the Rails collection?
“Get Flappy Reprise - The Sort-Of Musical” - That ‘fic based off the first draft script of the Musical, where Flappy Bob was actually Imaginary Gary in disguise, and Gary and Betty possibly knew he was an imaginary friend all along and they love and support him. This ‘fic would make mention of all the old songs and their ridiculousness. Also, lots of pixies in birdcages. 
The “You Deserve It” Prompt - An AU where BookwormGal’s take on Anti-Cosmo is replaced with mine, and I rewrite the almost-climax scene of Never Had a Friend Like Me appropriately. Basically, Anti-Cosmo grinds the entire “Let’s throw everybody in lava” plan to a halt, much to H.P.’s annoyance, and spontaneously throws a massive party in Amanda’s honor for zodiac-related reasons. The plan is still to kill her, but now she’s a fancy sacrifice. Norm is still going through paperwork with Sanderson and has no idea what’s going on. 
The “Only an Idea” / “Learn Your Place” Prompts - Also known as Reedfilter Rules AU. Basically, we’ve got girl pixies this time. In fact, one of them is Rani Reedfilter, the Head Pixie before our H.P. came along, and thus the reason for this AU’s name. Pixie society is very different, being less based on insect biology and probably a bit closer to what the true canon would be. Also, H.P. spent 37 years seducing Rani in order to work his way up to the vice president position because that’s just how he is, and Sanderson gossips with everybody and judges him super hard. Definitely more of a schemer than loyal lieutenant.
So it’s just a different take on the Pixies, really. Possibly worth mentioning that the reason H.P. takes an interest in Sanderson in this AU is that he and Sanderson are both Fairy/Pixie crossbreeds, with Sanderson’s mother being a will o’ the wisp. Sanderson has blue eyes, too. My favorite joke about RR!AU is that H.P. is a massive klutz who trips over half of everything and yet still tries super hard to be cool. And unlike his touch-starved Riddleverse Classic counterpart, Reedfilter Rules!Sanderson is super squeamish about any type of physical affection, and I just think it’s funny.
For now, I’ve tentatively chosen to scrap this version of the “Learn Your Place” Prompt (which covered some of H.P.’s flirting from Rani’s perspective) in favor of making “Learn Your Place” a Cupid and Juandissimo friendship Prompt. So I’m not really sure what my plans are for RR!AU, especially since between the two Pixie AUs I have, I favor the next one more than this one. So I might keep it to myself, or I still might make it its own ‘fic. I’m a weirdo that way.
“The Gyne and the Drone” - An absolutely self-indulgent story based on that moment in Fairy Idol where H.P. is referred to as “Sanderson’s friend.” In this AU (Happy Dip AU to you guys), they’re friends who met in their adulthood, and this ‘fic covers the development of that friendship. Specifically, it covers H.P.’s ascension into Head Pixie-hood and Sanderson’s parallel journey up the social ladder to being his alpha retinue drone. It’s kind of like a slow burn platonic friendship with pheromone benefits, as they awkwardly navigate around each other’s expectations and try to work out the whole preening situation when it’s not something they’ve been doing since Sanderson was a kid this time.
In Reedfilter Rules AU, the Head Pixie isn’t allowed to have a mate, and H.P. was a lowly worker who flirted his way up the social ladder after recognizing how much Rani misses the husband (“match”) she had to let go of following her coronation. But here in “The Gyne and the Drone”, only the Head Pixie is allowed to have children (Don’t worry- we’ve got other Pixie companies to avoid inbreeding). So far this ‘fic consists of H.P. sliding from his bed to the floor and whining to his dad that he doesn’t want kids because he “doesn’t liiiiiiiiike people”, and Sanderson dragging H.P. out to his first rave. I’m pretty sure that first one is just a placeholder. Second one is definitely happening.
Basically, it’s an AU where all the general worldbuilding is the same, except there are several Pixie companies and it’s kind of like one of those fantasy books with the castles and arranged marriages, but more corporate. And instead of Wolbachia there are loose hints of haplodiploidy because I am eusocial insect trash and I don’t even. For once H.P. is telling the truth when he says he’s not a dad and has no sons /shot
Don’t ask me what I do in my spare time because it’s just this.
“Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails” - A silly, stylistically-different multi-chapter story about Foop and Anti-Marigold gathering potion ingredients to turn Foop into a boy after his aging potion accidentally turns him into a girl. 
So, it’s an alternate, way more lighthearted explanation on the origin of the “magical to-die-for heart-shaped pendant” we saw in “Blue Angel” than the explanation I went with in Identity Theft. While Identity Theft and “Snips” can’t coexist in the same timeline, neither exactly contradicts Riddleverse Classic canon and in theory you could accept either one as your headcanon’d backstory for the pendant. Even so, I technically consider Identity Theft to be part of the Riddleverse Classic works for purely stylistic reasons.
“Pulling Your Puzzles Apart” - AU where Timmy considers his best friend to be A.J. over Chester, so during Fairy Idol, Norm ends up going to college with A.J. and does not enjoy it at all. The first chapter is done (Mayor’s perspective was surprisingly a lot of fun), and the outline is done with 10 chapters pinned down. Except I still have a few details about the finale to untangle. Hmph.
The title of this piece is from the lyrics of the Coldplay song “The Scientist”, and all the chapters are named after other lyrics in the song.
“King Me” - Riddleverse worldbuilding is exactly the same, but this time Anti-Dusty received his inheritance over Anti-Bryndin. Thus, Anti-Wanda was raised as nobility and heir to the High Countess seat, and Anti-Cosmo was raised in rags on the outskirts of society. Talon still exists and is still raised by both Anti-Cosmo and H.P. (though his biological parents differ from Riddleverse Classic canon). This will probably be a one-shot unless it gets too long and needs to be divided into three. It’s basically a bunch of Anti-Wanda / H.P. friendship as Anti-Wanda works out her feelings on her impending marriage to a man she’s never met. And then… wedding! I also included some pieces from one of the very first Prompts I ever wrote, which had to be scrapped due to conflicting with finalized headcanons. Nice to actually use them in an AU!
Thus far I’ve had to physically restrain Anti-Wanda from sweeping Anti-Cosmo off for immediate kisses, because she would totally do so if I let her and I suspect she’ll get away with it in the end. I only have the Anti-Wanda and H.P. chat done so far, so I’m not sure what the ending is, but I suspect it’s going to dissolve into absolute wedding night fluff. Except for the fact that my document is currently a collection of several directions to take this story, one of which involves broken wings and one of which involves Anti-Cosmo on a farm. So I don’t even know where this is going yet. It could go anywhere. All I know for sure is that it’s told from Anti-Wanda’s point of view and she’s a riot, and Anti-Cosmo becomes High Count in this piece (hence the title).
“Just Ask” - Okay, well, I haven’t really planned anything officially, but I have been entertaining some ideas of an AU one-shot where Gary and Betty both grew up in Dimmsdale independently of one another, and only cross paths at the Learn-A-Torium. It’s their summer job that they each try to juggle with a thousand other life responsibilities (such as Betty’s anxiety issues and Gary’s difficult home life). So it’s a “what could have been” piece about if the Pixies hadn’t invaded their childhoods, and had instead approached them for the first time just before the Musical. Some fun ideas in this one, my personal favorite being Gary’s overprotective biker friends, so it’ll be great if I get around to it.
Dust to Dust and “Antlers for Dummies” are both crossover pieces (with “ChalkZone” and “Milo Murphy’s Law” respectively) and would technically fall in the Off the Rails category too, if I ever do write them. The “First Impressions” Prompt is kinda a crossover too, in that it covers the Creature Convention where Cosmo and Bunsen met according to “Bunsen Is a Beast” canon, and there are other Nick show cameos around too.
Potentially more to come, since I have tons of scrapped FOP stuff and maybe I can recycle some of it. But most of what I write fits within standard Riddleverse canon, so these are the only pieces I know of right now. What sounds interesting to you guys?
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stephenmccull · 4 years
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Lost On The Frontline
America’s health care workers are dying. In some states, medical staff account for as many as 20% of known coronavirus cases. They tend to patients in hospitals, treating them, serving them food and cleaning their rooms. Others at risk work in nursing homes or are employed as home health aides.
Some of them do not survive the encounter. Many hospitals are overwhelmed and some workers lack protective equipment or suffer from underlying health conditions that make them vulnerable to the highly infectious virus.
Many cases are shrouded in secrecy. “Lost on the Frontline” is a collaboration between The Guardian and Kaiser Health News that aims to document the lives of health care workers in the U.S. who die from COVID-19, and to understand why so many are falling victim to the pandemic.
These are some of the first tragic cases.
  Debbie Accad Clinical Nursing Coordinator
Jeff Baumbach Nurse
Araceli Buendia Ilagan ICU Nurse
Leo Dela Cruz Geriatric Psychiatrist
Daisy Doronila Nurse
Frank Gabrin Doctor
Rose Harrison Nurse
Curtis Hunt Social Worker
Kim King-Smith Electrocardiogram Technician
Alvin Simmons Environmental Service Assistant
Vianna Thompson Nurse
J. Ronald Verrier Surgeon
Lost On The Frontline
This project aims to document the life of every health care worker in America who dies from COVID-19. If you have a colleague or loved one we should include, please share their story.
    An Exacting But Loving Aunt, She Was A Mentor Until The End
(Courtesy of Jhoanna Mariel Buendia)
Araceli Buendia Ilagan
Age: 63 Occupation: Intensive care unit nurse Place of Work: Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami Date of Death: March 27, 2020
For Jhoanna Mariel Buendia, her aunt was a constant ― if distant — presence. Araceli Buendia Ilagan emigrated from their hometown Baguio, in the Philippines, to the U.S. before Buendia was born, but she remained close to her family and communicated with them nearly every day.
Read More
OSHA Probing Health Worker Deaths But Urges Inspectors To Spare The Penalties Apr 22
True Toll Of COVID-19 On U.S. Health Care Workers Unknown Apr 15
“She was one of the smartest people I ever knew,” Buendia, 27, said. Buendia Ilagan, who at one point looked into adopting her niece so she could join her and her husband the United States, encouraged Buendia to become a nurse, and talked her through grueling coursework in anatomy and physiology. Buendia is now a nurse in London.
Buendia Ilagan was also demanding. “Whenever she visited the Philippines, she wanted everything to be organized and squeaky-clean,” Buendia said.
The last time the two spoke, in late March, Buendia Ilagan didn’t mention anything about feeling ill. Instead, the two commiserated over their experiences of treating patients with COVID-19; as always, her aunt offered her advice on staying safe while giving the best possible care. She died four days later.
— Danielle Renwick, The Guardian | Published April 22, 2020
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A Beloved Geriatric Psychiatrist And Church Musician Remembered For His Cooking Skills
(Courtesy of Nida Gonzales)
Leo Dela Cruz
Age: 57 Occupation: Geriatric psychiatrist Place of Work: Christ Hospital and CarePoint Health in Jersey City, New Jersey Date of Death: April 8, 2020
Dr. Leo Dela Cruz was nervous about going to work in the weeks before he died, his friends said. Like many in the region, Christ Hospital had an influx of COVID-19 patients and faced a shortage of ventilators and masks.
Dela Cruz was a geriatric psychiatrist and didn’t work in coronavirus wards. But he continued to see patients in person. In early April, Dela Cruz, who lived alone, complained only of migraines, his friends said. Within a week, his condition worsened, and he was put on a ventilator at a nearby hospital. He died soon after.
Friends said he may have been exposed at the hospital. (In a statement, hospital representatives said he didn’t treat COVID-19 patients.)
Dela Cruz, the oldest of 10 siblings, came from a family of health care professionals. His friends and family — from Cebu, Philippines, to Teaneck, New Jersey — remembered his jovial personality on Facebook. He won “best doctor of the year” awards, played tennis and cooked traditional Cebu dishes.
Nida Gonzales, a colleague, said he always supported people, whether funding a student’s education or running a church mental health program. “I feel like I lost a brother,” she said.
— Ankita Rao, The Guardian | Published April 22, 2020
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Alabama Nurse Remembered As Selfless But Sassy
(Courtesy of Amanda Williams)
Rose Harrison
Age: 60 Occupation: Nurse Place of Work: Marion Regional Nursing Home in Hamilton, Alabama Date of Death: April 6, 2020
Rose Harrison, 60, lived to serve others ― her husband, three daughters, grandchildren and the residents of the nursing home where she worked. Though the Alabama nurse was selfless, she also had a sassy edge to her personality and a penchant for road rage, her daughter, Amanda Williams said.
“Her personality was so funny, you automatically loved her,” Williams said. “She was so outspoken. If she didn’t agree with you, she’d tell you in a respectful way.”
Williams was not wearing a mask when she cared for a patient who later tested positive for COVID-19 at Marion Regional Nursing Home in Hamilton, Alabama, her daughter said. She later developed a cough, fatigue and a low-grade fever, but kept reporting to duty all week. Officials from the nursing home did not return calls for comment.
On April 3, Williams drove her mother to a hospital. The following evening, Harrison discussed the option of going on a ventilator with loved ones on a video call, agreeing it was the best course. Williams believed that her mother fully expected to recover. She died April 6.
— Christina Jewett, Kaiser Health News | Published April 22, 2020
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Connecticut Social Worker Had Angelic Singing Voice And A Zest For Life
(Courtesy of the Hunt family)
Curtis Hunt
Age: 57 Occupation: Social worker Places of Work: Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center and New Reach, both in New Haven, Connecticut Date of Death: March 23, 2020
At a shelter for adults recovering from addiction, residents looked forward to the days when Marion “Curtis” Hunt would take the stage, emceeing talent shows and belting out Broadway and gospel tunes.
It wasn’t part of his job description as a social worker. It was just one of the ways he went “above and beyond,” said his supervisor at Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center, Daena Murphy. “He had a beautiful voice,” she said. “He was just a wonderful person — funny, engaging, always a huge smile on his face.”
Hunt, the youngest of four brothers, earned his master’s in social work from Fordham University at 52, and was baptized at his brother’s Pentecostal church at 54. He was a devoted uncle who doted on his dog and cat, Mya and Milo.
It’s unclear how Hunt got infected, but one patient he worked with had tested positive for COVID-19, as did two co-workers, according to Dr. Ece Tek, another supervisor at Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center. Hunt died on March 23, one week after developing flu-like symptoms, said his brother John Mann Jr.
— Melissa Bailey | Published April 22, 2020
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To The End, King-Smith Was Driven By A Desire To Help Others
(Courtesy of Hassana Salaam-Rivers)
Kim King-Smith
Age: 53 Occupation: Electrocardiogram technician Place of Work: University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey Date of Death: March 31, 2020
Kim King-Smith was a natural caregiver. An only child, she grew up close to her extended family, including her cousins Hassana Salaam-Rivers and Sharonda Salaam. After Salaam developed multiple sclerosis, King-Smith visited her every day.
“She’d bring her sweets that she wasn’t supposed to have and share them with her,” Salaam-Rivers said. King-Smith’s desire to care for others was the reason she became an electrocardiogram technician, her cousin added. “If a friend of a friend or family member went to the hospital, she would always go and visit them as soon as her shift was over,” she said.
In March, King-Smith cared for a patient she said had symptoms of COVID-19; she soon fell ill herself and tested positive for the virus. It seemed like a mild case at first, and she stayed in touch with family via FaceTime while trying to isolate from her husband, Lenny.
On March 29, Salaam-Rivers checked in on her cousin and noticed she was struggling to breathe. She urged her to call an ambulance. After King-Smith was hospitalized, she exchanged text messages with her mother and cousin. As the day progressed, her messages carried increasingly grave news, Salaam-Rivers said. Then she stopped responding.
— Danielle Renwick, The Guardian | Published April 22, 2020
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On The Eve Of Retirement, VA Nurse Succumbs To COVID-19
(Courtesy of Mark Accad)
Debbie Accad
Age: 72 Occupation: Clinical nursing coordinator Place of Work: Detroit VA Medical Center in Detroit, Michigan Date of Death: March 30, 2020
Nurse Divina “Debbie” Accad had cared for veterans for over 25 years and was set to retire in April. But after contracting the novel coronavirus, she spent her final 11 days on a ventilator — and didn’t survive past March.
She joined a growing list of health care professionals working on the front lines of the pandemic who have died from COVID-19.
Accad, 72, a clinical nursing coordinator at the Detroit VA Medical Center, dedicated her life to nursing, according to her son Mark Accad.
“She died doing what she loved most,” he said. “That was caring for people.”
She was born Divina Amo in the Philippine town of Alimodian, known for its sweet bananas. The eldest of four children, she was a precocious student. She finished high school at age 14 and had to wait a year to pursue her dream of nursing school. She graduated from Central Philippine University with a bachelor’s in nursing in 1969.
Yearning to move abroad, she applied to a “fly now, pay later” program for nurses and landed a job in Chicago, joining tens of thousands of Filipino nurses who have migrated to the United States. She later moved to Taylor, Michigan, where she married William Accad in 1985 and raised four children with him.
Her niece April Amada lives in Accad’s hometown. She remembers her aunt as a generous cook: A visit from Tita Debbie (Aunt Debbie) meant unli-kainan, or “unlimited food”: She served up big American breakfasts, cooked spicy kielbasa with cabbage and introduced her family to Jell-O.
Accad was the “pillar of the family,” Amada said, improving their quality of life by sending home money, and even supporting her younger sister through nursing school.
Amada said her aunt first signaled she was sick on the evening of March 16, telling relatives she had a fever and loose stool. On March 19, she reported feeling better by taking Tylenol. But the following day, she was hospitalized with pneumonia, a complication of COVID-19. She told her family in the Philippines that she had tested positive for the disease caused by the coronavirus and asked them to pray for her and to spread the word to local pastors, Amada said.
Amada, who is also a nurse, said her family felt helpless watching their beloved matriarch suffer from afar, and being unable to travel to her bedside because of the infectious nature of the disease. They last saw her face on a video call.
Mark Accad, 36, who lives across the street from his parents, said his mother had diabetes, a risk factor for serious complications from COVID-19. In her last phone call with him, he said, she was preoccupied with her family’s health more than her own. But he could hear in her voice that she was worried.
“It’s just terrible that we all couldn’t be there for her,” he said.
Mark Accad said he believes his mother was exposed by infected co-workers, though that hasn’t been confirmed. She was a nursing supervisor who often stepped in to care for patients, he said.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is facing serious shortages in protective equipment for its health care workers, according to internal memos obtained by The Wall Street Journal. Mark Accad said he doesn’t know whether his mother had adequate protective gear.
In a statement, the Detroit VA Medical Center declined to comment on Accad’s case, citing privacy concerns, but confirmed that an employee of her age died from coronavirus complications.
The VA has “implemented appropriate measures to ensure the safest health care environment for each Veteran, visitor and employee,” including immediately isolating patients known to be at risk for a COVID-19 infection. As of Monday, nine VA health care workers systemwide had died of COVID-19 complications, and over 1,500 were being quarantined because of coronavirus infections, according to VA spokesperson Christina Noel.
Mark Accad said he would like his mother’s story to raise awareness of the risks health care workers face in the global pandemic.
“She’s a hero for what she did,” he said.
— Melissa Bailey | Published April 15, 2020
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California Nurse Thrived In ER and ICU, But Couldn’t Survive COVID-19
(Courtesy of the Baumbach family)
Jeff Baumbach
Age: 57 Occupation: Nurse Place of Work: St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Stockton, California Date of Death: March 31, 2020
Jeff Baumbach, 57, was a seasoned nurse of 28 years when the novel coronavirus began to circulate in California. He’d worked in the ER, the ICU and on a cardiac floor. Hepatitis and tuberculosis had been around over the years but never posed a major concern. He’d cared for patients who had tuberculosis.
Jeff and his wife, Karen Baumbach, also a nurse, initially didn’t consider it significantly riskier than challenges they’d faced for years.
“He’d worked in the ICU. He was exposed to so many things, and we never got anything,” she said. “This was just ramping up.”
One day during work, Jeff sent a sarcastic text to his wife: “I love wearing a mask every day.”
Within weeks, he would wage a difficult and steady fight against the virus that ended with a sudden collapse. Across the U.S., dozens of other health care workers have died, according to reports compiled by The Guardian and Kaiser Health News. The CDC has not yet issued a full tally, and many states have said little about how many health workers are dying.
Jeff was working at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Stockton, California, about an hour south of Sacramento, where he was a case manager for Kaiser Permanente patients treated there. (Kaiser Health News is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.)
In mid-March, Jeff and his wife traveled to New York City to help their younger son, one of four adult children, settle into an apartment. As they were leaving, bars and restaurants were starting to shut down. The feeling set in that something serious was taking place.
Back home, Karen said her husband was notified that he may have been around a co-worker who tested positive for the coronavirus. Jeff would need to wear a mask. On March 23, he called in sick. The next day, he was told to get a COVID-19 test.
Jeff’s test was positive. Soon after, so was Karen’s. The couple hunkered down together at home, Karen with body aches and congestion and Jeff with a fever and cough.
Their home had been the site of countless family brunches and barbecues, for which Jeff was often the chef. It was where he solved massive jigsaw puzzles with his kids, sealed them together and put them on the ceiling of the garage.
Kaila Baumbach, 26, the last child living in their Lodi home, had moved out as a precaution. She and her dad were close. They had gotten tattoos together on a family trip to Hawaii. Hers, a peace sign. His had two large Celtic hearts and four smaller ones to represent his children. Kaila said she didn’t text or call her dad when he was sick.
“I thought he was invincible,” she said during a phone interview, through tears.
Karen took Jeff to the emergency room on March 26, where he was diagnosed with pneumonia, but chose to recuperate at home. On March 31, he collapsed in an upstairs bathroom.
“It was just like that,” Karen said. “It went downhill really fast.”
Karen called 911 and went with him to Adventist Health Lodi Memorial, the hospital where she worked. She sat in her car getting updates by phone. Kaila waited in another car.
The ventilator Jeff was connected to had little effect and he remained unresponsive.
When it seemed hopeless, Karen went in, suited with full protective medical gear, and told Jeff, her husband of 33 years, she loved him. The kids love him. And she was sorry.
“We both sat here all those days with him getting worse before my eyes and me not seeing it,” she said. “The doctor reassured me that several times people have seemed to be OK and then they just fall off and then it’s just too late.”
Karen returned home alone, still in quarantine.
The next day, Kaila organized about 50 family and loved ones to drive by the couple’s home and shine their phone flashlights to show support. Karen’s mother, Sharleen Leal, called her at 8 p.m.: “Look outside.”
Karen looked out an upstairs window. Lights from lines of cars going in both directions on the avenue shone bright. Grieving, and awash with gratitude, she cried.
— Christina Jewett, Kaiser Health News | Published April 15, 2020
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Nurse’s Faith Led Her To Care For Prisoners At A New Jersey Jail
(Courtesy of Denise Rendor)
Daisy Doronila
Age: 60 Occupation: Nurse Place of Work: Hudson County Correctional Facility in Kearny, New Jersey Date of Death: April 5, 2020
Daisy Doronila had a different perspective than most who worked at the Hudson County Correctional Facility, a New Jersey lockup 11 miles from Manhattan. It was a place where the veteran nurse could put her Catholic faith into action, showing kindness to marginalized people.
“There would be people there for the most heinous crimes,” said her daughter, Denise Rendor, 28, “but they would just melt towards my mother because she really was there to give them care with no judgment.”
Doronila, 60, died April 5, two weeks after testing positive for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The jail has been hit hard by the virus, with 27 inmates and 68 staff members having tested positive. Among those, another nurse, a correctional officer and a clerk also died, according to Ron Edwards, Hudson County’s director of corrections.
Doronila fell ill before the scope of the jail infections were known. She was picking up extra shifts in the weeks before, her daughter said, and planning on a trip to Israel soon with friends from church.
That plan began to fall apart March 14, when someone at the jail noticed her coughing and asked her to go home and visit a doctor.
Doronila, of Nutley, New Jersey, went to her doctor and a local hospital in the coming days but was told she had strep throat, so she wouldn’t get a coronavirus test. Then she was told her fever wasn’t high enough to merit a test.
Edwards, the jail chief, said Doronila offered to come back to work after she started feeling ill, not wanting to let him down. He told her to stay home and rest.
“She was one of my hardest workers,” he said, describing her as sophisticated, intelligent and compassionate. “Daisy could handle herself. If someone got obnoxious with her, she’d put them in their place and call for help if she needed to.”
As days went by in March, her condition got worse. Feeling breathless, she went to an urgent care center on March 21.
Her oxygen saturation level was 77 ― far below levels that should be close to 100 — so she was sent by ambulance to the hospital. The next day, she was transferred to the ICU, where she was put on a ventilator, never to talk to her family again.
Rendor, who was not allowed to visit her mother, said time crawled as she awaited updates from nurses and doctors.
On her fifth day in the hospital, her mother went into cardiac arrest and was revived. On Day Nine, she was put on dialysis.
By Day 14, it was futile.
Rendor said her mother emigrated from the Philippines as a young nurse. She loved to dress in fashionable clothes and eat seafood on the waterfront in New York City.
The two loved to shop together and were looking forward to the next chapters in life. For the mother, retirement at 65. For Rendor, marriage and perhaps starting her own family.
“It was about to get really, really good,” Rendor said.
— Christina Jewett, Kaiser Health News | Published April 15, 2020
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An Army Veteran, Hospital Custodian ‘Loved Helping People’
(Courtesy of Michelle Wilcox)
Alvin Simmons
Age: 54 Occupation: Environmental service assistant Place of Work: Rochester General Hospital in Rochester, New York Death: March 17, 2020
Alvin Simmons started working as a custodian at Rochester General Hospital, in New York state, weeks before he fell ill. “He loved helping people and he figured the best place to do that would be in a hospital,” his sister, Michelle Wilcox said.
An Army veteran who had served in the first Gulf War, Simmons loved karaoke and doted on his three grandchildren, Wilcox said. “He was a dedicated, hardworking individual who had just changed his life around” since a prison stint, she said.
According to Wilcox, Simmons began developing symptoms shortly after cleaning the room of a woman he believed was infected with the novel coronavirus. “Other hospital employees did not want to clean the room because they said they weren’t properly trained” to clean the room of someone potentially infected, she said. “They got my brother from a different floor, because he had just started there,” she said. (In an email, a hospital spokesperson said they had “no evidence to suggest that Mr. Simmons was at a heightened risk of exposure to COVID-19 by virtue of his training or employment duties at RGH.”)
On March 11, he visited the emergency room at Rochester General, where he was tested for COVID-19, Wilcox said. Over the next few days, as he rested at his girlfriend’s home, his breathing became more labored and he began to cough up blood. He was rushed to the hospital on March 13, where he was later declared brain-dead. Subsequently, he received a COVID-19 diagnosis. Simmons died on March 17.
— Danielle Renwick, The Guardian | Published April 15, 2020
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Nurse At Nevada VA Dies After Caring For Infected Colleague
(Courtesy of Bob Thompson)
Vianna Thompson
Age: 52 Occupation: Nurse Places of Work: VA Sierra Nevada Health Care System and Northern Nevada Medical Center in Reno, Nevada Date of Death: April 7, 2020
Nurse Vianna Thompson, 52, spent two night shifts caring for a fellow Veterans Affairs health care worker who was dying from COVID-19.
Two weeks later, she too was lying in a hospital intensive care unit, with a co-worker holding her hand as she died.
Thompson and the man she treated were among three VA health care workers in Reno, Nevada, to die in two weeks from complications of the novel coronavirus.
“It’s pretty devastating. It’s surreal. Reno’s not that big of a city,” said Robyn Underhill, a night nurse who worked with Thompson in the ER at Reno’s VA hospital the past two years.
Thompson, who dreamed of teaching nursing one day, died April 7, joining a growing list of health care professionals killed in the pandemic.
Born Vianna Fye in Port Huron, Michigan, she became a go-getter nurse who worked almost exclusively at night, putting in five or six 12-hour shifts a week, according to her husband, Bob Thompson, 60.
The couple met in 1991 on the Osan Air Base in South Korea, where he was an inventory management specialist in the Air Force, and she was a veterinary technician in the Army, caring for military police dogs. They bonded over two-step dancing and country music.
Vianna was a “proud momma,” often showing off photos and videos of their three sons on her phone, her husband said. As the main breadwinner for over eight years, she juggled two jobs to make sure her boys had everything they needed, including saxophones, drums and keyboards so they could play jazz and country music. “She was just sweet, big-hearted, caring, unselfish,” he said.
Before she died, Thompson was working two jobs: full time in the ER at the VA Sierra Nevada Health Care System in Reno, and part time in the ICU at Northern Nevada Medical Center.
In the ICU, she tended to a fellow VA health care worker who had fallen ill with COVID-19, according to nurse Underhill. Two days later, on March 29, Thompson arrived at work with a cough.
“She came to work sick, and we were all very concerned,” Underhill said. “Call it intuition, call it ‘Spidey sense,’ but I knew that moment that she was coughing that this was not going to end well.”
Underhill said Thompson already had a slight smoker’s cough, so she may have overlooked the fact that her cough was a classic symptom of COVID-19.
“She was in denial that she was taking care of this high-risk population,” Underhill said. And she was reluctant to miss work.
That Sunday shift would be Thompson’s last. Over the next four days, she wrestled with fever, weakness and shortness of breath. The following Thursday, she texted her husband from the bedroom: “Call the ambulance, I can hardly breathe.”
She was taken to the VA hospital where she worked and immediately sedated and put on a ventilator.
The next Tuesday, her organs were failing and it was time to remove life support, her husband said. They connected him on FaceTime to say goodbye, and a nurse held her hand as she died.
As a veteran, she qualified for an “honor flight,” in which the patient’s body is covered with a black box, draped with an American flag and wheeled through the hospital while others line up and salute.
Because of the infectious nature of the coronavirus, a flag could not be safely draped over her body, so someone walked in front of her with a flag.
Bob Thompson said the honor flight ceremony drew more people into the hallways than staff had seen in 20 years, “all the way from the ICU to the morgue.”
“God’s getting a hell of a nurse,” he said.
— Melissa Bailey | Published April 15, 2020
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Dr. J. Ronald Verrier Was Busy Saving Lives Before The Pandemic
(Courtesy of Christina Pardo)
J. Ronald Verrier
Age: 59 Occupation: Surgeon Place of Work: St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, New York Date of Death: April 8, 2020
Dr. J. Ronald Verrier, a surgeon at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, spent the final weeks of his audacious, unfinished life tending to a torrent of patients inflicted with COVID-19. He died April 8 at Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital in Oceanside, New York, at age 59, after falling ill from the novel coronavirus.
Verrier led the charge even as the financially strapped St. Barnabas Hospital struggled to find masks and gowns to protect its workers — many nurses continue to make cloth masks — and makeshift morgues in the parking lot held patients who had died.
“He did a good work,” said Jeannine Sherwood, a nurse manager at St. Barnabas Hospital who worked closely with Verrier.
“He can rest.”
Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Verrier graduated from the Faculté de Médecine et de Pharmacie in 1986 and trained at Lincoln Medical Center in the Bronx. He worked at St. Barnabas for two decades, performing thousands of surgeries on critically ill patients and trauma victims, while overseeing the general surgery residency program.
A towering presence with a wide, dimpled smile, Verrier watched his large flock closely — popping into patients’ rooms for impromptu birthday parties, pressing his medical school residents to sharpen their surgical skills and extinguishing doubt in bright, young minds.
“He kept pushing me forward,” said Dr. Christina Pardo, a cousin who became an obstetrician and gynecologist. “I would call him and say, ‘I swear I failed that test,’ and he would laugh. He was my confidence when I didn’t have it.”
“He was someone you’d love to see if you were having a bad day,” said Dr. Ridwan Shabsigh, chairman of the Department of Surgery at SBH Health System. “He would comfort your heart.”
The Verrier family stretches across continents — a boisterous crew of cousins who grew up as brothers and sisters, a pot of joumou, a spicy Haitian soup, always boiling somewhere.
Verrier, who spoke English, French and Creole, zipped around to a niece’s wedding in Belgium, a baptism in Florida, another wedding in Montreal. In February, he ferried medical supplies to Haiti, returning to St. Barnabas to fortify the hospital for the surge of coronavirus patients.
Verrier helped steer the hospital’s efforts to increase — by 500% — the number of critically ill patients it could care for, an effort he worked on until he became ill.
“He was at the hospital every day,” Shabsigh said. “This was a nonstop effort, day and night.”
Verrier discovered he was infected in early April. After developing symptoms, he worked from his Woodmere, New York, home.
Undaunted, he did not want to talk about being sick. “He has this personality that, ‘Everything is going to be OK,’” said Pardo.
Shabsigh spoke with him the day before his death.
“He understood the coronavirus, he understood the pandemic,” he said. “He still maintained a high morale and hope that he would recover.”
When his condition worsened suddenly, according to Pardo, Verrier was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital where he died.
After a powerful earthquake struck Haiti in 2010, Verrier tended to victims, treating dozens of patients who required amputations at a Port-au-Prince hospital.
“Sometimes you use a little anesthesia and you cut the limb,” Verrier said soberly in a video recorded at the time. “Because you have to save a life.”
— Sarah Varney, Kaiser Health News | Published April 15, 2020
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America’s First ER Doctor To Die In The Heat Of COVID-19 Battle
(Courtesy of Debra Vasalech Lyons)
Frank Gabrin
Age: 60 Occupation: Doctor Places of Work: St. John’s Episcopal in Queens, New York, and East Orange General in New Jersey Date of Death: March 26, 2020
At about 5 a.m. on March 19, a New York City ER physician named Frank Gabrin texted a friend about his concerns over the lack of medical supplies at hospitals.
“It’s busy ― everyone wants a COVID test that I do not have to give them,” he wrote in the message to Eddy Soffer. “So they are angry and disappointed.”
Worse, though, was the limited availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) — the masks and gloves that help keep health care workers from getting sick and spreading the virus to others. Gabrin said he had no choice but to don the same mask for several shifts, against Food and Drug Administration guidelines.
“Don’t have any PPE that has not been used,” he wrote. “No N95 masks ― my own goggles — my own face shield,” he added, referring to the N95 respirators considered among the best lines of defense.
Less than two weeks later, Gabrin became the first ER doctor in the U.S. known to have died as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the American College of Emergency Physicians.
Read more here.
— Alastair Gee, The Guardian | Published April 10, 2020
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This story is part of “Lost on the Frontline,” a project from The Guardian and Kaiser Health News that aims to document the life of every health care worker in America who dies from COVID-19 during the pandemic. If you have a colleague or loved one we should include, please share their story.
Lost On The Frontline published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/
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Lost On The Frontline
America’s health care workers are dying. In some states, medical staff account for as many as 20% of known coronavirus cases. They tend to patients in hospitals, treating them, serving them food and cleaning their rooms. Others at risk work in nursing homes or are employed as home health aides.
Some of them do not survive the encounter. Many hospitals are overwhelmed and some workers lack protective equipment or suffer from underlying health conditions that make them vulnerable to the highly infectious virus.
Many cases are shrouded in secrecy. “Lost on the Frontline” is a collaboration between The Guardian and Kaiser Health News that aims to document the lives of health care workers in the U.S. who die from COVID-19, and to understand why so many are falling victim to the pandemic.
These are some of the first tragic cases.
  Debbie Accad Clinical Nursing Coordinator
Jeff Baumbach Nurse
Araceli Buendia Ilagan ICU Nurse
Leo Dela Cruz Geriatric Psychiatrist
Daisy Doronila Nurse
Frank Gabrin Doctor
Rose Harrison Nurse
Curtis Hunt Social Worker
Kim King-Smith Electrocardiogram Technician
Alvin Simmons Environmental Service Assistant
Vianna Thompson Nurse
J. Ronald Verrier Surgeon
Lost On The Frontline
This project aims to document the life of every health care worker in America who dies from COVID-19. If you have a colleague or loved one we should include, please share their story.
    An Exacting But Loving Aunt, She Was A Mentor Until The End
(Courtesy of Jhoanna Mariel Buendia)
Araceli Buendia Ilagan
Age: 63 Occupation: Intensive care unit nurse Place of Work: Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami Date of Death: March 27, 2020
For Jhoanna Mariel Buendia, her aunt was a constant ― if distant — presence. Araceli Buendia Ilagan emigrated from their hometown Baguio, in the Philippines, to the U.S. before Buendia was born, but she remained close to her family and communicated with them nearly every day.
Read More
OSHA Probing Health Worker Deaths But Urges Inspectors To Spare The Penalties Apr 22
True Toll Of COVID-19 On U.S. Health Care Workers Unknown Apr 15
“She was one of the smartest people I ever knew,” Buendia, 27, said. Buendia Ilagan, who at one point looked into adopting her niece so she could join her and her husband the United States, encouraged Buendia to become a nurse, and talked her through grueling coursework in anatomy and physiology. Buendia is now a nurse in London.
Buendia Ilagan was also demanding. “Whenever she visited the Philippines, she wanted everything to be organized and squeaky-clean,” Buendia said.
The last time the two spoke, in late March, Buendia Ilagan didn’t mention anything about feeling ill. Instead, the two commiserated over their experiences of treating patients with COVID-19; as always, her aunt offered her advice on staying safe while giving the best possible care. She died four days later.
— Danielle Renwick, The Guardian | Published April 22, 2020
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A Beloved Geriatric Psychiatrist And Church Musician Remembered For His Cooking Skills
(Courtesy of Nida Gonzales)
Leo Dela Cruz
Age: 57 Occupation: Geriatric psychiatrist Place of Work: Christ Hospital and CarePoint Health in Jersey City, New Jersey Date of Death: April 8, 2020
Dr. Leo Dela Cruz was nervous about going to work in the weeks before he died, his friends said. Like many in the region, Christ Hospital had an influx of COVID-19 patients and faced a shortage of ventilators and masks.
Dela Cruz was a geriatric psychiatrist and didn’t work in coronavirus wards. But he continued to see patients in person. In early April, Dela Cruz, who lived alone, complained only of migraines, his friends said. Within a week, his condition worsened, and he was put on a ventilator at a nearby hospital. He died soon after.
Friends said he may have been exposed at the hospital. (In a statement, hospital representatives said he didn’t treat COVID-19 patients.)
Dela Cruz, the oldest of 10 siblings, came from a family of health care professionals. His friends and family — from Cebu, Philippines, to Teaneck, New Jersey — remembered his jovial personality on Facebook. He won “best doctor of the year” awards, played tennis and cooked traditional Cebu dishes.
Nida Gonzales, a colleague, said he always supported people, whether funding a student’s education or running a church mental health program. “I feel like I lost a brother,” she said.
— Ankita Rao, The Guardian | Published April 22, 2020
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Alabama Nurse Remembered As Selfless But Sassy
(Courtesy of Amanda Williams)
Rose Harrison
Age: 60 Occupation: Nurse Place of Work: Marion Regional Nursing Home in Hamilton, Alabama Date of Death: April 6, 2020
Rose Harrison, 60, lived to serve others ― her husband, three daughters, grandchildren and the residents of the nursing home where she worked. Though the Alabama nurse was selfless, she also had a sassy edge to her personality and a penchant for road rage, her daughter, Amanda Williams said.
“Her personality was so funny, you automatically loved her,” Williams said. “She was so outspoken. If she didn’t agree with you, she’d tell you in a respectful way.”
Williams was not wearing a mask when she cared for a patient who later tested positive for COVID-19 at Marion Regional Nursing Home in Hamilton, Alabama, her daughter said. She later developed a cough, fatigue and a low-grade fever, but kept reporting to duty all week. Officials from the nursing home did not return calls for comment.
On April 3, Williams drove her mother to a hospital. The following evening, Harrison discussed the option of going on a ventilator with loved ones on a video call, agreeing it was the best course. Williams believed that her mother fully expected to recover. She died April 6.
— Christina Jewett, Kaiser Health News | Published April 22, 2020
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Connecticut Social Worker Had Angelic Singing Voice And A Zest For Life
(Courtesy of the Hunt family)
Curtis Hunt
Age: 57 Occupation: Social worker Places of Work: Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center and New Reach, both in New Haven, Connecticut Date of Death: March 23, 2020
At a shelter for adults recovering from addiction, residents looked forward to the days when Marion “Curtis” Hunt would take the stage, emceeing talent shows and belting out Broadway and gospel tunes.
It wasn’t part of his job description as a social worker. It was just one of the ways he went “above and beyond,” said his supervisor at Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center, Daena Murphy. “He had a beautiful voice,” she said. “He was just a wonderful person — funny, engaging, always a huge smile on his face.”
Hunt, the youngest of four brothers, earned his master’s in social work from Fordham University at 52, and was baptized at his brother’s Pentecostal church at 54. He was a devoted uncle who doted on his dog and cat, Mya and Milo.
It’s unclear how Hunt got infected, but one patient he worked with had tested positive for COVID-19, as did two co-workers, according to Dr. Ece Tek, another supervisor at Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center. Hunt died on March 23, one week after developing flu-like symptoms, said his brother John Mann Jr.
— Melissa Bailey | Published April 22, 2020
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To The End, King-Smith Was Driven By A Desire To Help Others
(Courtesy of Hassana Salaam-Rivers)
Kim King-Smith
Age: 53 Occupation: Electrocardiogram technician Place of Work: University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey Date of Death: March 31, 2020
Kim King-Smith was a natural caregiver. An only child, she grew up close to her extended family, including her cousins Hassana Salaam-Rivers and Sharonda Salaam. After Salaam developed multiple sclerosis, King-Smith visited her every day.
“She’d bring her sweets that she wasn’t supposed to have and share them with her,” Salaam-Rivers said. King-Smith’s desire to care for others was the reason she became an electrocardiogram technician, her cousin added. “If a friend of a friend or family member went to the hospital, she would always go and visit them as soon as her shift was over,” she said.
In March, King-Smith cared for a patient she said had symptoms of COVID-19; she soon fell ill herself and tested positive for the virus. It seemed like a mild case at first, and she stayed in touch with family via FaceTime while trying to isolate from her husband, Lenny.
On March 29, Salaam-Rivers checked in on her cousin and noticed she was struggling to breathe. She urged her to call an ambulance. After King-Smith was hospitalized, she exchanged text messages with her mother and cousin. As the day progressed, her messages carried increasingly grave news, Salaam-Rivers said. Then she stopped responding.
— Danielle Renwick, The Guardian | Published April 22, 2020
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On The Eve Of Retirement, VA Nurse Succumbs To COVID-19
(Courtesy of Mark Accad)
Debbie Accad
Age: 72 Occupation: Clinical nursing coordinator Place of Work: Detroit VA Medical Center in Detroit, Michigan Date of Death: March 30, 2020
Nurse Divina “Debbie” Accad had cared for veterans for over 25 years and was set to retire in April. But after contracting the novel coronavirus, she spent her final 11 days on a ventilator — and didn’t survive past March.
She joined a growing list of health care professionals working on the front lines of the pandemic who have died from COVID-19.
Accad, 72, a clinical nursing coordinator at the Detroit VA Medical Center, dedicated her life to nursing, according to her son Mark Accad.
“She died doing what she loved most,” he said. “That was caring for people.”
She was born Divina Amo in the Philippine town of Alimodian, known for its sweet bananas. The eldest of four children, she was a precocious student. She finished high school at age 14 and had to wait a year to pursue her dream of nursing school. She graduated from Central Philippine University with a bachelor’s in nursing in 1969.
Yearning to move abroad, she applied to a “fly now, pay later” program for nurses and landed a job in Chicago, joining tens of thousands of Filipino nurses who have migrated to the United States. She later moved to Taylor, Michigan, where she married William Accad in 1985 and raised four children with him.
Her niece April Amada lives in Accad’s hometown. She remembers her aunt as a generous cook: A visit from Tita Debbie (Aunt Debbie) meant unli-kainan, or “unlimited food”: She served up big American breakfasts, cooked spicy kielbasa with cabbage and introduced her family to Jell-O.
Accad was the “pillar of the family,” Amada said, improving their quality of life by sending home money, and even supporting her younger sister through nursing school.
Amada said her aunt first signaled she was sick on the evening of March 16, telling relatives she had a fever and loose stool. On March 19, she reported feeling better by taking Tylenol. But the following day, she was hospitalized with pneumonia, a complication of COVID-19. She told her family in the Philippines that she had tested positive for the disease caused by the coronavirus and asked them to pray for her and to spread the word to local pastors, Amada said.
Amada, who is also a nurse, said her family felt helpless watching their beloved matriarch suffer from afar, and being unable to travel to her bedside because of the infectious nature of the disease. They last saw her face on a video call.
Mark Accad, 36, who lives across the street from his parents, said his mother had diabetes, a risk factor for serious complications from COVID-19. In her last phone call with him, he said, she was preoccupied with her family’s health more than her own. But he could hear in her voice that she was worried.
“It’s just terrible that we all couldn’t be there for her,” he said.
Mark Accad said he believes his mother was exposed by infected co-workers, though that hasn’t been confirmed. She was a nursing supervisor who often stepped in to care for patients, he said.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is facing serious shortages in protective equipment for its health care workers, according to internal memos obtained by The Wall Street Journal. Mark Accad said he doesn’t know whether his mother had adequate protective gear.
In a statement, the Detroit VA Medical Center declined to comment on Accad’s case, citing privacy concerns, but confirmed that an employee of her age died from coronavirus complications.
The VA has “implemented appropriate measures to ensure the safest health care environment for each Veteran, visitor and employee,” including immediately isolating patients known to be at risk for a COVID-19 infection. As of Monday, nine VA health care workers systemwide had died of COVID-19 complications, and over 1,500 were being quarantined because of coronavirus infections, according to VA spokesperson Christina Noel.
Mark Accad said he would like his mother’s story to raise awareness of the risks health care workers face in the global pandemic.
“She’s a hero for what she did,” he said.
— Melissa Bailey | Published April 15, 2020
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California Nurse Thrived In ER and ICU, But Couldn’t Survive COVID-19
(Courtesy of the Baumbach family)
Jeff Baumbach
Age: 57 Occupation: Nurse Place of Work: St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Stockton, California Date of Death: March 31, 2020
Jeff Baumbach, 57, was a seasoned nurse of 28 years when the novel coronavirus began to circulate in California. He’d worked in the ER, the ICU and on a cardiac floor. Hepatitis and tuberculosis had been around over the years but never posed a major concern. He’d cared for patients who had tuberculosis.
Jeff and his wife, Karen Baumbach, also a nurse, initially didn’t consider it significantly riskier than challenges they’d faced for years.
“He’d worked in the ICU. He was exposed to so many things, and we never got anything,” she said. “This was just ramping up.”
One day during work, Jeff sent a sarcastic text to his wife: “I love wearing a mask every day.”
Within weeks, he would wage a difficult and steady fight against the virus that ended with a sudden collapse. Across the U.S., dozens of other health care workers have died, according to reports compiled by The Guardian and Kaiser Health News. The CDC has not yet issued a full tally, and many states have said little about how many health workers are dying.
Jeff was working at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Stockton, California, about an hour south of Sacramento, where he was a case manager for Kaiser Permanente patients treated there. (Kaiser Health News is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.)
In mid-March, Jeff and his wife traveled to New York City to help their younger son, one of four adult children, settle into an apartment. As they were leaving, bars and restaurants were starting to shut down. The feeling set in that something serious was taking place.
Back home, Karen said her husband was notified that he may have been around a co-worker who tested positive for the coronavirus. Jeff would need to wear a mask. On March 23, he called in sick. The next day, he was told to get a COVID-19 test.
Jeff’s test was positive. Soon after, so was Karen’s. The couple hunkered down together at home, Karen with body aches and congestion and Jeff with a fever and cough.
Their home had been the site of countless family brunches and barbecues, for which Jeff was often the chef. It was where he solved massive jigsaw puzzles with his kids, sealed them together and put them on the ceiling of the garage.
Kaila Baumbach, 26, the last child living in their Lodi home, had moved out as a precaution. She and her dad were close. They had gotten tattoos together on a family trip to Hawaii. Hers, a peace sign. His had two large Celtic hearts and four smaller ones to represent his children. Kaila said she didn’t text or call her dad when he was sick.
“I thought he was invincible,” she said during a phone interview, through tears.
Karen took Jeff to the emergency room on March 26, where he was diagnosed with pneumonia, but chose to recuperate at home. On March 31, he collapsed in an upstairs bathroom.
“It was just like that,” Karen said. “It went downhill really fast.”
Karen called 911 and went with him to Adventist Health Lodi Memorial, the hospital where she worked. She sat in her car getting updates by phone. Kaila waited in another car.
The ventilator Jeff was connected to had little effect and he remained unresponsive.
When it seemed hopeless, Karen went in, suited with full protective medical gear, and told Jeff, her husband of 33 years, she loved him. The kids love him. And she was sorry.
“We both sat here all those days with him getting worse before my eyes and me not seeing it,” she said. “The doctor reassured me that several times people have seemed to be OK and then they just fall off and then it’s just too late.”
Karen returned home alone, still in quarantine.
The next day, Kaila organized about 50 family and loved ones to drive by the couple’s home and shine their phone flashlights to show support. Karen’s mother, Sharleen Leal, called her at 8 p.m.: “Look outside.”
Karen looked out an upstairs window. Lights from lines of cars going in both directions on the avenue shone bright. Grieving, and awash with gratitude, she cried.
— Christina Jewett, Kaiser Health News | Published April 15, 2020
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Nurse’s Faith Led Her To Care For Prisoners At A New Jersey Jail
(Courtesy of Denise Rendor)
Daisy Doronila
Age: 60 Occupation: Nurse Place of Work: Hudson County Correctional Facility in Kearny, New Jersey Date of Death: April 5, 2020
Daisy Doronila had a different perspective than most who worked at the Hudson County Correctional Facility, a New Jersey lockup 11 miles from Manhattan. It was a place where the veteran nurse could put her Catholic faith into action, showing kindness to marginalized people.
“There would be people there for the most heinous crimes,” said her daughter, Denise Rendor, 28, “but they would just melt towards my mother because she really was there to give them care with no judgment.”
Doronila, 60, died April 5, two weeks after testing positive for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The jail has been hit hard by the virus, with 27 inmates and 68 staff members having tested positive. Among those, another nurse, a correctional officer and a clerk also died, according to Ron Edwards, Hudson County’s director of corrections.
Doronila fell ill before the scope of the jail infections were known. She was picking up extra shifts in the weeks before, her daughter said, and planning on a trip to Israel soon with friends from church.
That plan began to fall apart March 14, when someone at the jail noticed her coughing and asked her to go home and visit a doctor.
Doronila, of Nutley, New Jersey, went to her doctor and a local hospital in the coming days but was told she had strep throat, so she wouldn’t get a coronavirus test. Then she was told her fever wasn’t high enough to merit a test.
Edwards, the jail chief, said Doronila offered to come back to work after she started feeling ill, not wanting to let him down. He told her to stay home and rest.
“She was one of my hardest workers,” he said, describing her as sophisticated, intelligent and compassionate. “Daisy could handle herself. If someone got obnoxious with her, she’d put them in their place and call for help if she needed to.”
As days went by in March, her condition got worse. Feeling breathless, she went to an urgent care center on March 21.
Her oxygen saturation level was 77 ― far below levels that should be close to 100 — so she was sent by ambulance to the hospital. The next day, she was transferred to the ICU, where she was put on a ventilator, never to talk to her family again.
Rendor, who was not allowed to visit her mother, said time crawled as she awaited updates from nurses and doctors.
On her fifth day in the hospital, her mother went into cardiac arrest and was revived. On Day Nine, she was put on dialysis.
By Day 14, it was futile.
Rendor said her mother emigrated from the Philippines as a young nurse. She loved to dress in fashionable clothes and eat seafood on the waterfront in New York City.
The two loved to shop together and were looking forward to the next chapters in life. For the mother, retirement at 65. For Rendor, marriage and perhaps starting her own family.
“It was about to get really, really good,” Rendor said.
— Christina Jewett, Kaiser Health News | Published April 15, 2020
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An Army Veteran, Hospital Custodian ‘Loved Helping People’
(Courtesy of Michelle Wilcox)
Alvin Simmons
Age: 54 Occupation: Environmental service assistant Place of Work: Rochester General Hospital in Rochester, New York Death: March 17, 2020
Alvin Simmons started working as a custodian at Rochester General Hospital, in New York state, weeks before he fell ill. “He loved helping people and he figured the best place to do that would be in a hospital,” his sister, Michelle Wilcox said.
An Army veteran who had served in the first Gulf War, Simmons loved karaoke and doted on his three grandchildren, Wilcox said. “He was a dedicated, hardworking individual who had just changed his life around” since a prison stint, she said.
According to Wilcox, Simmons began developing symptoms shortly after cleaning the room of a woman he believed was infected with the novel coronavirus. “Other hospital employees did not want to clean the room because they said they weren’t properly trained” to clean the room of someone potentially infected, she said. “They got my brother from a different floor, because he had just started there,” she said. (In an email, a hospital spokesperson said they had “no evidence to suggest that Mr. Simmons was at a heightened risk of exposure to COVID-19 by virtue of his training or employment duties at RGH.”)
On March 11, he visited the emergency room at Rochester General, where he was tested for COVID-19, Wilcox said. Over the next few days, as he rested at his girlfriend’s home, his breathing became more labored and he began to cough up blood. He was rushed to the hospital on March 13, where he was later declared brain-dead. Subsequently, he received a COVID-19 diagnosis. Simmons died on March 17.
— Danielle Renwick, The Guardian | Published April 15, 2020
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Nurse At Nevada VA Dies After Caring For Infected Colleague
(Courtesy of Bob Thompson)
Vianna Thompson
Age: 52 Occupation: Nurse Places of Work: VA Sierra Nevada Health Care System and Northern Nevada Medical Center in Reno, Nevada Date of Death: April 7, 2020
Nurse Vianna Thompson, 52, spent two night shifts caring for a fellow Veterans Affairs health care worker who was dying from COVID-19.
Two weeks later, she too was lying in a hospital intensive care unit, with a co-worker holding her hand as she died.
Thompson and the man she treated were among three VA health care workers in Reno, Nevada, to die in two weeks from complications of the novel coronavirus.
“It’s pretty devastating. It’s surreal. Reno’s not that big of a city,” said Robyn Underhill, a night nurse who worked with Thompson in the ER at Reno’s VA hospital the past two years.
Thompson, who dreamed of teaching nursing one day, died April 7, joining a growing list of health care professionals killed in the pandemic.
Born Vianna Fye in Port Huron, Michigan, she became a go-getter nurse who worked almost exclusively at night, putting in five or six 12-hour shifts a week, according to her husband, Bob Thompson, 60.
The couple met in 1991 on the Osan Air Base in South Korea, where he was an inventory management specialist in the Air Force, and she was a veterinary technician in the Army, caring for military police dogs. They bonded over two-step dancing and country music.
Vianna was a “proud momma,” often showing off photos and videos of their three sons on her phone, her husband said. As the main breadwinner for over eight years, she juggled two jobs to make sure her boys had everything they needed, including saxophones, drums and keyboards so they could play jazz and country music. “She was just sweet, big-hearted, caring, unselfish,” he said.
Before she died, Thompson was working two jobs: full time in the ER at the VA Sierra Nevada Health Care System in Reno, and part time in the ICU at Northern Nevada Medical Center.
In the ICU, she tended to a fellow VA health care worker who had fallen ill with COVID-19, according to nurse Underhill. Two days later, on March 29, Thompson arrived at work with a cough.
“She came to work sick, and we were all very concerned,” Underhill said. “Call it intuition, call it ‘Spidey sense,’ but I knew that moment that she was coughing that this was not going to end well.”
Underhill said Thompson already had a slight smoker’s cough, so she may have overlooked the fact that her cough was a classic symptom of COVID-19.
“She was in denial that she was taking care of this high-risk population,” Underhill said. And she was reluctant to miss work.
That Sunday shift would be Thompson’s last. Over the next four days, she wrestled with fever, weakness and shortness of breath. The following Thursday, she texted her husband from the bedroom: “Call the ambulance, I can hardly breathe.”
She was taken to the VA hospital where she worked and immediately sedated and put on a ventilator.
The next Tuesday, her organs were failing and it was time to remove life support, her husband said. They connected him on FaceTime to say goodbye, and a nurse held her hand as she died.
As a veteran, she qualified for an “honor flight,” in which the patient’s body is covered with a black box, draped with an American flag and wheeled through the hospital while others line up and salute.
Because of the infectious nature of the coronavirus, a flag could not be safely draped over her body, so someone walked in front of her with a flag.
Bob Thompson said the honor flight ceremony drew more people into the hallways than staff had seen in 20 years, “all the way from the ICU to the morgue.”
“God’s getting a hell of a nurse,” he said.
— Melissa Bailey | Published April 15, 2020
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Dr. J. Ronald Verrier Was Busy Saving Lives Before The Pandemic
(Courtesy of Christina Pardo)
J. Ronald Verrier
Age: 59 Occupation: Surgeon Place of Work: St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, New York Date of Death: April 8, 2020
Dr. J. Ronald Verrier, a surgeon at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, spent the final weeks of his audacious, unfinished life tending to a torrent of patients inflicted with COVID-19. He died April 8 at Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital in Oceanside, New York, at age 59, after falling ill from the novel coronavirus.
Verrier led the charge even as the financially strapped St. Barnabas Hospital struggled to find masks and gowns to protect its workers — many nurses continue to make cloth masks — and makeshift morgues in the parking lot held patients who had died.
“He did a good work,” said Jeannine Sherwood, a nurse manager at St. Barnabas Hospital who worked closely with Verrier.
“He can rest.”
Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Verrier graduated from the Faculté de Médecine et de Pharmacie in 1986 and trained at Lincoln Medical Center in the Bronx. He worked at St. Barnabas for two decades, performing thousands of surgeries on critically ill patients and trauma victims, while overseeing the general surgery residency program.
A towering presence with a wide, dimpled smile, Verrier watched his large flock closely — popping into patients’ rooms for impromptu birthday parties, pressing his medical school residents to sharpen their surgical skills and extinguishing doubt in bright, young minds.
“He kept pushing me forward,” said Dr. Christina Pardo, a cousin who became an obstetrician and gynecologist. “I would call him and say, ‘I swear I failed that test,’ and he would laugh. He was my confidence when I didn’t have it.”
“He was someone you’d love to see if you were having a bad day,” said Dr. Ridwan Shabsigh, chairman of the Department of Surgery at SBH Health System. “He would comfort your heart.”
The Verrier family stretches across continents — a boisterous crew of cousins who grew up as brothers and sisters, a pot of joumou, a spicy Haitian soup, always boiling somewhere.
Verrier, who spoke English, French and Creole, zipped around to a niece’s wedding in Belgium, a baptism in Florida, another wedding in Montreal. In February, he ferried medical supplies to Haiti, returning to St. Barnabas to fortify the hospital for the surge of coronavirus patients.
Verrier helped steer the hospital’s efforts to increase — by 500% — the number of critically ill patients it could care for, an effort he worked on until he became ill.
“He was at the hospital every day,” Shabsigh said. “This was a nonstop effort, day and night.”
Verrier discovered he was infected in early April. After developing symptoms, he worked from his Woodmere, New York, home.
Undaunted, he did not want to talk about being sick. “He has this personality that, ‘Everything is going to be OK,’” said Pardo.
Shabsigh spoke with him the day before his death.
“He understood the coronavirus, he understood the pandemic,” he said. “He still maintained a high morale and hope that he would recover.”
When his condition worsened suddenly, according to Pardo, Verrier was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital where he died.
After a powerful earthquake struck Haiti in 2010, Verrier tended to victims, treating dozens of patients who required amputations at a Port-au-Prince hospital.
“Sometimes you use a little anesthesia and you cut the limb,” Verrier said soberly in a video recorded at the time. “Because you have to save a life.”
— Sarah Varney, Kaiser Health News | Published April 15, 2020
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America’s First ER Doctor To Die In The Heat Of COVID-19 Battle
(Courtesy of Debra Vasalech Lyons)
Frank Gabrin
Age: 60 Occupation: Doctor Places of Work: St. John’s Episcopal in Queens, New York, and East Orange General in New Jersey Date of Death: March 26, 2020
At about 5 a.m. on March 19, a New York City ER physician named Frank Gabrin texted a friend about his concerns over the lack of medical supplies at hospitals.
“It’s busy ― everyone wants a COVID test that I do not have to give them,” he wrote in the message to Eddy Soffer. “So they are angry and disappointed.”
Worse, though, was the limited availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) — the masks and gloves that help keep health care workers from getting sick and spreading the virus to others. Gabrin said he had no choice but to don the same mask for several shifts, against Food and Drug Administration guidelines.
“Don’t have any PPE that has not been used,” he wrote. “No N95 masks ― my own goggles — my own face shield,” he added, referring to the N95 respirators considered among the best lines of defense.
Less than two weeks later, Gabrin became the first ER doctor in the U.S. known to have died as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the American College of Emergency Physicians.
Read more here.
— Alastair Gee, The Guardian | Published April 10, 2020
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This story is part of “Lost on the Frontline,” a project from The Guardian and Kaiser Health News that aims to document the life of every health care worker in America who dies from COVID-19 during the pandemic. If you have a colleague or loved one we should include, please share their story.
Lost On The Frontline published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/
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Lost On The Frontline
America’s health care workers are dying. In some states, medical staff account for as many as 20% of known coronavirus cases. They tend to patients in hospitals, treating them, serving them food and cleaning their rooms. Others at risk work in nursing homes or are employed as home health aides.
Some of them do not survive the encounter. Many hospitals are overwhelmed and some workers lack protective equipment or suffer from underlying health conditions that make them vulnerable to the highly infectious virus.
Many cases are shrouded in secrecy. “Lost on the Frontline” is a collaboration between The Guardian and Kaiser Health News that aims to document the lives of health care workers in the U.S. who die from COVID-19, and to understand why so many are falling victim to the pandemic.
These are some of the first tragic cases.
  Debbie Accad Clinical Nursing Coordinator
Jeff Baumbach Nurse
Araceli Buendia Ilagan ICU Nurse
Leo Dela Cruz Geriatric Psychiatrist
Daisy Doronila Nurse
Frank Gabrin Doctor
Rose Harrison Nurse
Curtis Hunt Social Worker
Kim King-Smith Electrocardiogram Technician
Alvin Simmons Environmental Service Assistant
Vianna Thompson Nurse
J. Ronald Verrier Surgeon
Lost On The Frontline
This project aims to document the life of every health care worker in America who dies from COVID-19. If you have a colleague or loved one we should include, please share their story.
    An Exacting But Loving Aunt, She Was A Mentor Until The End
(Courtesy of Jhoanna Mariel Buendia)
Araceli Buendia Ilagan
Age: 63 Occupation: Intensive care unit nurse Place of Work: Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami Date of Death: March 27, 2020
For Jhoanna Mariel Buendia, her aunt was a constant ― if distant — presence. Araceli Buendia Ilagan emigrated from their hometown Baguio, in the Philippines, to the U.S. before Buendia was born, but she remained close to her family and communicated with them nearly every day.
Read More
OSHA Probing Health Worker Deaths But Urges Inspectors To Spare The Penalties Apr 22
True Toll Of COVID-19 On U.S. Health Care Workers Unknown Apr 15
“She was one of the smartest people I ever knew,” Buendia, 27, said. Buendia Ilagan, who at one point looked into adopting her niece so she could join her and her husband the United States, encouraged Buendia to become a nurse, and talked her through grueling coursework in anatomy and physiology. Buendia is now a nurse in London.
Buendia Ilagan was also demanding. “Whenever she visited the Philippines, she wanted everything to be organized and squeaky-clean,” Buendia said.
The last time the two spoke, in late March, Buendia Ilagan didn’t mention anything about feeling ill. Instead, the two commiserated over their experiences of treating patients with COVID-19; as always, her aunt offered her advice on staying safe while giving the best possible care. She died four days later.
— Danielle Renwick, The Guardian | Published April 22, 2020
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A Beloved Geriatric Psychiatrist And Church Musician Remembered For His Cooking Skills
(Courtesy of Nida Gonzales)
Leo Dela Cruz
Age: 57 Occupation: Geriatric psychiatrist Place of Work: Christ Hospital and CarePoint Health in Jersey City, New Jersey Date of Death: April 8, 2020
Dr. Leo Dela Cruz was nervous about going to work in the weeks before he died, his friends said. Like many in the region, Christ Hospital had an influx of COVID-19 patients and faced a shortage of ventilators and masks.
Dela Cruz was a geriatric psychiatrist and didn’t work in coronavirus wards. But he continued to see patients in person. In early April, Dela Cruz, who lived alone, complained only of migraines, his friends said. Within a week, his condition worsened, and he was put on a ventilator at a nearby hospital. He died soon after.
Friends said he may have been exposed at the hospital. (In a statement, hospital representatives said he didn’t treat COVID-19 patients.)
Dela Cruz, the oldest of 10 siblings, came from a family of health care professionals. His friends and family — from Cebu, Philippines, to Teaneck, New Jersey — remembered his jovial personality on Facebook. He won “best doctor of the year” awards, played tennis and cooked traditional Cebu dishes.
Nida Gonzales, a colleague, said he always supported people, whether funding a student’s education or running a church mental health program. “I feel like I lost a brother,” she said.
— Ankita Rao, The Guardian | Published April 22, 2020
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Alabama Nurse Remembered As Selfless But Sassy
(Courtesy of Amanda Williams)
Rose Harrison
Age: 60 Occupation: Nurse Place of Work: Marion Regional Nursing Home in Hamilton, Alabama Date of Death: April 6, 2020
Rose Harrison, 60, lived to serve others ― her husband, three daughters, grandchildren and the residents of the nursing home where she worked. Though the Alabama nurse was selfless, she also had a sassy edge to her personality and a penchant for road rage, her daughter, Amanda Williams said.
“Her personality was so funny, you automatically loved her,” Williams said. “She was so outspoken. If she didn’t agree with you, she’d tell you in a respectful way.”
Williams was not wearing a mask when she cared for a patient who later tested positive for COVID-19 at Marion Regional Nursing Home in Hamilton, Alabama, her daughter said. She later developed a cough, fatigue and a low-grade fever, but kept reporting to duty all week. Officials from the nursing home did not return calls for comment.
On April 3, Williams drove her mother to a hospital. The following evening, Harrison discussed the option of going on a ventilator with loved ones on a video call, agreeing it was the best course. Williams believed that her mother fully expected to recover. She died April 6.
— Christina Jewett, Kaiser Health News | Published April 22, 2020
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Connecticut Social Worker Had Angelic Singing Voice And A Zest For Life
(Courtesy of the Hunt family)
Curtis Hunt
Age: 57 Occupation: Social worker Places of Work: Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center and New Reach, both in New Haven, Connecticut Date of Death: March 23, 2020
At a shelter for adults recovering from addiction, residents looked forward to the days when Marion “Curtis” Hunt would take the stage, emceeing talent shows and belting out Broadway and gospel tunes.
It wasn’t part of his job description as a social worker. It was just one of the ways he went “above and beyond,” said his supervisor at Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center, Daena Murphy. “He had a beautiful voice,” she said. “He was just a wonderful person — funny, engaging, always a huge smile on his face.”
Hunt, the youngest of four brothers, earned his master’s in social work from Fordham University at 52, and was baptized at his brother’s Pentecostal church at 54. He was a devoted uncle who doted on his dog and cat, Mya and Milo.
It’s unclear how Hunt got infected, but one patient he worked with had tested positive for COVID-19, as did two co-workers, according to Dr. Ece Tek, another supervisor at Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center. Hunt died on March 23, one week after developing flu-like symptoms, said his brother John Mann Jr.
— Melissa Bailey | Published April 22, 2020
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To The End, King-Smith Was Driven By A Desire To Help Others
(Courtesy of Hassana Salaam-Rivers)
Kim King-Smith
Age: 53 Occupation: Electrocardiogram technician Place of Work: University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey Date of Death: March 31, 2020
Kim King-Smith was a natural caregiver. An only child, she grew up close to her extended family, including her cousins Hassana Salaam-Rivers and Sharonda Salaam. After Salaam developed multiple sclerosis, King-Smith visited her every day.
“She’d bring her sweets that she wasn’t supposed to have and share them with her,” Salaam-Rivers said. King-Smith’s desire to care for others was the reason she became an electrocardiogram technician, her cousin added. “If a friend of a friend or family member went to the hospital, she would always go and visit them as soon as her shift was over,” she said.
In March, King-Smith cared for a patient she said had symptoms of COVID-19; she soon fell ill herself and tested positive for the virus. It seemed like a mild case at first, and she stayed in touch with family via FaceTime while trying to isolate from her husband, Lenny.
On March 29, Salaam-Rivers checked in on her cousin and noticed she was struggling to breathe. She urged her to call an ambulance. After King-Smith was hospitalized, she exchanged text messages with her mother and cousin. As the day progressed, her messages carried increasingly grave news, Salaam-Rivers said. Then she stopped responding.
— Danielle Renwick, The Guardian | Published April 22, 2020
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On The Eve Of Retirement, VA Nurse Succumbs To COVID-19
(Courtesy of Mark Accad)
Debbie Accad
Age: 72 Occupation: Clinical nursing coordinator Place of Work: Detroit VA Medical Center in Detroit, Michigan Date of Death: March 30, 2020
Nurse Divina “Debbie” Accad had cared for veterans for over 25 years and was set to retire in April. But after contracting the novel coronavirus, she spent her final 11 days on a ventilator — and didn’t survive past March.
She joined a growing list of health care professionals working on the front lines of the pandemic who have died from COVID-19.
Accad, 72, a clinical nursing coordinator at the Detroit VA Medical Center, dedicated her life to nursing, according to her son Mark Accad.
“She died doing what she loved most,” he said. “That was caring for people.”
She was born Divina Amo in the Philippine town of Alimodian, known for its sweet bananas. The eldest of four children, she was a precocious student. She finished high school at age 14 and had to wait a year to pursue her dream of nursing school. She graduated from Central Philippine University with a bachelor’s in nursing in 1969.
Yearning to move abroad, she applied to a “fly now, pay later” program for nurses and landed a job in Chicago, joining tens of thousands of Filipino nurses who have migrated to the United States. She later moved to Taylor, Michigan, where she married William Accad in 1985 and raised four children with him.
Her niece April Amada lives in Accad’s hometown. She remembers her aunt as a generous cook: A visit from Tita Debbie (Aunt Debbie) meant unli-kainan, or “unlimited food”: She served up big American breakfasts, cooked spicy kielbasa with cabbage and introduced her family to Jell-O.
Accad was the “pillar of the family,” Amada said, improving their quality of life by sending home money, and even supporting her younger sister through nursing school.
Amada said her aunt first signaled she was sick on the evening of March 16, telling relatives she had a fever and loose stool. On March 19, she reported feeling better by taking Tylenol. But the following day, she was hospitalized with pneumonia, a complication of COVID-19. She told her family in the Philippines that she had tested positive for the disease caused by the coronavirus and asked them to pray for her and to spread the word to local pastors, Amada said.
Amada, who is also a nurse, said her family felt helpless watching their beloved matriarch suffer from afar, and being unable to travel to her bedside because of the infectious nature of the disease. They last saw her face on a video call.
Mark Accad, 36, who lives across the street from his parents, said his mother had diabetes, a risk factor for serious complications from COVID-19. In her last phone call with him, he said, she was preoccupied with her family’s health more than her own. But he could hear in her voice that she was worried.
“It’s just terrible that we all couldn’t be there for her,” he said.
Mark Accad said he believes his mother was exposed by infected co-workers, though that hasn’t been confirmed. She was a nursing supervisor who often stepped in to care for patients, he said.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is facing serious shortages in protective equipment for its health care workers, according to internal memos obtained by The Wall Street Journal. Mark Accad said he doesn’t know whether his mother had adequate protective gear.
In a statement, the Detroit VA Medical Center declined to comment on Accad’s case, citing privacy concerns, but confirmed that an employee of her age died from coronavirus complications.
The VA has “implemented appropriate measures to ensure the safest health care environment for each Veteran, visitor and employee,” including immediately isolating patients known to be at risk for a COVID-19 infection. As of Monday, nine VA health care workers systemwide had died of COVID-19 complications, and over 1,500 were being quarantined because of coronavirus infections, according to VA spokesperson Christina Noel.
Mark Accad said he would like his mother’s story to raise awareness of the risks health care workers face in the global pandemic.
“She’s a hero for what she did,” he said.
— Melissa Bailey | Published April 15, 2020
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California Nurse Thrived In ER and ICU, But Couldn’t Survive COVID-19
(Courtesy of the Baumbach family)
Jeff Baumbach
Age: 57 Occupation: Nurse Place of Work: St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Stockton, California Date of Death: March 31, 2020
Jeff Baumbach, 57, was a seasoned nurse of 28 years when the novel coronavirus began to circulate in California. He’d worked in the ER, the ICU and on a cardiac floor. Hepatitis and tuberculosis had been around over the years but never posed a major concern. He’d cared for patients who had tuberculosis.
Jeff and his wife, Karen Baumbach, also a nurse, initially didn’t consider it significantly riskier than challenges they’d faced for years.
“He’d worked in the ICU. He was exposed to so many things, and we never got anything,” she said. “This was just ramping up.”
One day during work, Jeff sent a sarcastic text to his wife: “I love wearing a mask every day.”
Within weeks, he would wage a difficult and steady fight against the virus that ended with a sudden collapse. Across the U.S., dozens of other health care workers have died, according to reports compiled by The Guardian and Kaiser Health News. The CDC has not yet issued a full tally, and many states have said little about how many health workers are dying.
Jeff was working at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Stockton, California, about an hour south of Sacramento, where he was a case manager for Kaiser Permanente patients treated there. (Kaiser Health News is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.)
In mid-March, Jeff and his wife traveled to New York City to help their younger son, one of four adult children, settle into an apartment. As they were leaving, bars and restaurants were starting to shut down. The feeling set in that something serious was taking place.
Back home, Karen said her husband was notified that he may have been around a co-worker who tested positive for the coronavirus. Jeff would need to wear a mask. On March 23, he called in sick. The next day, he was told to get a COVID-19 test.
Jeff’s test was positive. Soon after, so was Karen’s. The couple hunkered down together at home, Karen with body aches and congestion and Jeff with a fever and cough.
Their home had been the site of countless family brunches and barbecues, for which Jeff was often the chef. It was where he solved massive jigsaw puzzles with his kids, sealed them together and put them on the ceiling of the garage.
Kaila Baumbach, 26, the last child living in their Lodi home, had moved out as a precaution. She and her dad were close. They had gotten tattoos together on a family trip to Hawaii. Hers, a peace sign. His had two large Celtic hearts and four smaller ones to represent his children. Kaila said she didn’t text or call her dad when he was sick.
“I thought he was invincible,” she said during a phone interview, through tears.
Karen took Jeff to the emergency room on March 26, where he was diagnosed with pneumonia, but chose to recuperate at home. On March 31, he collapsed in an upstairs bathroom.
“It was just like that,” Karen said. “It went downhill really fast.”
Karen called 911 and went with him to Adventist Health Lodi Memorial, the hospital where she worked. She sat in her car getting updates by phone. Kaila waited in another car.
The ventilator Jeff was connected to had little effect and he remained unresponsive.
When it seemed hopeless, Karen went in, suited with full protective medical gear, and told Jeff, her husband of 33 years, she loved him. The kids love him. And she was sorry.
“We both sat here all those days with him getting worse before my eyes and me not seeing it,” she said. “The doctor reassured me that several times people have seemed to be OK and then they just fall off and then it’s just too late.”
Karen returned home alone, still in quarantine.
The next day, Kaila organized about 50 family and loved ones to drive by the couple’s home and shine their phone flashlights to show support. Karen’s mother, Sharleen Leal, called her at 8 p.m.: “Look outside.”
Karen looked out an upstairs window. Lights from lines of cars going in both directions on the avenue shone bright. Grieving, and awash with gratitude, she cried.
— Christina Jewett, Kaiser Health News | Published April 15, 2020
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Nurse’s Faith Led Her To Care For Prisoners At A New Jersey Jail
(Courtesy of Denise Rendor)
Daisy Doronila
Age: 60 Occupation: Nurse Place of Work: Hudson County Correctional Facility in Kearny, New Jersey Date of Death: April 5, 2020
Daisy Doronila had a different perspective than most who worked at the Hudson County Correctional Facility, a New Jersey lockup 11 miles from Manhattan. It was a place where the veteran nurse could put her Catholic faith into action, showing kindness to marginalized people.
“There would be people there for the most heinous crimes,” said her daughter, Denise Rendor, 28, “but they would just melt towards my mother because she really was there to give them care with no judgment.”
Doronila, 60, died April 5, two weeks after testing positive for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The jail has been hit hard by the virus, with 27 inmates and 68 staff members having tested positive. Among those, another nurse, a correctional officer and a clerk also died, according to Ron Edwards, Hudson County’s director of corrections.
Doronila fell ill before the scope of the jail infections were known. She was picking up extra shifts in the weeks before, her daughter said, and planning on a trip to Israel soon with friends from church.
That plan began to fall apart March 14, when someone at the jail noticed her coughing and asked her to go home and visit a doctor.
Doronila, of Nutley, New Jersey, went to her doctor and a local hospital in the coming days but was told she had strep throat, so she wouldn’t get a coronavirus test. Then she was told her fever wasn’t high enough to merit a test.
Edwards, the jail chief, said Doronila offered to come back to work after she started feeling ill, not wanting to let him down. He told her to stay home and rest.
“She was one of my hardest workers,” he said, describing her as sophisticated, intelligent and compassionate. “Daisy could handle herself. If someone got obnoxious with her, she’d put them in their place and call for help if she needed to.”
As days went by in March, her condition got worse. Feeling breathless, she went to an urgent care center on March 21.
Her oxygen saturation level was 77 ― far below levels that should be close to 100 — so she was sent by ambulance to the hospital. The next day, she was transferred to the ICU, where she was put on a ventilator, never to talk to her family again.
Rendor, who was not allowed to visit her mother, said time crawled as she awaited updates from nurses and doctors.
On her fifth day in the hospital, her mother went into cardiac arrest and was revived. On Day Nine, she was put on dialysis.
By Day 14, it was futile.
Rendor said her mother emigrated from the Philippines as a young nurse. She loved to dress in fashionable clothes and eat seafood on the waterfront in New York City.
The two loved to shop together and were looking forward to the next chapters in life. For the mother, retirement at 65. For Rendor, marriage and perhaps starting her own family.
“It was about to get really, really good,” Rendor said.
— Christina Jewett, Kaiser Health News | Published April 15, 2020
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An Army Veteran, Hospital Custodian ‘Loved Helping People’
(Courtesy of Michelle Wilcox)
Alvin Simmons
Age: 54 Occupation: Environmental service assistant Place of Work: Rochester General Hospital in Rochester, New York Death: March 17, 2020
Alvin Simmons started working as a custodian at Rochester General Hospital, in New York state, weeks before he fell ill. “He loved helping people and he figured the best place to do that would be in a hospital,” his sister, Michelle Wilcox said.
An Army veteran who had served in the first Gulf War, Simmons loved karaoke and doted on his three grandchildren, Wilcox said. “He was a dedicated, hardworking individual who had just changed his life around” since a prison stint, she said.
According to Wilcox, Simmons began developing symptoms shortly after cleaning the room of a woman he believed was infected with the novel coronavirus. “Other hospital employees did not want to clean the room because they said they weren’t properly trained” to clean the room of someone potentially infected, she said. “They got my brother from a different floor, because he had just started there,” she said. (In an email, a hospital spokesperson said they had “no evidence to suggest that Mr. Simmons was at a heightened risk of exposure to COVID-19 by virtue of his training or employment duties at RGH.”)
On March 11, he visited the emergency room at Rochester General, where he was tested for COVID-19, Wilcox said. Over the next few days, as he rested at his girlfriend’s home, his breathing became more labored and he began to cough up blood. He was rushed to the hospital on March 13, where he was later declared brain-dead. Subsequently, he received a COVID-19 diagnosis. Simmons died on March 17.
— Danielle Renwick, The Guardian | Published April 15, 2020
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Nurse At Nevada VA Dies After Caring For Infected Colleague
(Courtesy of Bob Thompson)
Vianna Thompson
Age: 52 Occupation: Nurse Places of Work: VA Sierra Nevada Health Care System and Northern Nevada Medical Center in Reno, Nevada Date of Death: April 7, 2020
Nurse Vianna Thompson, 52, spent two night shifts caring for a fellow Veterans Affairs health care worker who was dying from COVID-19.
Two weeks later, she too was lying in a hospital intensive care unit, with a co-worker holding her hand as she died.
Thompson and the man she treated were among three VA health care workers in Reno, Nevada, to die in two weeks from complications of the novel coronavirus.
“It’s pretty devastating. It’s surreal. Reno’s not that big of a city,” said Robyn Underhill, a night nurse who worked with Thompson in the ER at Reno’s VA hospital the past two years.
Thompson, who dreamed of teaching nursing one day, died April 7, joining a growing list of health care professionals killed in the pandemic.
Born Vianna Fye in Port Huron, Michigan, she became a go-getter nurse who worked almost exclusively at night, putting in five or six 12-hour shifts a week, according to her husband, Bob Thompson, 60.
The couple met in 1991 on the Osan Air Base in South Korea, where he was an inventory management specialist in the Air Force, and she was a veterinary technician in the Army, caring for military police dogs. They bonded over two-step dancing and country music.
Vianna was a “proud momma,” often showing off photos and videos of their three sons on her phone, her husband said. As the main breadwinner for over eight years, she juggled two jobs to make sure her boys had everything they needed, including saxophones, drums and keyboards so they could play jazz and country music. “She was just sweet, big-hearted, caring, unselfish,” he said.
Before she died, Thompson was working two jobs: full time in the ER at the VA Sierra Nevada Health Care System in Reno, and part time in the ICU at Northern Nevada Medical Center.
In the ICU, she tended to a fellow VA health care worker who had fallen ill with COVID-19, according to nurse Underhill. Two days later, on March 29, Thompson arrived at work with a cough.
“She came to work sick, and we were all very concerned,” Underhill said. “Call it intuition, call it ‘Spidey sense,’ but I knew that moment that she was coughing that this was not going to end well.”
Underhill said Thompson already had a slight smoker’s cough, so she may have overlooked the fact that her cough was a classic symptom of COVID-19.
“She was in denial that she was taking care of this high-risk population,” Underhill said. And she was reluctant to miss work.
That Sunday shift would be Thompson’s last. Over the next four days, she wrestled with fever, weakness and shortness of breath. The following Thursday, she texted her husband from the bedroom: “Call the ambulance, I can hardly breathe.”
She was taken to the VA hospital where she worked and immediately sedated and put on a ventilator.
The next Tuesday, her organs were failing and it was time to remove life support, her husband said. They connected him on FaceTime to say goodbye, and a nurse held her hand as she died.
As a veteran, she qualified for an “honor flight,” in which the patient’s body is covered with a black box, draped with an American flag and wheeled through the hospital while others line up and salute.
Because of the infectious nature of the coronavirus, a flag could not be safely draped over her body, so someone walked in front of her with a flag.
Bob Thompson said the honor flight ceremony drew more people into the hallways than staff had seen in 20 years, “all the way from the ICU to the morgue.”
“God’s getting a hell of a nurse,” he said.
— Melissa Bailey | Published April 15, 2020
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Dr. J. Ronald Verrier Was Busy Saving Lives Before The Pandemic
(Courtesy of Christina Pardo)
J. Ronald Verrier
Age: 59 Occupation: Surgeon Place of Work: St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, New York Date of Death: April 8, 2020
Dr. J. Ronald Verrier, a surgeon at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, spent the final weeks of his audacious, unfinished life tending to a torrent of patients inflicted with COVID-19. He died April 8 at Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital in Oceanside, New York, at age 59, after falling ill from the novel coronavirus.
Verrier led the charge even as the financially strapped St. Barnabas Hospital struggled to find masks and gowns to protect its workers — many nurses continue to make cloth masks — and makeshift morgues in the parking lot held patients who had died.
“He did a good work,” said Jeannine Sherwood, a nurse manager at St. Barnabas Hospital who worked closely with Verrier.
“He can rest.”
Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Verrier graduated from the Faculté de Médecine et de Pharmacie in 1986 and trained at Lincoln Medical Center in the Bronx. He worked at St. Barnabas for two decades, performing thousands of surgeries on critically ill patients and trauma victims, while overseeing the general surgery residency program.
A towering presence with a wide, dimpled smile, Verrier watched his large flock closely — popping into patients’ rooms for impromptu birthday parties, pressing his medical school residents to sharpen their surgical skills and extinguishing doubt in bright, young minds.
“He kept pushing me forward,” said Dr. Christina Pardo, a cousin who became an obstetrician and gynecologist. “I would call him and say, ‘I swear I failed that test,’ and he would laugh. He was my confidence when I didn’t have it.”
“He was someone you’d love to see if you were having a bad day,” said Dr. Ridwan Shabsigh, chairman of the Department of Surgery at SBH Health System. “He would comfort your heart.”
The Verrier family stretches across continents — a boisterous crew of cousins who grew up as brothers and sisters, a pot of joumou, a spicy Haitian soup, always boiling somewhere.
Verrier, who spoke English, French and Creole, zipped around to a niece’s wedding in Belgium, a baptism in Florida, another wedding in Montreal. In February, he ferried medical supplies to Haiti, returning to St. Barnabas to fortify the hospital for the surge of coronavirus patients.
Verrier helped steer the hospital’s efforts to increase — by 500% — the number of critically ill patients it could care for, an effort he worked on until he became ill.
“He was at the hospital every day,” Shabsigh said. “This was a nonstop effort, day and night.”
Verrier discovered he was infected in early April. After developing symptoms, he worked from his Woodmere, New York, home.
Undaunted, he did not want to talk about being sick. “He has this personality that, ‘Everything is going to be OK,’” said Pardo.
Shabsigh spoke with him the day before his death.
“He understood the coronavirus, he understood the pandemic,” he said. “He still maintained a high morale and hope that he would recover.”
When his condition worsened suddenly, according to Pardo, Verrier was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital where he died.
After a powerful earthquake struck Haiti in 2010, Verrier tended to victims, treating dozens of patients who required amputations at a Port-au-Prince hospital.
“Sometimes you use a little anesthesia and you cut the limb,” Verrier said soberly in a video recorded at the time. “Because you have to save a life.”
— Sarah Varney, Kaiser Health News | Published April 15, 2020
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America’s First ER Doctor To Die In The Heat Of COVID-19 Battle
(Courtesy of Debra Vasalech Lyons)
Frank Gabrin
Age: 60 Occupation: Doctor Places of Work: St. John’s Episcopal in Queens, New York, and East Orange General in New Jersey Date of Death: March 26, 2020
At about 5 a.m. on March 19, a New York City ER physician named Frank Gabrin texted a friend about his concerns over the lack of medical supplies at hospitals.
“It’s busy ― everyone wants a COVID test that I do not have to give them,” he wrote in the message to Eddy Soffer. “So they are angry and disappointed.”
Worse, though, was the limited availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) — the masks and gloves that help keep health care workers from getting sick and spreading the virus to others. Gabrin said he had no choice but to don the same mask for several shifts, against Food and Drug Administration guidelines.
“Don’t have any PPE that has not been used,” he wrote. “No N95 masks ― my own goggles — my own face shield,” he added, referring to the N95 respirators considered among the best lines of defense.
Less than two weeks later, Gabrin became the first ER doctor in the U.S. known to have died as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the American College of Emergency Physicians.
Read more here.
— Alastair Gee, The Guardian | Published April 10, 2020
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This story is part of “Lost on the Frontline,” a project from The Guardian and Kaiser Health News that aims to document the life of every health care worker in America who dies from COVID-19 during the pandemic. If you have a colleague or loved one we should include, please share their story.
from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/lost-on-the-frontline-health-care-worker-death-toll-covid19-coronavirus/
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Hollyoaks spoilers: Newcomer reveals all the gossip as Liberty Savage returns
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Hollyoaks spoilers: Newcomer reveals all the gossip as Liberty Savage returns
(Picture: Lime Pictures)
Liberty Savage is back in Hollyoaks – albeit with a brand new face. As Jessamay Stoddart takes on the role of the musical prodigy as she arrives back from LA, the first thing we will see is a cringe-tastic music video in which Liberty sings for someone to ‘blow her bubble’.
However, despite having a music video to her name, it will soon transpire that not all is well with Liberty and her adventures in LA haven’t gone the way that she wanted it to. As Dirk is surprised by her sudden desire to move back home, Milo Entwistle has developed a crush. But things suddenly take quite a turn when Liberty is bundled into the back of a mystery car!
We sat down to meet Jessamay and talk all about her arrival in the soap:
How does it feel to have joined the show?
Honestly, it’s amazing. I’m really learning so, so much. And the character is wild. It’s nice to play somebody that is so different to yourself, and to my usual casting.
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Was it quite daunting taking over a character that already exists? Did you watch the previous Liberty at all?
I think it’s been quite a long time. I’d say it’s a bit of a reinvention as well, which is nice. You’re coming in with a new lease of life, as well. Because the character’s got another five years of life experience – in LA, of all places.
So I think she takes that little bit of the US with her, and brings this kind of avocado-loving party.
(Picture: Lime Pictures)
What was it like filming the music video for Blow My Bubble? Was it a bit awkward?
Honestly? It was the first thing I ever filmed. So I come in. And that was us just messing around, actually. That was sort of testing it out.
So Liberty was kind of written that she might be a little bit rubbish for this recast, because she was incredible before – just in case I came in and I wasn’t really a singer, as it was written. And then when I was like, ‘Oh, I do sing,’ they were like, ‘Oh, let’s mess around with some auto tune.’
We sort of collaborated on that together. I was sent some lyrics through and a bit of a tune. We were just messing around upstairs and seeing what we could do. Does she take herself really seriously? We did it completely seriously, in a real video. We had this cool outfit on, but it was actually blending in with the green screen because it was so bright. This is another thing you’ll find about Liberty. She’s not scared about mixing her patterns or colours!
But it was so clash-y, that I ended up in this fluffy pink dress with pink trainers. We were panning it with my feet, just giving it disco. It was really, really mental.
Have you always wanted to be in a soap? Has that been an ambition of yours?
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I did theatre before. So it kind of came with a bit of a surprise. I was like, ‘I’d love to do some stuff on television. I’d love to do this.’ And then I got an audition. Within a week, it’s like, ‘You’re here.’
I think TV is something I definitely, definitely wanted to do. But I didn’t know it was going to happen in the way it happened or when it happened. It’s been quite a whirlwind, which I think is sometimes the best way, to throw yourself right in there.
What can you tell us about what Liberty’s been up to in the time she’s been away? Has she changed a lot as a person when she comes back?
(Picture: Lime Pictures)
I think because she’s such an open person, you could be fooled into thinking she’s got a screw loose, but a bit lighter – if you get my drift? But she has this real moral core. So she’s light and she’s fluffy.
However, you wouldn’t spend five years in LA and not gone through struggles. She’s not going to have been in consistent work, otherwise she’d be a movie star or would have a record deal. But we find out she’s had a few record deals and stuff like that.
So I think she’s really picked up her learning experience while she’s been away. But she just says yes to everything. She thinks everything is amazing. so if you would come to her, saying, ‘We’re going to try bring nursery rhymes into the modern world,’ she’d be like, ‘Oh my God, that’s the best idea ever. I can really hear dub step Humpty Dumpty.’
I think she is a breath of fresh air. You kind of know when someone’s coming on screen like, and you’re like, ‘Ah! She’s going to be fun.’
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How does Dirk react to having her back in the village?
She’s a proper daddy’s girl, so I think it’s really warm. It’s been amazing to work with David. He’s been absolutely incredible and welcomed me straight in. So their relationship is gorgeous.
Could there be a romance on the horizon? Is there anyone that might blow her bubble at all?
I think her bubble would be easily blown within Hollyoaks! Like I said, she loves everything. So if someone shows her a bit of interest, I’m sure she’ll fall absolutely head over heels.
Did you know much about Hollyoaks when you joined?
That was quite hard, coming into it. Obviously, when you’re coming in as a recast, it’s like: ‘Right, let’s get a brief bit of history in there.’ Then I logged onto Wikipedia and was like, ‘This is not brief!’
So that was fun. Deciding where I had already been, who I already knew. So it’s quite nice when you’re seeing someone who’s been here for a long time, going to the actor and being like, ‘So, when you were here before with Liberty, did you know her? Did you like her?’
Because you can’t tell this just off Wikipedia. You have to ask. So that’s been really lovely, because there’s part of you that can create the character, and then there’s part of you that, you know, she was already here – so you have to follow along. There’s some stuff you already know, and then it’s what you can grow from it.
It’s also breaking the ice with your new cast members as well. Something to talk about. So have you found that everyone’s been very welcoming, from your friends and acquaintances?
So welcoming. And I’ve made friends really quickly, which I think is lovely. Everyone’s been so kind. I love Liverpool. I’d never been before. So yeah, everyone’s really friendly. Everyone will chat to everyone, no matter if you’re in at 7’o clock like this morning.
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How much have they told you about the future plans for Liberty? Are there some big storylines coming up for her?
Honestly, I actually don’t know a huge amount. Really truly, I don’t. We’re taking each block of scripts as they come, really – seeing what events are on the horizon. When you’re new, a lot of the time you’re facilitating storylines, because you’re establishing a character. So I’m completely in the same place as you.
Your character is very positive, and obviously there’s going to be a lot of comedy with her as well. Hollyoaks do gritty stories and really serious ones. Is that something you’d like to tackle as well?
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I would love as many challenges as you can throw at me as possible. As Jessamy, I would love that. I think sometimes, some of the hardest and most exhilarating moments to watch are when someone can have that balance. When it’s coming from someone who you’ve known and loved to be this completely positive bubble-blower, to then have these things filtering through is electric to watch.
She gets involved with Milo…
Oh, Milo. I had him as in their family.  You’ll have some fun with them two together. They’re like the complete polar— and we look dead funny together as well. Yeah, they’re very, very cute.
Are you prepared for everyone to recognise your face when you’re outside the studio?
I have no idea what to expect, really. The other day, we just went for a bit of dinner, me and Amanda, who plays Holly. Someone was waving in the car. I see a lot of different faces every day. I can’t necessarily pinpoint if someone works in costume or somewhere else so I’m just waving back, but they weren’t waving at me.
So no, I’m not prepared, basically.
Does she get on well with Cindy, or is there some rivalry there maybe?
In her mind, she gets on well with everyone but if people get on with her is another question. But she thinks everyone’s amazing. Whatever they do, if there’s a monologue with a tiny bit of positivity, she’ll cling straight onto it. It’s like the rest didn’t happen. It’s so refreshing.
How positive are you in real life? Does that rub off on you that she loves absolutely everything? 
[embedded content]
I have to say, I’m quite a positive person. Usually, with what I wear, the monochrome mistress is my thing. I really don’t venture. Even with white sometimes, I’m like, ‘Ooh, daring.’
The other day, I bought really quite loud earrings and a stripy top. A few of my friends were like, ‘Have you had a bump to the head?’ So things like that are quite nice injections of her into my life, just from being with her every day.
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thenovelescapes · 7 years
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october 2016
Note: I am currently playing catch up on the last few months of 2016 before I dive into my pop culture consumption of 2017 so please bear with me as October, November and December go up on the blog. They are (as all these wrap-ups are) mostly for my own posterity, but I hope you enjoy / take some of the recommendations!
- the television -
The concept of BoJack Horseman was initially completely dumbfounding to me. An animated comedy for adults? I know this isn't a new concept by any means but I had been largely ignorant about shows like Archer or anything that airs on (DURING?) AdultSwim, and had no idea that this was a thing. But man, is it ever wonderful. BoJack is incredibly smart and funny. The whole series is great, but the season 3 episode, "Fish Out of Water", is exceptional.
After BoJack, I buried myself in a Community re-watch. I watched the entire series over a couple of weeks. I was completely sucked back in to the wacky, sometimes batshit universe of the show and fell in love yet again with the study group and their shenanigans.
This month, I also started and gave up on four different shows - three new ones (This Is Us, Frequency, Timeless) and one oldie (Roswell). I watched four episodes each from the newbies, but abandoned them all.
This Is Us should have been right up my alley - it features a big family, a (pretty cool) twist in the pilot, and Milo Ventimiglia. I'm also a crier. But, instead, I found it insufferable. It churns through big idea after big idea without actually developing any of the characters. Kate doesn't seem to have a personality beyond her obsession with weight loss and her boyfriend is Awful. Kevin's whole "I WANT TO BE A ~REAL ACTOR" thing could not be less interesting. I badly wanted to like this show and if there was a way to only watch the Randall or Jack/Rebecca parts, I would be all in. Frequency was an interesting enough concept, but I still do not understand how the premise could sustain a few episodes, let alone a whole season of television and beyond. Timeless was created by Eric Kripke (Supernatural) and stars Abigail Spencer (Suits, Rectify) and Matt Lanter (90210). The episodes I watched were fun but ultimately not engaging enough to be incorporated into my weekly TV schedule.
Roswell, a late '90s/early '00s teen drama about aliens, is certainly interesting and I hope to revisit it later but this month, for various reasons, I just couldn't get into it. I watched the first seventeen episodes before (virtually) shelving it.
Towards the end of the month, I was having a rough time, mental-health-wise and decided to re-watch the most batshit / terrible show I could think of. Hello, Wisteria Lane, my old friend. That's right, Desperate Housewives. This is show is full of suburbia and murder and conspiracies and it is absolutely ridiculous, but it was also the perfect distraction from the clusterfuck happening in my brain. Finally, in October, I got on the Making A Murderer train. (Nearly a year after everyone else. I'm so timely). It was incredibly disturbing and infuriating to see all the ways the case was bumbled, but also really interesting.  
- the books -
After such a prolific September, I fell into a reading slump in October, only managing to finish Rich and Pretty by Rumaan Alam. The novel focuses on the friendship between the two main characters, Sarah and Lauren, and how the connections we forge in childhood can decay and fade away as we adapt to adulthood and our priorities shift. Alam explores whether it is their "abiding connection - or just force of habit - that keeps them together?" It was very good. You should read it.
- the movies -
This month, I watched a documentary, a TV movie, and two blockbuster films. First, the Amanda Knox Netflix documentary which satisfied the true-crime obsessed corner of my brain. Next, Looking: The Movie, the conclusion to the wonderful HBO series that was cancelled in 2015. As upset as I was that the show was over, the movie provided some closure and a look at the characters lives a few years from the last episode. It had the same charm and sensibility as the series and was thoroughly enjoyable.
In October, I also finally got around to watching both parts of the final chapter in The Hunger Games trilogy - Mockingjay Part 1 and Mockingjay Part 2. Mockingjay was by far my least favourite novel in the book trilogy so I have to commend the films for making it so much more interesting. Team Katniss, always.
I hope you all had a wonderful October, happy reading / watching / listening!
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viralhottopics · 7 years
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The lure of tall buildings: A guide to the risky but lucrative world of rooftoppers
The ultimate selfie can bring kudos and cash to urban rooftoppers
When teenager Harry Gallagher clambered on to the roof of Canary Wharfs highest building his exploits went viral. Gallagher, 19, aka Nightscape, is a rooftopper, someone who gains access to buildings and restricted spaces to take photographs of themselves, often hanging in precarious poses. To the uninitiated, it might appear to be a new phenomenon, but rooftoppings genesis lies in the long-established urban explorer movement, known as urbex.
An early exponent was Jeff Chapman, or Ninjalicious, the late Toronto-based explorer who in the early noughties infiltrated buildings and underground systems, recording his adventures in his zine, Infiltration. Chapman tended to shun the limelight, but now rooftoppers are aiming ever higher in their quest for personal glory and reward.
Urban exploring is beginning to splinter into different practices, said Theo Kindynis, a criminologist at Roehampton University. What was traditionally thought of as urban exploration, fetishists exploring abandoned mental asylums, that sort of thing, is mutating. Youve now got subway explorers and youve got rooftoppers like Nightscape doing the foot-dangling thing. As a result, youve got new attitudes and etiquettes evolving. The old take-nothing-but-photos-leave-nothing-but-footprints adage is increasingly irrelevant.
Gallagher has previously targeted Robin Hood airport in Doncaster, the roof of West Hams new stadium, and the London Olympic parks Orbit structure. His exploits are posted on his YouTube channel and promoted through Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. His latest hack, released online last week, will have helped send his reputation soaring. Gallagher and a friend can be seen climbing on to the roof of One Canada Square and scaling its pyramid.
At the start of the video, already viewed 450,000 times and liked by 45,000 people on YouTube, the pair describe the challenge as almost impossible and express astonishment that they were able to pull it off. But Kindynis is not convinced. These guys are notorious within the scene for poaching other peoples spots. I highly doubt they were the first people to get on to the roof of One Canada Square. They were probably told how to do it by someone else. Within the urbex community, these things tend to be kept hush-hush, but now its on YouTube and they will have changed their security measures so nobody else will be able to enjoy that rooftop.
Within certain elements of the community, these guys are not liked. They are seen as a problem. Cranes and construction sites and rooftops are getting locked down because these guys are prostituting it to social media.
The high-profile stunts of Gallagher and his cohorts seem a world away from urbexs original ethos and its political overtones. In an article for Domus magazine in 2011, Dr Bradley Garrett, an urban explorer and a geographer at Southampton University, suggested that urbex practitioners were reviving the practice of usufruct which basically means that someone has the right to use and enjoy the property of another, provided it is not changed or damaged in any way.
But Kindynis suggests the selfie generation are not in it for the philosophy.
For the people doing it, its all about the image, getting the cool, exclusive YouTubable footage. Its about building their personal brand, all about the image, all about the spectacle.
Harry Gallagher. Photograph: @night.scape
And why not? Building a rooftopping brand can be lucrative. Gallaghers Nightscape website sells original T-shirts for 24.99 and hoodies for 39.99. Not that he is unique in turning his exploits into cash. Urban free climber James Kingstons website sells posters of him balancing precariously in a variety of places as well as a range of T-shirts.
But selling merchandise is only one element. Gallaghers highly stylised video of the One Canada Square hack has its own soundtrack, which carries links to promote the featured songs. He recently appeared in a short film for fashion brand Palladiums new range of waterproof boots.
As Gallaghers mother, Amanda, told the Times: We come from a modest background and never had any financial stability. The day he went up West Ham [stadium], we couldnt buy a jar of coffee that morning. By that night, hed gone viral. Thats when he came to me and said: Now, you get it, Mum. Now you see what this is, what its allabout.
Milo Hale, a photographer and rooftopper with 15,000 followers on Instagram, believes the movement is coming out of the shadows and into the mainstream. The whole Instagram scene has helped it develop over the last few months, Hale said. It has completely blown up around the world. It was definitely one of those things that was quite underground and people didnt really know about it and now its come out to the wider audience through social media.
Hale, 20, who got into rooftopping through parkour, or free-running, acknowledges that its growing popularity poses new challenges. Brands are gravitating towards rooftoppers as social media influencers because they cut through to younger audiences far more effectively.
One survey suggested that 70% of teenage YouTube subscribers trust influencer opinions over traditional celebrities. But the rooftoppers risk losing credibility if they are seen to be too commercial.
Theres a lot of companies Im in talks with, Hale said. But for people like me and rooftoppers on Instagram, theres this desire to want to keep your work authentic. Obviously, I want to work with brands and create content for them, and to be able to fund what I want to do, but at the same time I think theres a sort of caution from creators and rooftoppers, particularly to not sell it off in the wrong light and not just sell out just because they can.
Not everyone seems to have such qualms, and there is a sense that many rooftopping images are in danger of becoming cliched. Every day I look at Instagram and there are literally hundreds of kids doing it, Kindynis said.
The surge in interest also brings problems. I get a lot of messages from people asking, oh can you show me how to get up on that rooftop blah blah blah, and I always say no because I dont want to be responsible for someone going up somewhere theyre not comfortable with, and if that goes wrong, thats on my conscience, Hale said. Its difficult finding that balance between sharing it and not not forcing people to do it but not pushing people into it when you know they shouldnt be doing it.
A rooftopper in Dubai. Photograph: Keow Wee Loong/Barcroft Media
The UKs burgeoning army of rooftoppers is unlikely to eclipse the success of Viki Odintcova, a Russian model recently snapped in a precarious pose leaning out of Dubais Cayan Tower skyscraper the worlds tallest building when it opened in 2013.
The 22-year-old, whose Instagram account now has more than 3million followers, uses her social media presence to promote a bewildering variety of brands. Visitors can click on tags in the images that take them to other Instagram sites promoting everything from teeth-whitening products to bracelets and underwear.
Odintcova is not the only Russian model to use outlandish rooftop stunts to promote herself. Angela Nikolau, 23, was photographed on a crane at the top of a 640m tower under construction in China. With around 450,000 followers on Instagram, she is fast carving out a reputation for taking the most dangerous selfies in the world. Like Odintcova, her account is tagged to a growing range of brands. One of the stunts was sponsored by a Russian travel insurance company.
Unsurprisingly, the major fashion brands have also clocked the trend. In 2014 Nike launched its All Conditions Gear range, complete with a promotional video in which a hooded figure is poised dramatically on a roof edge. Gallagher has promoted Converse Chuck II trainers in an edgy urban explorer montage. Red Bull TV has an urbex section featuring a group of urban explorers [who] risk life and limb to get inside, above and around some of the most forbidden places onEarth.
But the appropriation of urban exploration by the selfie generation is triggering a backlash. Kindynis said that some within the movement, especially the subterranean explorers who roam sewers and subways, were going offline because they dont want to attract the same attention and dont want it turned into a spectator sport the way rooftopping has been.
They are, however, likely to be outnumbered by the many others who know that taking the ultimate selfie can earn them kudos and cash. Kindynis is worried about where rooftop mania will end. More and more risks are being taken. I dont think anyones died in London, but its only a matter of time.
YOUTUBE STARS
November 2014 Cosmo Calisse explores the rooftops of Toronto with two parkour enthusiasts: 17,000 views
February 2016 Jimmy Cheung films the view from the One World Trade Center in New York: 20,000 views
September 2016 Harry Gallagher, aka Nightscape, sneaks into West Hams stadium in London: 4m views
9 February Angela Nikolau climbs one of Shanghais highest buildings with boyfriend Ivan Beerkus: 41,946 views
26 February Russian model Victoria Odintcova hangs off Dubais 1,005ft Cayan Tower: 5.4m views
Read more: http://ift.tt/2lWrU2W
from The lure of tall buildings: A guide to the risky but lucrative world of rooftoppers
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stephenmccull · 4 years
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Lost On The Frontline
America’s health care workers are dying. In some states, medical staff account for as many as 20% of known coronavirus cases. They tend to patients in hospitals, treating them, serving them food and cleaning their rooms. Others at risk work in nursing homes or are employed as home health aides.
Some of them do not survive the encounter. Many hospitals are overwhelmed and some workers lack protective equipment or suffer from underlying health conditions that make them vulnerable to the highly infectious virus.
Many cases are shrouded in secrecy. “Lost on the Frontline” is a collaboration between The Guardian and Kaiser Health News that aims to document the lives of health care workers in the U.S. who die from COVID-19, and to understand why so many are falling victim to the pandemic.
These are some of the first tragic cases.
  Debbie Accad Clinical Nursing Coordinator
Jeff Baumbach Nurse
Araceli Buendia Ilagan ICU Nurse
Leo Dela Cruz Geriatric Psychiatrist
Daisy Doronila Nurse
Frank Gabrin Doctor
Rose Harrison Nurse
Curtis Hunt Social Worker
Kim King-Smith Electrocardiogram Technician
Alvin Simmons Environmental Service Assistant
Vianna Thompson Nurse
J. Ronald Verrier Surgeon
Lost On The Frontline
This project aims to document the life of every health care worker in America who dies from COVID-19. If you have a colleague or loved one we should include, please share their story.
    An Exacting But Loving Aunt, She Was A Mentor Until The End
(Courtesy of Jhoanna Mariel Buendia)
Araceli Buendia Ilagan
Age: 63 Occupation: Intensive care unit nurse Place of Work: Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami Date of Death: March 27, 2020
For Jhoanna Mariel Buendia, her aunt was a constant ― if distant — presence. Araceli Buendia Ilagan emigrated from their hometown Baguio, in the Philippines, to the U.S. before Buendia was born, but she remained close to her family and communicated with them nearly every day.
Read More
True Toll Of COVID-19 On U.S. Health Care Workers Unknown Apr 15
“She was one of the smartest people I ever knew,” Buendia, 27, said. Buendia Ilagan, who at one point looked into adopting her niece so she could join her and her husband the United States, encouraged Buendia to become a nurse, and talked her through grueling coursework in anatomy and physiology. Buendia is now a nurse in London.
Buendia Ilagan was also demanding. “Whenever she visited the Philippines, she wanted everything to be organized and squeaky-clean,” Buendia said.
The last time the two spoke, in late March, Buendia Ilagan didn’t mention anything about feeling ill. Instead, the two commiserated over their experiences of treating patients with COVID-19; as always, her aunt offered her advice on staying safe while giving the best possible care. She died four days later.
— Danielle Renwick, The Guardian | Published April 22, 2020
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A Beloved Geriatric Psychiatrist And Church Musician Remembered For His Cooking Skills
(Courtesy of Nida Gonzales)
Leo Dela Cruz
Age: 57 Occupation: Geriatric psychiatrist Place of Work: Christ Hospital and CarePoint Health in Jersey City, New Jersey Date of Death: April 8, 2020
Dr. Leo Dela Cruz was nervous about going to work in the weeks before he died, his friends said. Like many in the region, Christ Hospital had an influx of COVID-19 patients and faced a shortage of ventilators and masks.
Dela Cruz was a geriatric psychiatrist and didn’t work in coronavirus wards. But he continued to see patients in person. In early April, Dela Cruz, who lived alone, complained only of migraines, his friends said. Within a week, his condition worsened, and he was put on a ventilator at a nearby hospital. He died soon after.
Friends said he may have been exposed at the hospital. (In a statement, hospital representatives said he didn’t treat COVID-19 patients.)
Dela Cruz, the oldest of 10 siblings, came from a family of health care professionals. His friends and family — from Cebu, Philippines, to Teaneck, New Jersey — remembered his jovial personality on Facebook. He won “best doctor of the year” awards, played tennis and cooked traditional Cebu dishes.
Nida Gonzales, a colleague, said he always supported people, whether funding a student’s education or running a church mental health program. “I feel like I lost a brother,” she said.
— Ankita Rao, The Guardian | Published April 22, 2020
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Alabama Nurse Remembered As Selfless But Sassy
(Courtesy of Amanda Williams)
Rose Harrison
Age: 60 Occupation: Nurse Place of Work: Marion Regional Nursing Home in Hamilton, Alabama Date of Death: April 6, 2020
Rose Harrison, 60, lived to serve others ― her husband, three daughters, grandchildren and the residents of the nursing home where she worked. Though the Alabama nurse was selfless, she also had a sassy edge to her personality and a penchant for road rage, her daughter, Amanda Williams said.
“Her personality was so funny, you automatically loved her,” Williams said. “She was so outspoken. If she didn’t agree with you, she’d tell you in a respectful way.”
Williams was not wearing a mask when she cared for a patient who later tested positive for COVID-19 at Marion Regional Nursing Home in Hamilton, Alabama, her daughter said. She later developed a cough, fatigue and a low-grade fever, but kept reporting to duty all week. Officials from the nursing home did not return calls for comment.
On April 3, Williams drove her mother to a hospital. The following evening, Harrison discussed the option of going on a ventilator with loved ones on a video call, agreeing it was the best course. Williams believed that her mother fully expected to recover. She died April 6.
— Christina Jewett, Kaiser Health News | Published April 22, 2020
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Connecticut Social Worker Had Angelic Singing Voice And A Zest For Life
(Courtesy of the Hunt family)
Curtis Hunt
Age: 57 Occupation: Social worker Places of Work: Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center and New Reach, both in New Haven, Connecticut Date of Death: March 23, 2020
At a shelter for adults recovering from addiction, residents looked forward to the days when Marion “Curtis” Hunt would take the stage, emceeing talent shows and belting out Broadway and gospel tunes.
It wasn’t part of his job description as a social worker. It was just one of the ways he went “above and beyond,” said his supervisor at Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center, Daena Murphy. “He had a beautiful voice,” she said. “He was just a wonderful person — funny, engaging, always a huge smile on his face.”
Hunt, the youngest of four brothers, earned his master’s in social work from Fordham University at 52, and was baptized at his brother’s Pentecostal church at 54. He was a devoted uncle who doted on his dog and cat, Mya and Milo.
It’s unclear how Hunt got infected, but one patient he worked with had tested positive for COVID-19, as did two co-workers, according to Dr. Ece Tek, another supervisor at Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center. Hunt died on March 23, one week after developing flu-like symptoms, said his brother John Mann Jr.
— Melissa Bailey | Published April 22, 2020
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To The End, King-Smith Was Driven By A Desire To Help Others
(Courtesy of Hassana Salaam-Rivers)
Kim King-Smith
Age: 53 Occupation: Electrocardiogram technician Place of Work: University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey Date of Death: March 31, 2020
Kim King-Smith was a natural caregiver. An only child, she grew up close to her extended family, including her cousins Hassana Salaam-Rivers and Sharonda Salaam. After Salaam developed multiple sclerosis, King-Smith visited her every day.
“She’d bring her sweets that she wasn’t supposed to have and share them with her,” Salaam-Rivers said. King-Smith’s desire to care for others was the reason she became an electrocardiogram technician, her cousin added. “If a friend of a friend or family member went to the hospital, she would always go and visit them as soon as her shift was over,” she said.
In March, King-Smith cared for a patient she said had symptoms of COVID-19; she soon fell ill herself and tested positive for the virus. It seemed like a mild case at first, and she stayed in touch with family via FaceTime while trying to isolate from her husband, Lenny.
On March 29, Salaam-Rivers checked in on her cousin and noticed she was struggling to breathe. She urged her to call an ambulance. After King-Smith was hospitalized, she exchanged text messages with her mother and cousin. As the day progressed, her messages carried increasingly grave news, Salaam-Rivers said. Then she stopped responding.
— Danielle Renwick, The Guardian | Published April 22, 2020
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On The Eve Of Retirement, VA Nurse Succumbs To COVID-19
(Courtesy of Mark Accad)
Debbie Accad
Age: 72 Occupation: Clinical nursing coordinator Place of Work: Detroit VA Medical Center in Detroit, Michigan Date of Death: March 30, 2020
Nurse Divina “Debbie” Accad had cared for veterans for over 25 years and was set to retire in April. But after contracting the novel coronavirus, she spent her final 11 days on a ventilator — and didn’t survive past March.
She joined a growing list of health care professionals working on the front lines of the pandemic who have died from COVID-19.
Accad, 72, a clinical nursing coordinator at the Detroit VA Medical Center, dedicated her life to nursing, according to her son Mark Accad.
“She died doing what she loved most,” he said. “That was caring for people.”
She was born Divina Amo in the Philippine town of Alimodian, known for its sweet bananas. The eldest of four children, she was a precocious student. She finished high school at age 14 and had to wait a year to pursue her dream of nursing school. She graduated from Central Philippine University with a bachelor’s in nursing in 1969.
Yearning to move abroad, she applied to a “fly now, pay later” program for nurses and landed a job in Chicago, joining tens of thousands of Filipino nurses who have migrated to the United States. She later moved to Taylor, Michigan, where she married William Accad in 1985 and raised four children with him.
Her niece April Amada lives in Accad’s hometown. She remembers her aunt as a generous cook: A visit from Tita Debbie (Aunt Debbie) meant unli-kainan, or “unlimited food”: She served up big American breakfasts, cooked spicy kielbasa with cabbage and introduced her family to Jell-O.
Accad was the “pillar of the family,” Amada said, improving their quality of life by sending home money, and even supporting her younger sister through nursing school.
Amada said her aunt first signaled she was sick on the evening of March 16, telling relatives she had a fever and loose stool. On March 19, she reported feeling better by taking Tylenol. But the following day, she was hospitalized with pneumonia, a complication of COVID-19. She told her family in the Philippines that she had tested positive for the disease caused by the coronavirus and asked them to pray for her and to spread the word to local pastors, Amada said.
Amada, who is also a nurse, said her family felt helpless watching their beloved matriarch suffer from afar, and being unable to travel to her bedside because of the infectious nature of the disease. They last saw her face on a video call.
Mark Accad, 36, who lives across the street from his parents, said his mother had diabetes, a risk factor for serious complications from COVID-19. In her last phone call with him, he said, she was preoccupied with her family’s health more than her own. But he could hear in her voice that she was worried.
“It’s just terrible that we all couldn’t be there for her,” he said.
Mark Accad said he believes his mother was exposed by infected co-workers, though that hasn’t been confirmed. She was a nursing supervisor who often stepped in to care for patients, he said.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is facing serious shortages in protective equipment for its health care workers, according to internal memos obtained by The Wall Street Journal. Mark Accad said he doesn’t know whether his mother had adequate protective gear.
In a statement, the Detroit VA Medical Center declined to comment on Accad’s case, citing privacy concerns, but confirmed that an employee of her age died from coronavirus complications.
The VA has “implemented appropriate measures to ensure the safest health care environment for each Veteran, visitor and employee,” including immediately isolating patients known to be at risk for a COVID-19 infection. As of Monday, nine VA health care workers systemwide had died of COVID-19 complications, and over 1,500 were being quarantined because of coronavirus infections, according to VA spokesperson Christina Noel.
Mark Accad said he would like his mother’s story to raise awareness of the risks health care workers face in the global pandemic.
“She’s a hero for what she did,” he said.
— Melissa Bailey | Published April 15, 2020
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California Nurse Thrived In ER and ICU, But Couldn’t Survive COVID-19
(Courtesy of the Baumbach family)
Jeff Baumbach
Age: 57 Occupation: Nurse Place of Work: St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Stockton, California Date of Death: March 31, 2020
Jeff Baumbach, 57, was a seasoned nurse of 28 years when the novel coronavirus began to circulate in California. He’d worked in the ER, the ICU and on a cardiac floor. Hepatitis and tuberculosis had been around over the years but never posed a major concern. He’d cared for patients who had tuberculosis.
Jeff and his wife, Karen Baumbach, also a nurse, initially didn’t consider it significantly riskier than challenges they’d faced for years.
“He’d worked in the ICU. He was exposed to so many things, and we never got anything,” she said. “This was just ramping up.”
One day during work, Jeff sent a sarcastic text to his wife: “I love wearing a mask every day.”
Within weeks, he would wage a difficult and steady fight against the virus that ended with a sudden collapse. Across the U.S., dozens of other health care workers have died, according to reports compiled by The Guardian and Kaiser Health News. The CDC has not yet issued a full tally, and many states have said little about how many health workers are dying.
Jeff was working at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Stockton, California, about an hour south of Sacramento, where he was a case manager for Kaiser Permanente patients treated there. (Kaiser Health News is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.)
In mid-March, Jeff and his wife traveled to New York City to help their younger son, one of four adult children, settle into an apartment. As they were leaving, bars and restaurants were starting to shut down. The feeling set in that something serious was taking place.
Back home, Karen said her husband was notified that he may have been around a co-worker who tested positive for the coronavirus. Jeff would need to wear a mask. On March 23, he called in sick. The next day, he was told to get a COVID-19 test.
Jeff’s test was positive. Soon after, so was Karen’s. The couple hunkered down together at home, Karen with body aches and congestion and Jeff with a fever and cough.
Their home had been the site of countless family brunches and barbecues, for which Jeff was often the chef. It was where he solved massive jigsaw puzzles with his kids, sealed them together and put them on the ceiling of the garage.
Kaila Baumbach, 26, the last child living in their Lodi home, had moved out as a precaution. She and her dad were close. They had gotten tattoos together on a family trip to Hawaii. Hers, a peace sign. His had two large Celtic hearts and four smaller ones to represent his children. Kaila said she didn’t text or call her dad when he was sick.
“I thought he was invincible,” she said during a phone interview, through tears.
Karen took Jeff to the emergency room on March 26, where he was diagnosed with pneumonia, but chose to recuperate at home. On March 31, he collapsed in an upstairs bathroom.
“It was just like that,” Karen said. “It went downhill really fast.”
Karen called 911 and went with him to Adventist Health Lodi Memorial, the hospital where she worked. She sat in her car getting updates by phone. Kaila waited in another car.
The ventilator Jeff was connected to had little effect and he remained unresponsive.
When it seemed hopeless, Karen went in, suited with full protective medical gear, and told Jeff, her husband of 33 years, she loved him. The kids love him. And she was sorry.
“We both sat here all those days with him getting worse before my eyes and me not seeing it,” she said. “The doctor reassured me that several times people have seemed to be OK and then they just fall off and then it’s just too late.”
Karen returned home alone, still in quarantine.
The next day, Kaila organized about 50 family and loved ones to drive by the couple’s home and shine their phone flashlights to show support. Karen’s mother, Sharleen Leal, called her at 8 p.m.: “Look outside.”
Karen looked out an upstairs window. Lights from lines of cars going in both directions on the avenue shone bright. Grieving, and awash with gratitude, she cried.
— Christina Jewett, Kaiser Health News | Published April 15, 2020
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Nurse’s Faith Led Her To Care For Prisoners At A New Jersey Jail
(Courtesy of Denise Rendor)
Daisy Doronila
Age: 60 Occupation: Nurse Place of Work: Hudson County Correctional Facility in Kearny, New Jersey Date of Death: April 5, 2020
Daisy Doronila had a different perspective than most who worked at the Hudson County Correctional Facility, a New Jersey lockup 11 miles from Manhattan. It was a place where the veteran nurse could put her Catholic faith into action, showing kindness to marginalized people.
“There would be people there for the most heinous crimes,” said her daughter, Denise Rendor, 28, “but they would just melt towards my mother because she really was there to give them care with no judgment.”
Doronila, 60, died April 5, two weeks after testing positive for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The jail has been hit hard by the virus, with 27 inmates and 68 staff members having tested positive. Among those, another nurse, a correctional officer and a clerk also died, according to Ron Edwards, Hudson County’s director of corrections.
The jail is the site of a major outbreak. According to published reports, another nurse and a correctional officer who worked there have died. More than 40 staffers and 20 inmates or immigration detainees had tested positive for COVID-19 as of April 6.
Hudson County and jail officials did not respond to calls or emails with updated numbers.
Doronila fell ill before the scope of the jail infections were known. She was picking up extra shifts in the weeks before, her daughter said, and planning on a trip to Israel soon with friends from church.
That plan began to fall apart March 14, when someone at the jail noticed her coughing and asked her to go home and visit a doctor.
Doronila, of Nutley, New Jersey, went to her doctor and a local hospital in the coming days but was told she had strep throat, so she wouldn’t get a coronavirus test. Then she was told her fever wasn’t high enough to merit a test.
Edwards, the jail chief, said Doronila offered to come back to work after she started feeling ill, not wanting to let him down. He told her to stay home and rest.
“She was one of my hardest workers,” he said, describing her as sophisticated, intelligent and compassionate. “Daisy could handle herself. If someone got obnoxious with her, she’d put them in their place and call for help if she needed to.”
As days went by in March, her condition got worse. Feeling breathless, she went to an urgent care center on March 21.
Her oxygen saturation level was 77 ― far below levels that should be close to 100 — so she was sent by ambulance to the hospital. The next day, she was transferred to the ICU, where she was put on a ventilator, never to talk to her family again.
Rendor, who was not allowed to visit her mother, said time crawled as she awaited updates from nurses and doctors.
On her fifth day in the hospital, her mother went into cardiac arrest and was revived. On Day Nine, she was put on dialysis.
By Day 14, it was futile.
Rendor said her mother emigrated from the Philippines as a young nurse. She loved to dress in fashionable clothes and eat seafood on the waterfront in New York City.
The two loved to shop together and were looking forward to the next chapters in life. For the mother, retirement at 65. For Rendor, marriage and perhaps starting her own family.
“It was about to get really, really good,” Rendor said.
— Christina Jewett, Kaiser Health News | Published April 15, 2020
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An Army Veteran, Hospital Custodian ‘Loved Helping People’
(Courtesy of Michelle Wilcox)
Alvin Simmons
Age: 54 Occupation: Environmental service assistant Place of Work: Rochester General Hospital in Rochester, New York Death: March 17, 2020
Alvin Simmons started working as a custodian at Rochester General Hospital, in New York state, weeks before he fell ill. “He loved helping people and he figured the best place to do that would be in a hospital,” his sister, Michelle Wilcox said.
An Army veteran who had served in the first Gulf War, Simmons loved karaoke and doted on his three grandchildren, Wilcox said. “He was a dedicated, hardworking individual who had just changed his life around” since a prison stint, she said.
According to Wilcox, Simmons began developing symptoms shortly after cleaning the room of a woman he believed was infected with the novel coronavirus. “Other hospital employees did not want to clean the room because they said they weren’t properly trained” to clean the room of someone potentially infected, she said. “They got my brother from a different floor, because he had just started there,” she said. (In an email, a hospital spokesperson said they had “no evidence to suggest that Mr. Simmons was at a heightened risk of exposure to COVID-19 by virtue of his training or employment duties at RGH.”)
On March 11, he visited the emergency room at Rochester General, where he was tested for COVID-19, Wilcox said. Over the next few days, as he rested at his girlfriend’s home, his breathing became more labored and he began to cough up blood. He was rushed to the hospital on March 13, where he was later declared brain-dead. Subsequently, he received a COVID-19 diagnosis. Simmons died on March 17.
— Danielle Renwick, The Guardian | Published April 15, 2020
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Nurse At Nevada VA Dies After Caring For Infected Colleague
(Courtesy of Bob Thompson)
Vianna Thompson
Age: 52 Occupation: Nurse Places of Work: VA Sierra Nevada Health Care System and Northern Nevada Medical Center in Reno, Nevada Date of Death: April 7, 2020
Nurse Vianna Thompson, 52, spent two night shifts caring for a fellow Veterans Affairs health care worker who was dying from COVID-19.
Two weeks later, she too was lying in a hospital intensive care unit, with a co-worker holding her hand as she died.
Thompson and the man she treated were among three VA health care workers in Reno, Nevada, to die in two weeks from complications of the novel coronavirus.
“It’s pretty devastating. It’s surreal. Reno’s not that big of a city,” said Robyn Underhill, a night nurse who worked with Thompson in the ER at Reno’s VA hospital the past two years.
Thompson, who dreamed of teaching nursing one day, died April 7, joining a growing list of health care professionals killed in the pandemic.
Born Vianna Fye in Port Huron, Michigan, she became a go-getter nurse who worked almost exclusively at night, putting in five or six 12-hour shifts a week, according to her husband, Bob Thompson, 60.
The couple met in 1991 on the Osan Air Base in South Korea, where he was an inventory management specialist in the Air Force, and she was a veterinary technician in the Army, caring for military police dogs. They bonded over two-step dancing and country music.
Vianna was a “proud momma,” often showing off photos and videos of their three sons on her phone, her husband said. As the main breadwinner for over eight years, she juggled two jobs to make sure her boys had everything they needed, including saxophones, drums and keyboards so they could play jazz and country music. “She was just sweet, big-hearted, caring, unselfish,” he said.
Before she died, Thompson was working two jobs: full time in the ER at the VA Sierra Nevada Health Care System in Reno, and part time in the ICU at Northern Nevada Medical Center.
In the ICU, she tended to a fellow VA health care worker who had fallen ill with COVID-19, according to nurse Underhill. Two days later, on March 29, Thompson arrived at work with a cough.
“She came to work sick, and we were all very concerned,” Underhill said. “Call it intuition, call it ‘Spidey sense,’ but I knew that moment that she was coughing that this was not going to end well.”
Underhill said Thompson already had a slight smoker’s cough, so she may have overlooked the fact that her cough was a classic symptom of COVID-19.
“She was in denial that she was taking care of this high-risk population,” Underhill said. And she was reluctant to miss work.
That Sunday shift would be Thompson’s last. Over the next four days, she wrestled with fever, weakness and shortness of breath. The following Thursday, she texted her husband from the bedroom: “Call the ambulance, I can hardly breathe.”
She was taken to the VA hospital where she worked and immediately sedated and put on a ventilator.
The next Tuesday, her organs were failing and it was time to remove life support, her husband said. They connected him on FaceTime to say goodbye, and a nurse held her hand as she died.
As a veteran, she qualified for an “honor flight,” in which the patient’s body is covered with a black box, draped with an American flag and wheeled through the hospital while others line up and salute.
Because of the infectious nature of the coronavirus, a flag could not be safely draped over her body, so someone walked in front of her with a flag.
Bob Thompson said the honor flight ceremony drew more people into the hallways than staff had seen in 20 years, “all the way from the ICU to the morgue.”
“God’s getting a hell of a nurse,” he said.
— Melissa Bailey | Published April 15, 2020
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Dr. J. Ronald Verrier Was Busy Saving Lives Before The Pandemic
(Courtesy of Christina Pardo)
J. Ronald Verrier
Age: 59 Occupation: Surgeon Place of Work: St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, New York Date of Death: April 8, 2020
Dr. J. Ronald Verrier, a surgeon at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, spent the final weeks of his audacious, unfinished life tending to a torrent of patients inflicted with COVID-19. He died April 8 at Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital in Oceanside, New York, at age 59, after falling ill from the novel coronavirus.
Verrier led the charge even as the financially strapped St. Barnabas Hospital struggled to find masks and gowns to protect its workers — many nurses continue to make cloth masks — and makeshift morgues in the parking lot held patients who had died.
“He did a good work,” said Jeannine Sherwood, a nurse manager at St. Barnabas Hospital who worked closely with Verrier.
“He can rest.”
Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Verrier graduated from the Faculté de Médecine et de Pharmacie in 1986 and trained at Lincoln Medical Center in the Bronx. He worked at St. Barnabas for two decades, performing thousands of surgeries on critically ill patients and trauma victims, while overseeing the general surgery residency program.
A towering presence with a wide, dimpled smile, Verrier watched his large flock closely — popping into patients’ rooms for impromptu birthday parties, pressing his medical school residents to sharpen their surgical skills and extinguishing doubt in bright, young minds.
“He kept pushing me forward,” said Dr. Christina Pardo, a cousin who became an obstetrician and gynecologist. “I would call him and say, ‘I swear I failed that test,’ and he would laugh. He was my confidence when I didn’t have it.”
“He was someone you’d love to see if you were having a bad day,” said Dr. Ridwan Shabsigh, chairman of the Department of Surgery at SBH Health System. “He would comfort your heart.”
The Verrier family stretches across continents — a boisterous crew of cousins who grew up as brothers and sisters, a pot of joumou, a spicy Haitian soup, always boiling somewhere.
Verrier, who spoke English, French and Creole, zipped around to a niece’s wedding in Belgium, a baptism in Florida, another wedding in Montreal. In February, he ferried medical supplies to Haiti, returning to St. Barnabas to fortify the hospital for the surge of coronavirus patients.
Verrier helped steer the hospital’s efforts to increase — by 500% — the number of critically ill patients it could care for, an effort he worked on until he became ill.
“He was at the hospital every day,” Shabsigh said. “This was a nonstop effort, day and night.”
Verrier discovered he was infected in early April. After developing symptoms, he worked from his Woodmere, New York, home.
Undaunted, he did not want to talk about being sick. “He has this personality that, ‘Everything is going to be OK,’” said Pardo.
Shabsigh spoke with him the day before his death.
“He understood the coronavirus, he understood the pandemic,” he said. “He still maintained a high morale and hope that he would recover.”
When his condition worsened suddenly, according to Pardo, Verrier was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital where he died.
After a powerful earthquake struck Haiti in 2010, Verrier tended to victims, treating dozens of patients who required amputations at a Port-au-Prince hospital.
“Sometimes you use a little anesthesia and you cut the limb,” Verrier said soberly in a video recorded at the time. “Because you have to save a life.”
— Sarah Varney, Kaiser Health News | Published April 15, 2020
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America’s First ER Doctor To Die In The Heat Of COVID-19 Battle
(Courtesy of Debra Vasalech Lyons)
Frank Gabrin
Age: 60 Occupation: Doctor Places of Work: St. John’s Episcopal in Queens, New York, and East Orange General in New Jersey Date of Death: March 26, 2020
At about 5 a.m. on March 19, a New York City ER physician named Frank Gabrin texted a friend about his concerns over the lack of medical supplies at hospitals.
“It’s busy ― everyone wants a COVID test that I do not have to give them,” he wrote in the message to Eddy Soffer. “So they are angry and disappointed.”
Worse, though, was the limited availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) — the masks and gloves that help keep health care workers from getting sick and spreading the virus to others. Gabrin said he had no choice but to don the same mask for several shifts, against Food and Drug Administration guidelines.
“Don’t have any PPE that has not been used,” he wrote. “No N95 masks ― my own goggles — my own face shield,” he added, referring to the N95 respirators considered among the best lines of defense.
Less than two weeks later, Gabrin became the first ER doctor in the U.S. known to have died as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the American College of Emergency Physicians.
Read more here.
— Alastair Gee, The Guardian | Published April 10, 2020
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This story is part of “Lost on the Frontline,” a project from The Guardian and Kaiser Health News that aims to document the life of every health care worker in America who dies from COVID-19 during the pandemic. If you have a colleague or loved one we should include, please share their story.
Lost On The Frontline published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/
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Lost On The Frontline
America’s health care workers are dying. In some states, medical staff account for as many as 20% of known coronavirus cases. They tend to patients in hospitals, treating them, serving them food and cleaning their rooms. Others at risk work in nursing homes or are employed as home health aides.
Some of them do not survive the encounter. Many hospitals are overwhelmed and some workers lack protective equipment or suffer from underlying health conditions that make them vulnerable to the highly infectious virus.
Many cases are shrouded in secrecy. “Lost on the Frontline” is a collaboration between The Guardian and Kaiser Health News that aims to document the lives of health care workers in the U.S. who die from COVID-19, and to understand why so many are falling victim to the pandemic.
These are some of the first tragic cases.
  Debbie Accad Clinical Nursing Coordinator
Jeff Baumbach Nurse
Araceli Buendia Ilagan ICU Nurse
Leo Dela Cruz Geriatric Psychiatrist
Daisy Doronila Nurse
Frank Gabrin Doctor
Rose Harrison Nurse
Curtis Hunt Social Worker
Kim King-Smith Electrocardiogram Technician
Alvin Simmons Environmental Service Assistant
Vianna Thompson Nurse
J. Ronald Verrier Surgeon
Lost On The Frontline
This project aims to document the life of every health care worker in America who dies from COVID-19. If you have a colleague or loved one we should include, please share their story.
    An Exacting But Loving Aunt, She Was A Mentor Until The End
(Courtesy of Jhoanna Mariel Buendia)
Araceli Buendia Ilagan
Age: 63 Occupation: Intensive care unit nurse Place of Work: Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami Date of Death: March 27, 2020
For Jhoanna Mariel Buendia, her aunt was a constant ― if distant — presence. Araceli Buendia Ilagan emigrated from their hometown Baguio, in the Philippines, to the U.S. before Buendia was born, but she remained close to her family and communicated with them nearly every day.
Read More
True Toll Of COVID-19 On U.S. Health Care Workers Unknown Apr 15
“She was one of the smartest people I ever knew,” Buendia, 27, said. Buendia Ilagan, who at one point looked into adopting her niece so she could join her and her husband the United States, encouraged Buendia to become a nurse, and talked her through grueling coursework in anatomy and physiology. Buendia is now a nurse in London.
Buendia Ilagan was also demanding. “Whenever she visited the Philippines, she wanted everything to be organized and squeaky-clean,” Buendia said.
The last time the two spoke, in late March, Buendia Ilagan didn’t mention anything about feeling ill. Instead, the two commiserated over their experiences of treating patients with COVID-19; as always, her aunt offered her advice on staying safe while giving the best possible care. She died four days later.
— Danielle Renwick, The Guardian | Published April 22, 2020
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A Beloved Geriatric Psychiatrist And Church Musician Remembered For His Cooking Skills
(Courtesy of Nida Gonzales)
Leo Dela Cruz
Age: 57 Occupation: Geriatric psychiatrist Place of Work: Christ Hospital and CarePoint Health in Jersey City, New Jersey Date of Death: April 8, 2020
Dr. Leo Dela Cruz was nervous about going to work in the weeks before he died, his friends said. Like many in the region, Christ Hospital had an influx of COVID-19 patients and faced a shortage of ventilators and masks.
Dela Cruz was a geriatric psychiatrist and didn’t work in coronavirus wards. But he continued to see patients in person. In early April, Dela Cruz, who lived alone, complained only of migraines, his friends said. Within a week, his condition worsened, and he was put on a ventilator at a nearby hospital. He died soon after.
Friends said he may have been exposed at the hospital. (In a statement, hospital representatives said he didn’t treat COVID-19 patients.)
Dela Cruz, the oldest of 10 siblings, came from a family of health care professionals. His friends and family — from Cebu, Philippines, to Teaneck, New Jersey — remembered his jovial personality on Facebook. He won “best doctor of the year” awards, played tennis and cooked traditional Cebu dishes.
Nida Gonzales, a colleague, said he always supported people, whether funding a student’s education or running a church mental health program. “I feel like I lost a brother,” she said.
— Ankita Rao, The Guardian | Published April 22, 2020
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Alabama Nurse Remembered As Selfless But Sassy
(Courtesy of Amanda Williams)
Rose Harrison
Age: 60 Occupation: Nurse Place of Work: Marion Regional Nursing Home in Hamilton, Alabama Date of Death: April 6, 2020
Rose Harrison, 60, lived to serve others ― her husband, three daughters, grandchildren and the residents of the nursing home where she worked. Though the Alabama nurse was selfless, she also had a sassy edge to her personality and a penchant for road rage, her daughter, Amanda Williams said.
“Her personality was so funny, you automatically loved her,” Williams said. “She was so outspoken. If she didn’t agree with you, she’d tell you in a respectful way.”
Williams was not wearing a mask when she cared for a patient who later tested positive for COVID-19 at Marion Regional Nursing Home in Hamilton, Alabama, her daughter said. She later developed a cough, fatigue and a low-grade fever, but kept reporting to duty all week. Officials from the nursing home did not return calls for comment.
On April 3, Williams drove her mother to a hospital. The following evening, Harrison discussed the option of going on a ventilator with loved ones on a video call, agreeing it was the best course. Williams believed that her mother fully expected to recover. She died April 6.
— Christina Jewett, Kaiser Health News | Published April 22, 2020
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Connecticut Social Worker Had Angelic Singing Voice And A Zest For Life
(Courtesy of the Hunt family)
Curtis Hunt
Age: 57 Occupation: Social worker Places of Work: Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center and New Reach, both in New Haven, Connecticut Date of Death: March 23, 2020
At a shelter for adults recovering from addiction, residents looked forward to the days when Marion “Curtis” Hunt would take the stage, emceeing talent shows and belting out Broadway and gospel tunes.
It wasn’t part of his job description as a social worker. It was just one of the ways he went “above and beyond,” said his supervisor at Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center, Daena Murphy. “He had a beautiful voice,” she said. “He was just a wonderful person — funny, engaging, always a huge smile on his face.”
Hunt, the youngest of four brothers, earned his master’s in social work from Fordham University at 52, and was baptized at his brother’s Pentecostal church at 54. He was a devoted uncle who doted on his dog and cat, Mya and Milo.
It’s unclear how Hunt got infected, but one patient he worked with had tested positive for COVID-19, as did two co-workers, according to Dr. Ece Tek, another supervisor at Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center. Hunt died on March 23, one week after developing flu-like symptoms, said his brother John Mann Jr.
— Melissa Bailey | Published April 22, 2020
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To The End, King-Smith Was Driven By A Desire To Help Others
(Courtesy of Hassana Salaam-Rivers)
Kim King-Smith
Age: 53 Occupation: Electrocardiogram technician Place of Work: University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey Date of Death: March 31, 2020
Kim King-Smith was a natural caregiver. An only child, she grew up close to her extended family, including her cousins Hassana Salaam-Rivers and Sharonda Salaam. After Salaam developed multiple sclerosis, King-Smith visited her every day.
“She’d bring her sweets that she wasn’t supposed to have and share them with her,” Salaam-Rivers said. King-Smith’s desire to care for others was the reason she became an electrocardiogram technician, her cousin added. “If a friend of a friend or family member went to the hospital, she would always go and visit them as soon as her shift was over,” she said.
In March, King-Smith cared for a patient she said had symptoms of COVID-19; she soon fell ill herself and tested positive for the virus. It seemed like a mild case at first, and she stayed in touch with family via FaceTime while trying to isolate from her husband, Lenny.
On March 29, Salaam-Rivers checked in on her cousin and noticed she was struggling to breathe. She urged her to call an ambulance. After King-Smith was hospitalized, she exchanged text messages with her mother and cousin. As the day progressed, her messages carried increasingly grave news, Salaam-Rivers said. Then she stopped responding.
— Danielle Renwick, The Guardian | Published April 22, 2020
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On The Eve Of Retirement, VA Nurse Succumbs To COVID-19
(Courtesy of Mark Accad)
Debbie Accad
Age: 72 Occupation: Clinical nursing coordinator Place of Work: Detroit VA Medical Center in Detroit, Michigan Date of Death: March 30, 2020
Nurse Divina “Debbie” Accad had cared for veterans for over 25 years and was set to retire in April. But after contracting the novel coronavirus, she spent her final 11 days on a ventilator — and didn’t survive past March.
She joined a growing list of health care professionals working on the front lines of the pandemic who have died from COVID-19.
Accad, 72, a clinical nursing coordinator at the Detroit VA Medical Center, dedicated her life to nursing, according to her son Mark Accad.
“She died doing what she loved most,” he said. “That was caring for people.”
She was born Divina Amo in the Philippine town of Alimodian, known for its sweet bananas. The eldest of four children, she was a precocious student. She finished high school at age 14 and had to wait a year to pursue her dream of nursing school. She graduated from Central Philippine University with a bachelor’s in nursing in 1969.
Yearning to move abroad, she applied to a “fly now, pay later” program for nurses and landed a job in Chicago, joining tens of thousands of Filipino nurses who have migrated to the United States. She later moved to Taylor, Michigan, where she married William Accad in 1985 and raised four children with him.
Her niece April Amada lives in Accad’s hometown. She remembers her aunt as a generous cook: A visit from Tita Debbie (Aunt Debbie) meant unli-kainan, or “unlimited food”: She served up big American breakfasts, cooked spicy kielbasa with cabbage and introduced her family to Jell-O.
Accad was the “pillar of the family,” Amada said, improving their quality of life by sending home money, and even supporting her younger sister through nursing school.
Amada said her aunt first signaled she was sick on the evening of March 16, telling relatives she had a fever and loose stool. On March 19, she reported feeling better by taking Tylenol. But the following day, she was hospitalized with pneumonia, a complication of COVID-19. She told her family in the Philippines that she had tested positive for the disease caused by the coronavirus and asked them to pray for her and to spread the word to local pastors, Amada said.
Amada, who is also a nurse, said her family felt helpless watching their beloved matriarch suffer from afar, and being unable to travel to her bedside because of the infectious nature of the disease. They last saw her face on a video call.
Mark Accad, 36, who lives across the street from his parents, said his mother had diabetes, a risk factor for serious complications from COVID-19. In her last phone call with him, he said, she was preoccupied with her family’s health more than her own. But he could hear in her voice that she was worried.
“It’s just terrible that we all couldn’t be there for her,” he said.
Mark Accad said he believes his mother was exposed by infected co-workers, though that hasn’t been confirmed. She was a nursing supervisor who often stepped in to care for patients, he said.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is facing serious shortages in protective equipment for its health care workers, according to internal memos obtained by The Wall Street Journal. Mark Accad said he doesn’t know whether his mother had adequate protective gear.
In a statement, the Detroit VA Medical Center declined to comment on Accad’s case, citing privacy concerns, but confirmed that an employee of her age died from coronavirus complications.
The VA has “implemented appropriate measures to ensure the safest health care environment for each Veteran, visitor and employee,” including immediately isolating patients known to be at risk for a COVID-19 infection. As of Monday, nine VA health care workers systemwide had died of COVID-19 complications, and over 1,500 were being quarantined because of coronavirus infections, according to VA spokesperson Christina Noel.
Mark Accad said he would like his mother’s story to raise awareness of the risks health care workers face in the global pandemic.
“She’s a hero for what she did,” he said.
— Melissa Bailey | Published April 15, 2020
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California Nurse Thrived In ER and ICU, But Couldn’t Survive COVID-19
(Courtesy of the Baumbach family)
Jeff Baumbach
Age: 57 Occupation: Nurse Place of Work: St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Stockton, California Date of Death: March 31, 2020
Jeff Baumbach, 57, was a seasoned nurse of 28 years when the novel coronavirus began to circulate in California. He’d worked in the ER, the ICU and on a cardiac floor. Hepatitis and tuberculosis had been around over the years but never posed a major concern. He’d cared for patients who had tuberculosis.
Jeff and his wife, Karen Baumbach, also a nurse, initially didn’t consider it significantly riskier than challenges they’d faced for years.
“He’d worked in the ICU. He was exposed to so many things, and we never got anything,” she said. “This was just ramping up.”
One day during work, Jeff sent a sarcastic text to his wife: “I love wearing a mask every day.”
Within weeks, he would wage a difficult and steady fight against the virus that ended with a sudden collapse. Across the U.S., dozens of other health care workers have died, according to reports compiled by The Guardian and Kaiser Health News. The CDC has not yet issued a full tally, and many states have said little about how many health workers are dying.
Jeff was working at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Stockton, California, about an hour south of Sacramento, where he was a case manager for Kaiser Permanente patients treated there. (Kaiser Health News is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.)
In mid-March, Jeff and his wife traveled to New York City to help their younger son, one of four adult children, settle into an apartment. As they were leaving, bars and restaurants were starting to shut down. The feeling set in that something serious was taking place.
Back home, Karen said her husband was notified that he may have been around a co-worker who tested positive for the coronavirus. Jeff would need to wear a mask. On March 23, he called in sick. The next day, he was told to get a COVID-19 test.
Jeff’s test was positive. Soon after, so was Karen’s. The couple hunkered down together at home, Karen with body aches and congestion and Jeff with a fever and cough.
Their home had been the site of countless family brunches and barbecues, for which Jeff was often the chef. It was where he solved massive jigsaw puzzles with his kids, sealed them together and put them on the ceiling of the garage.
Kaila Baumbach, 26, the last child living in their Lodi home, had moved out as a precaution. She and her dad were close. They had gotten tattoos together on a family trip to Hawaii. Hers, a peace sign. His had two large Celtic hearts and four smaller ones to represent his children. Kaila said she didn’t text or call her dad when he was sick.
“I thought he was invincible,” she said during a phone interview, through tears.
Karen took Jeff to the emergency room on March 26, where he was diagnosed with pneumonia, but chose to recuperate at home. On March 31, he collapsed in an upstairs bathroom.
“It was just like that,” Karen said. “It went downhill really fast.”
Karen called 911 and went with him to Adventist Health Lodi Memorial, the hospital where she worked. She sat in her car getting updates by phone. Kaila waited in another car.
The ventilator Jeff was connected to had little effect and he remained unresponsive.
When it seemed hopeless, Karen went in, suited with full protective medical gear, and told Jeff, her husband of 33 years, she loved him. The kids love him. And she was sorry.
“We both sat here all those days with him getting worse before my eyes and me not seeing it,” she said. “The doctor reassured me that several times people have seemed to be OK and then they just fall off and then it’s just too late.”
Karen returned home alone, still in quarantine.
The next day, Kaila organized about 50 family and loved ones to drive by the couple’s home and shine their phone flashlights to show support. Karen’s mother, Sharleen Leal, called her at 8 p.m.: “Look outside.”
Karen looked out an upstairs window. Lights from lines of cars going in both directions on the avenue shone bright. Grieving, and awash with gratitude, she cried.
— Christina Jewett, Kaiser Health News | Published April 15, 2020
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Nurse’s Faith Led Her To Care For Prisoners At A New Jersey Jail
(Courtesy of Denise Rendor)
Daisy Doronila
Age: 60 Occupation: Nurse Place of Work: Hudson County Correctional Facility in Kearny, New Jersey Date of Death: April 5, 2020
Daisy Doronila had a different perspective than most who worked at the Hudson County Correctional Facility, a New Jersey lockup 11 miles from Manhattan. It was a place where the veteran nurse could put her Catholic faith into action, showing kindness to marginalized people.
“There would be people there for the most heinous crimes,” said her daughter, Denise Rendor, 28, “but they would just melt towards my mother because she really was there to give them care with no judgment.”
Doronila, 60, died April 5, two weeks after testing positive for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The jail has been hit hard by the virus, with 27 inmates and 68 staff members having tested positive. Among those, another nurse, a correctional officer and a clerk also died, according to Ron Edwards, Hudson County’s director of corrections.
The jail is the site of a major outbreak. According to published reports, another nurse and a correctional officer who worked there have died. More than 40 staffers and 20 inmates or immigration detainees had tested positive for COVID-19 as of April 6.
Hudson County and jail officials did not respond to calls or emails with updated numbers.
Doronila fell ill before the scope of the jail infections were known. She was picking up extra shifts in the weeks before, her daughter said, and planning on a trip to Israel soon with friends from church.
That plan began to fall apart March 14, when someone at the jail noticed her coughing and asked her to go home and visit a doctor.
Doronila, of Nutley, New Jersey, went to her doctor and a local hospital in the coming days but was told she had strep throat, so she wouldn’t get a coronavirus test. Then she was told her fever wasn’t high enough to merit a test.
Edwards, the jail chief, said Doronila offered to come back to work after she started feeling ill, not wanting to let him down. He told her to stay home and rest.
“She was one of my hardest workers,” he said, describing her as sophisticated, intelligent and compassionate. “Daisy could handle herself. If someone got obnoxious with her, she’d put them in their place and call for help if she needed to.”
As days went by in March, her condition got worse. Feeling breathless, she went to an urgent care center on March 21.
Her oxygen saturation level was 77 ― far below levels that should be close to 100 — so she was sent by ambulance to the hospital. The next day, she was transferred to the ICU, where she was put on a ventilator, never to talk to her family again.
Rendor, who was not allowed to visit her mother, said time crawled as she awaited updates from nurses and doctors.
On her fifth day in the hospital, her mother went into cardiac arrest and was revived. On Day Nine, she was put on dialysis.
By Day 14, it was futile.
Rendor said her mother emigrated from the Philippines as a young nurse. She loved to dress in fashionable clothes and eat seafood on the waterfront in New York City.
The two loved to shop together and were looking forward to the next chapters in life. For the mother, retirement at 65. For Rendor, marriage and perhaps starting her own family.
“It was about to get really, really good,” Rendor said.
— Christina Jewett, Kaiser Health News | Published April 15, 2020
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An Army Veteran, Hospital Custodian ‘Loved Helping People’
(Courtesy of Michelle Wilcox)
Alvin Simmons
Age: 54 Occupation: Environmental service assistant Place of Work: Rochester General Hospital in Rochester, New York Death: March 17, 2020
Alvin Simmons started working as a custodian at Rochester General Hospital, in New York state, weeks before he fell ill. “He loved helping people and he figured the best place to do that would be in a hospital,” his sister, Michelle Wilcox said.
An Army veteran who had served in the first Gulf War, Simmons loved karaoke and doted on his three grandchildren, Wilcox said. “He was a dedicated, hardworking individual who had just changed his life around” since a prison stint, she said.
According to Wilcox, Simmons began developing symptoms shortly after cleaning the room of a woman he believed was infected with the novel coronavirus. “Other hospital employees did not want to clean the room because they said they weren’t properly trained” to clean the room of someone potentially infected, she said. “They got my brother from a different floor, because he had just started there,” she said. (In an email, a hospital spokesperson said they had “no evidence to suggest that Mr. Simmons was at a heightened risk of exposure to COVID-19 by virtue of his training or employment duties at RGH.”)
On March 11, he visited the emergency room at Rochester General, where he was tested for COVID-19, Wilcox said. Over the next few days, as he rested at his girlfriend’s home, his breathing became more labored and he began to cough up blood. He was rushed to the hospital on March 13, where he was later declared brain-dead. Subsequently, he received a COVID-19 diagnosis. Simmons died on March 17.
— Danielle Renwick, The Guardian | Published April 15, 2020
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Nurse At Nevada VA Dies After Caring For Infected Colleague
(Courtesy of Bob Thompson)
Vianna Thompson
Age: 52 Occupation: Nurse Places of Work: VA Sierra Nevada Health Care System and Northern Nevada Medical Center in Reno, Nevada Date of Death: April 7, 2020
Nurse Vianna Thompson, 52, spent two night shifts caring for a fellow Veterans Affairs health care worker who was dying from COVID-19.
Two weeks later, she too was lying in a hospital intensive care unit, with a co-worker holding her hand as she died.
Thompson and the man she treated were among three VA health care workers in Reno, Nevada, to die in two weeks from complications of the novel coronavirus.
“It’s pretty devastating. It’s surreal. Reno’s not that big of a city,” said Robyn Underhill, a night nurse who worked with Thompson in the ER at Reno’s VA hospital the past two years.
Thompson, who dreamed of teaching nursing one day, died April 7, joining a growing list of health care professionals killed in the pandemic.
Born Vianna Fye in Port Huron, Michigan, she became a go-getter nurse who worked almost exclusively at night, putting in five or six 12-hour shifts a week, according to her husband, Bob Thompson, 60.
The couple met in 1991 on the Osan Air Base in South Korea, where he was an inventory management specialist in the Air Force, and she was a veterinary technician in the Army, caring for military police dogs. They bonded over two-step dancing and country music.
Vianna was a “proud momma,” often showing off photos and videos of their three sons on her phone, her husband said. As the main breadwinner for over eight years, she juggled two jobs to make sure her boys had everything they needed, including saxophones, drums and keyboards so they could play jazz and country music. “She was just sweet, big-hearted, caring, unselfish,” he said.
Before she died, Thompson was working two jobs: full time in the ER at the VA Sierra Nevada Health Care System in Reno, and part time in the ICU at Northern Nevada Medical Center.
In the ICU, she tended to a fellow VA health care worker who had fallen ill with COVID-19, according to nurse Underhill. Two days later, on March 29, Thompson arrived at work with a cough.
“She came to work sick, and we were all very concerned,” Underhill said. “Call it intuition, call it ‘Spidey sense,’ but I knew that moment that she was coughing that this was not going to end well.”
Underhill said Thompson already had a slight smoker’s cough, so she may have overlooked the fact that her cough was a classic symptom of COVID-19.
“She was in denial that she was taking care of this high-risk population,” Underhill said. And she was reluctant to miss work.
That Sunday shift would be Thompson’s last. Over the next four days, she wrestled with fever, weakness and shortness of breath. The following Thursday, she texted her husband from the bedroom: “Call the ambulance, I can hardly breathe.”
She was taken to the VA hospital where she worked and immediately sedated and put on a ventilator.
The next Tuesday, her organs were failing and it was time to remove life support, her husband said. They connected him on FaceTime to say goodbye, and a nurse held her hand as she died.
As a veteran, she qualified for an “honor flight,” in which the patient’s body is covered with a black box, draped with an American flag and wheeled through the hospital while others line up and salute.
Because of the infectious nature of the coronavirus, a flag could not be safely draped over her body, so someone walked in front of her with a flag.
Bob Thompson said the honor flight ceremony drew more people into the hallways than staff had seen in 20 years, “all the way from the ICU to the morgue.”
“God’s getting a hell of a nurse,” he said.
— Melissa Bailey | Published April 15, 2020
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Dr. J. Ronald Verrier Was Busy Saving Lives Before The Pandemic
(Courtesy of Christina Pardo)
J. Ronald Verrier
Age: 59 Occupation: Surgeon Place of Work: St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, New York Date of Death: April 8, 2020
Dr. J. Ronald Verrier, a surgeon at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, spent the final weeks of his audacious, unfinished life tending to a torrent of patients inflicted with COVID-19. He died April 8 at Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital in Oceanside, New York, at age 59, after falling ill from the novel coronavirus.
Verrier led the charge even as the financially strapped St. Barnabas Hospital struggled to find masks and gowns to protect its workers — many nurses continue to make cloth masks — and makeshift morgues in the parking lot held patients who had died.
“He did a good work,” said Jeannine Sherwood, a nurse manager at St. Barnabas Hospital who worked closely with Verrier.
“He can rest.”
Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Verrier graduated from the Faculté de Médecine et de Pharmacie in 1986 and trained at Lincoln Medical Center in the Bronx. He worked at St. Barnabas for two decades, performing thousands of surgeries on critically ill patients and trauma victims, while overseeing the general surgery residency program.
A towering presence with a wide, dimpled smile, Verrier watched his large flock closely — popping into patients’ rooms for impromptu birthday parties, pressing his medical school residents to sharpen their surgical skills and extinguishing doubt in bright, young minds.
“He kept pushing me forward,” said Dr. Christina Pardo, a cousin who became an obstetrician and gynecologist. “I would call him and say, ‘I swear I failed that test,’ and he would laugh. He was my confidence when I didn’t have it.”
“He was someone you’d love to see if you were having a bad day,” said Dr. Ridwan Shabsigh, chairman of the Department of Surgery at SBH Health System. “He would comfort your heart.”
The Verrier family stretches across continents — a boisterous crew of cousins who grew up as brothers and sisters, a pot of joumou, a spicy Haitian soup, always boiling somewhere.
Verrier, who spoke English, French and Creole, zipped around to a niece’s wedding in Belgium, a baptism in Florida, another wedding in Montreal. In February, he ferried medical supplies to Haiti, returning to St. Barnabas to fortify the hospital for the surge of coronavirus patients.
Verrier helped steer the hospital’s efforts to increase — by 500% — the number of critically ill patients it could care for, an effort he worked on until he became ill.
“He was at the hospital every day,” Shabsigh said. “This was a nonstop effort, day and night.”
Verrier discovered he was infected in early April. After developing symptoms, he worked from his Woodmere, New York, home.
Undaunted, he did not want to talk about being sick. “He has this personality that, ‘Everything is going to be OK,’” said Pardo.
Shabsigh spoke with him the day before his death.
“He understood the coronavirus, he understood the pandemic,” he said. “He still maintained a high morale and hope that he would recover.”
When his condition worsened suddenly, according to Pardo, Verrier was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital where he died.
After a powerful earthquake struck Haiti in 2010, Verrier tended to victims, treating dozens of patients who required amputations at a Port-au-Prince hospital.
“Sometimes you use a little anesthesia and you cut the limb,” Verrier said soberly in a video recorded at the time. “Because you have to save a life.”
— Sarah Varney, Kaiser Health News | Published April 15, 2020
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America’s First ER Doctor To Die In The Heat Of COVID-19 Battle
(Courtesy of Debra Vasalech Lyons)
Frank Gabrin
Age: 60 Occupation: Doctor Places of Work: St. John’s Episcopal in Queens, New York, and East Orange General in New Jersey Date of Death: March 26, 2020
At about 5 a.m. on March 19, a New York City ER physician named Frank Gabrin texted a friend about his concerns over the lack of medical supplies at hospitals.
“It’s busy ― everyone wants a COVID test that I do not have to give them,” he wrote in the message to Eddy Soffer. “So they are angry and disappointed.”
Worse, though, was the limited availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) — the masks and gloves that help keep health care workers from getting sick and spreading the virus to others. Gabrin said he had no choice but to don the same mask for several shifts, against Food and Drug Administration guidelines.
“Don’t have any PPE that has not been used,” he wrote. “No N95 masks ― my own goggles — my own face shield,” he added, referring to the N95 respirators considered among the best lines of defense.
Less than two weeks later, Gabrin became the first ER doctor in the U.S. known to have died as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the American College of Emergency Physicians.
Read more here.
— Alastair Gee, The Guardian | Published April 10, 2020
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This story is part of “Lost on the Frontline,” a project from The Guardian and Kaiser Health News that aims to document the life of every health care worker in America who dies from COVID-19 during the pandemic. If you have a colleague or loved one we should include, please share their story.
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Lost On The Frontline
America’s health care workers are dying. In some states, medical staff account for as many as 20% of known coronavirus cases. They tend to patients in hospitals, treating them, serving them food and cleaning their rooms. Others at risk work in nursing homes or are employed as home health aides.
Some of them do not survive the encounter. Many hospitals are overwhelmed and some workers lack protective equipment or suffer from underlying health conditions that make them vulnerable to the highly infectious virus.
Many cases are shrouded in secrecy. “Lost on the Frontline” is a collaboration between The Guardian and Kaiser Health News that aims to document the lives of health care workers in the U.S. who die from COVID-19, and to understand why so many are falling victim to the pandemic.
These are some of the first tragic cases.
  Debbie Accad Clinical Nursing Coordinator
Jeff Baumbach Nurse
Araceli Buendia Ilagan ICU Nurse
Leo Dela Cruz Geriatric Psychiatrist
Daisy Doronila Nurse
Frank Gabrin Doctor
Rose Harrison Nurse
Curtis Hunt Social Worker
Kim King-Smith Electrocardiogram Technician
Alvin Simmons Environmental Service Assistant
Vianna Thompson Nurse
J. Ronald Verrier Surgeon
Lost On The Frontline
This project aims to document the life of every health care worker in America who dies from COVID-19. If you have a colleague or loved one we should include, please share their story.
    An Exacting But Loving Aunt, She Was A Mentor Until The End
(Courtesy of Jhoanna Mariel Buendia)
Araceli Buendia Ilagan
Age: 63 Occupation: Intensive care unit nurse Place of Work: Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami Date of Death: March 27, 2020
For Jhoanna Mariel Buendia, her aunt was a constant ― if distant — presence. Araceli Buendia Ilagan emigrated from their hometown Baguio, in the Philippines, to the U.S. before Buendia was born, but she remained close to her family and communicated with them nearly every day.
Read More
True Toll Of COVID-19 On U.S. Health Care Workers Unknown Apr 15
“She was one of the smartest people I ever knew,” Buendia, 27, said. Buendia Ilagan, who at one point looked into adopting her niece so she could join her and her husband the United States, encouraged Buendia to become a nurse, and talked her through grueling coursework in anatomy and physiology. Buendia is now a nurse in London.
Buendia Ilagan was also demanding. “Whenever she visited the Philippines, she wanted everything to be organized and squeaky-clean,” Buendia said.
The last time the two spoke, in late March, Buendia Ilagan didn’t mention anything about feeling ill. Instead, the two commiserated over their experiences of treating patients with COVID-19; as always, her aunt offered her advice on staying safe while giving the best possible care. She died four days later.
— Danielle Renwick, The Guardian | Published April 22, 2020
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A Beloved Geriatric Psychiatrist And Church Musician Remembered For His Cooking Skills
(Courtesy of Nida Gonzales)
Leo Dela Cruz
Age: 57 Occupation: Geriatric psychiatrist Place of Work: Christ Hospital and CarePoint Health in Jersey City, New Jersey Date of Death: April 8, 2020
Dr. Leo Dela Cruz was nervous about going to work in the weeks before he died, his friends said. Like many in the region, Christ Hospital had an influx of COVID-19 patients and faced a shortage of ventilators and masks.
Dela Cruz was a geriatric psychiatrist and didn’t work in coronavirus wards. But he continued to see patients in person. In early April, Dela Cruz, who lived alone, complained only of migraines, his friends said. Within a week, his condition worsened, and he was put on a ventilator at a nearby hospital. He died soon after.
Friends said he may have been exposed at the hospital. (In a statement, hospital representatives said he didn’t treat COVID-19 patients.)
Dela Cruz, the oldest of 10 siblings, came from a family of health care professionals. His friends and family — from Cebu, Philippines, to Teaneck, New Jersey — remembered his jovial personality on Facebook. He won “best doctor of the year” awards, played tennis and cooked traditional Cebu dishes.
Nida Gonzales, a colleague, said he always supported people, whether funding a student’s education or running a church mental health program. “I feel like I lost a brother,” she said.
— Ankita Rao, The Guardian | Published April 22, 2020
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Alabama Nurse Remembered As Selfless But Sassy
(Courtesy of Amanda Williams)
Rose Harrison
Age: 60 Occupation: Nurse Place of Work: Marion Regional Nursing Home in Hamilton, Alabama Date of Death: April 6, 2020
Rose Harrison, 60, lived to serve others ― her husband, three daughters, grandchildren and the residents of the nursing home where she worked. Though the Alabama nurse was selfless, she also had a sassy edge to her personality and a penchant for road rage, her daughter, Amanda Williams said.
“Her personality was so funny, you automatically loved her,” Williams said. “She was so outspoken. If she didn’t agree with you, she’d tell you in a respectful way.”
Williams was not wearing a mask when she cared for a patient who later tested positive for COVID-19 at Marion Regional Nursing Home in Hamilton, Alabama, her daughter said. She later developed a cough, fatigue and a low-grade fever, but kept reporting to duty all week. Officials from the nursing home did not return calls for comment.
On April 3, Williams drove her mother to a hospital. The following evening, Harrison discussed the option of going on a ventilator with loved ones on a video call, agreeing it was the best course. Williams believed that her mother fully expected to recover. She died April 6.
— Christina Jewett, Kaiser Health News | Published April 22, 2020
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Connecticut Social Worker Had Angelic Singing Voice And A Zest For Life
(Courtesy of the Hunt family)
Curtis Hunt
Age: 57 Occupation: Social worker Places of Work: Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center and New Reach, both in New Haven, Connecticut Date of Death: March 23, 2020
At a shelter for adults recovering from addiction, residents looked forward to the days when Marion “Curtis” Hunt would take the stage, emceeing talent shows and belting out Broadway and gospel tunes.
It wasn’t part of his job description as a social worker. It was just one of the ways he went “above and beyond,” said his supervisor at Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center, Daena Murphy. “He had a beautiful voice,” she said. “He was just a wonderful person — funny, engaging, always a huge smile on his face.”
Hunt, the youngest of four brothers, earned his master’s in social work from Fordham University at 52, and was baptized at his brother’s Pentecostal church at 54. He was a devoted uncle who doted on his dog and cat, Mya and Milo.
It’s unclear how Hunt got infected, but one patient he worked with had tested positive for COVID-19, as did two co-workers, according to Dr. Ece Tek, another supervisor at Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center. Hunt died on March 23, one week after developing flu-like symptoms, said his brother John Mann Jr.
— Melissa Bailey | Published April 22, 2020
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To The End, King-Smith Was Driven By A Desire To Help Others
(Courtesy of Hassana Salaam-Rivers)
Kim King-Smith
Age: 53 Occupation: Electrocardiogram technician Place of Work: University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey Date of Death: March 31, 2020
Kim King-Smith was a natural caregiver. An only child, she grew up close to her extended family, including her cousins Hassana Salaam-Rivers and Sharonda Salaam. After Salaam developed multiple sclerosis, King-Smith visited her every day.
“She’d bring her sweets that she wasn’t supposed to have and share them with her,” Salaam-Rivers said. King-Smith’s desire to care for others was the reason she became an electrocardiogram technician, her cousin added. “If a friend of a friend or family member went to the hospital, she would always go and visit them as soon as her shift was over,” she said.
In March, King-Smith cared for a patient she said had symptoms of COVID-19; she soon fell ill herself and tested positive for the virus. It seemed like a mild case at first, and she stayed in touch with family via FaceTime while trying to isolate from her husband, Lenny.
On March 29, Salaam-Rivers checked in on her cousin and noticed she was struggling to breathe. She urged her to call an ambulance. After King-Smith was hospitalized, she exchanged text messages with her mother and cousin. As the day progressed, her messages carried increasingly grave news, Salaam-Rivers said. Then she stopped responding.
— Danielle Renwick, The Guardian | Published April 22, 2020
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On The Eve Of Retirement, VA Nurse Succumbs To COVID-19
(Courtesy of Mark Accad)
Debbie Accad
Age: 72 Occupation: Clinical nursing coordinator Place of Work: Detroit VA Medical Center in Detroit, Michigan Date of Death: March 30, 2020
Nurse Divina “Debbie” Accad had cared for veterans for over 25 years and was set to retire in April. But after contracting the novel coronavirus, she spent her final 11 days on a ventilator — and didn’t survive past March.
She joined a growing list of health care professionals working on the front lines of the pandemic who have died from COVID-19.
Accad, 72, a clinical nursing coordinator at the Detroit VA Medical Center, dedicated her life to nursing, according to her son Mark Accad.
“She died doing what she loved most,” he said. “That was caring for people.”
She was born Divina Amo in the Philippine town of Alimodian, known for its sweet bananas. The eldest of four children, she was a precocious student. She finished high school at age 14 and had to wait a year to pursue her dream of nursing school. She graduated from Central Philippine University with a bachelor’s in nursing in 1969.
Yearning to move abroad, she applied to a “fly now, pay later” program for nurses and landed a job in Chicago, joining tens of thousands of Filipino nurses who have migrated to the United States. She later moved to Taylor, Michigan, where she married William Accad in 1985 and raised four children with him.
Her niece April Amada lives in Accad’s hometown. She remembers her aunt as a generous cook: A visit from Tita Debbie (Aunt Debbie) meant unli-kainan, or “unlimited food”: She served up big American breakfasts, cooked spicy kielbasa with cabbage and introduced her family to Jell-O.
Accad was the “pillar of the family,” Amada said, improving their quality of life by sending home money, and even supporting her younger sister through nursing school.
Amada said her aunt first signaled she was sick on the evening of March 16, telling relatives she had a fever and loose stool. On March 19, she reported feeling better by taking Tylenol. But the following day, she was hospitalized with pneumonia, a complication of COVID-19. She told her family in the Philippines that she had tested positive for the disease caused by the coronavirus and asked them to pray for her and to spread the word to local pastors, Amada said.
Amada, who is also a nurse, said her family felt helpless watching their beloved matriarch suffer from afar, and being unable to travel to her bedside because of the infectious nature of the disease. They last saw her face on a video call.
Mark Accad, 36, who lives across the street from his parents, said his mother had diabetes, a risk factor for serious complications from COVID-19. In her last phone call with him, he said, she was preoccupied with her family’s health more than her own. But he could hear in her voice that she was worried.
“It’s just terrible that we all couldn’t be there for her,” he said.
Mark Accad said he believes his mother was exposed by infected co-workers, though that hasn’t been confirmed. She was a nursing supervisor who often stepped in to care for patients, he said.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is facing serious shortages in protective equipment for its health care workers, according to internal memos obtained by The Wall Street Journal. Mark Accad said he doesn’t know whether his mother had adequate protective gear.
In a statement, the Detroit VA Medical Center declined to comment on Accad’s case, citing privacy concerns, but confirmed that an employee of her age died from coronavirus complications.
The VA has “implemented appropriate measures to ensure the safest health care environment for each Veteran, visitor and employee,” including immediately isolating patients known to be at risk for a COVID-19 infection. As of Monday, nine VA health care workers systemwide had died of COVID-19 complications, and over 1,500 were being quarantined because of coronavirus infections, according to VA spokesperson Christina Noel.
Mark Accad said he would like his mother’s story to raise awareness of the risks health care workers face in the global pandemic.
“She’s a hero for what she did,” he said.
— Melissa Bailey | Published April 15, 2020
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California Nurse Thrived In ER and ICU, But Couldn’t Survive COVID-19
(Courtesy of the Baumbach family)
Jeff Baumbach
Age: 57 Occupation: Nurse Place of Work: St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Stockton, California Date of Death: March 31, 2020
Jeff Baumbach, 57, was a seasoned nurse of 28 years when the novel coronavirus began to circulate in California. He’d worked in the ER, the ICU and on a cardiac floor. Hepatitis and tuberculosis had been around over the years but never posed a major concern. He’d cared for patients who had tuberculosis.
Jeff and his wife, Karen Baumbach, also a nurse, initially didn’t consider it significantly riskier than challenges they’d faced for years.
“He’d worked in the ICU. He was exposed to so many things, and we never got anything,” she said. “This was just ramping up.”
One day during work, Jeff sent a sarcastic text to his wife: “I love wearing a mask every day.”
Within weeks, he would wage a difficult and steady fight against the virus that ended with a sudden collapse. Across the U.S., dozens of other health care workers have died, according to reports compiled by The Guardian and Kaiser Health News. The CDC has not yet issued a full tally, and many states have said little about how many health workers are dying.
Jeff was working at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Stockton, California, about an hour south of Sacramento, where he was a case manager for Kaiser Permanente patients treated there. (Kaiser Health News is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.)
In mid-March, Jeff and his wife traveled to New York City to help their younger son, one of four adult children, settle into an apartment. As they were leaving, bars and restaurants were starting to shut down. The feeling set in that something serious was taking place.
Back home, Karen said her husband was notified that he may have been around a co-worker who tested positive for the coronavirus. Jeff would need to wear a mask. On March 23, he called in sick. The next day, he was told to get a COVID-19 test.
Jeff’s test was positive. Soon after, so was Karen’s. The couple hunkered down together at home, Karen with body aches and congestion and Jeff with a fever and cough.
Their home had been the site of countless family brunches and barbecues, for which Jeff was often the chef. It was where he solved massive jigsaw puzzles with his kids, sealed them together and put them on the ceiling of the garage.
Kaila Baumbach, 26, the last child living in their Lodi home, had moved out as a precaution. She and her dad were close. They had gotten tattoos together on a family trip to Hawaii. Hers, a peace sign. His had two large Celtic hearts and four smaller ones to represent his children. Kaila said she didn’t text or call her dad when he was sick.
“I thought he was invincible,” she said during a phone interview, through tears.
Karen took Jeff to the emergency room on March 26, where he was diagnosed with pneumonia, but chose to recuperate at home. On March 31, he collapsed in an upstairs bathroom.
“It was just like that,” Karen said. “It went downhill really fast.”
Karen called 911 and went with him to Adventist Health Lodi Memorial, the hospital where she worked. She sat in her car getting updates by phone. Kaila waited in another car.
The ventilator Jeff was connected to had little effect and he remained unresponsive.
When it seemed hopeless, Karen went in, suited with full protective medical gear, and told Jeff, her husband of 33 years, she loved him. The kids love him. And she was sorry.
“We both sat here all those days with him getting worse before my eyes and me not seeing it,” she said. “The doctor reassured me that several times people have seemed to be OK and then they just fall off and then it’s just too late.”
Karen returned home alone, still in quarantine.
The next day, Kaila organized about 50 family and loved ones to drive by the couple’s home and shine their phone flashlights to show support. Karen’s mother, Sharleen Leal, called her at 8 p.m.: “Look outside.”
Karen looked out an upstairs window. Lights from lines of cars going in both directions on the avenue shone bright. Grieving, and awash with gratitude, she cried.
— Christina Jewett, Kaiser Health News | Published April 15, 2020
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Nurse’s Faith Led Her To Care For Prisoners At A New Jersey Jail
(Courtesy of Denise Rendor)
Daisy Doronila
Age: 60 Occupation: Nurse Place of Work: Hudson County Correctional Facility in Kearny, New Jersey Date of Death: April 5, 2020
Daisy Doronila had a different perspective than most who worked at the Hudson County Correctional Facility, a New Jersey lockup 11 miles from Manhattan. It was a place where the veteran nurse could put her Catholic faith into action, showing kindness to marginalized people.
“There would be people there for the most heinous crimes,” said her daughter, Denise Rendor, 28, “but they would just melt towards my mother because she really was there to give them care with no judgment.”
Doronila, 60, died April 5, two weeks after testing positive for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The jail has been hit hard by the virus, with 27 inmates and 68 staff members having tested positive. Among those, another nurse, a correctional officer and a clerk also died, according to Ron Edwards, Hudson County’s director of corrections.
The jail is the site of a major outbreak. According to published reports, another nurse and a correctional officer who worked there have died. More than 40 staffers and 20 inmates or immigration detainees had tested positive for COVID-19 as of April 6.
Hudson County and jail officials did not respond to calls or emails with updated numbers.
Doronila fell ill before the scope of the jail infections were known. She was picking up extra shifts in the weeks before, her daughter said, and planning on a trip to Israel soon with friends from church.
That plan began to fall apart March 14, when someone at the jail noticed her coughing and asked her to go home and visit a doctor.
Doronila, of Nutley, New Jersey, went to her doctor and a local hospital in the coming days but was told she had strep throat, so she wouldn’t get a coronavirus test. Then she was told her fever wasn’t high enough to merit a test.
Edwards, the jail chief, said Doronila offered to come back to work after she started feeling ill, not wanting to let him down. He told her to stay home and rest.
“She was one of my hardest workers,” he said, describing her as sophisticated, intelligent and compassionate. “Daisy could handle herself. If someone got obnoxious with her, she’d put them in their place and call for help if she needed to.”
As days went by in March, her condition got worse. Feeling breathless, she went to an urgent care center on March 21.
Her oxygen saturation level was 77 ― far below levels that should be close to 100 — so she was sent by ambulance to the hospital. The next day, she was transferred to the ICU, where she was put on a ventilator, never to talk to her family again.
Rendor, who was not allowed to visit her mother, said time crawled as she awaited updates from nurses and doctors.
On her fifth day in the hospital, her mother went into cardiac arrest and was revived. On Day Nine, she was put on dialysis.
By Day 14, it was futile.
Rendor said her mother emigrated from the Philippines as a young nurse. She loved to dress in fashionable clothes and eat seafood on the waterfront in New York City.
The two loved to shop together and were looking forward to the next chapters in life. For the mother, retirement at 65. For Rendor, marriage and perhaps starting her own family.
“It was about to get really, really good,” Rendor said.
— Christina Jewett, Kaiser Health News | Published April 15, 2020
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An Army Veteran, Hospital Custodian ‘Loved Helping People’
(Courtesy of Michelle Wilcox)
Alvin Simmons
Age: 54 Occupation: Environmental service assistant Place of Work: Rochester General Hospital in Rochester, New York Death: March 17, 2020
Alvin Simmons started working as a custodian at Rochester General Hospital, in New York state, weeks before he fell ill. “He loved helping people and he figured the best place to do that would be in a hospital,” his sister, Michelle Wilcox said.
An Army veteran who had served in the first Gulf War, Simmons loved karaoke and doted on his three grandchildren, Wilcox said. “He was a dedicated, hardworking individual who had just changed his life around” since a prison stint, she said.
According to Wilcox, Simmons began developing symptoms shortly after cleaning the room of a woman he believed was infected with the novel coronavirus. “Other hospital employees did not want to clean the room because they said they weren’t properly trained” to clean the room of someone potentially infected, she said. “They got my brother from a different floor, because he had just started there,” she said. (In an email, a hospital spokesperson said they had “no evidence to suggest that Mr. Simmons was at a heightened risk of exposure to COVID-19 by virtue of his training or employment duties at RGH.”)
On March 11, he visited the emergency room at Rochester General, where he was tested for COVID-19, Wilcox said. Over the next few days, as he rested at his girlfriend’s home, his breathing became more labored and he began to cough up blood. He was rushed to the hospital on March 13, where he was later declared brain-dead. Subsequently, he received a COVID-19 diagnosis. Simmons died on March 17.
— Danielle Renwick, The Guardian | Published April 15, 2020
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Nurse At Nevada VA Dies After Caring For Infected Colleague
(Courtesy of Bob Thompson)
Vianna Thompson
Age: 52 Occupation: Nurse Places of Work: VA Sierra Nevada Health Care System and Northern Nevada Medical Center in Reno, Nevada Date of Death: April 7, 2020
Nurse Vianna Thompson, 52, spent two night shifts caring for a fellow Veterans Affairs health care worker who was dying from COVID-19.
Two weeks later, she too was lying in a hospital intensive care unit, with a co-worker holding her hand as she died.
Thompson and the man she treated were among three VA health care workers in Reno, Nevada, to die in two weeks from complications of the novel coronavirus.
“It’s pretty devastating. It’s surreal. Reno’s not that big of a city,” said Robyn Underhill, a night nurse who worked with Thompson in the ER at Reno’s VA hospital the past two years.
Thompson, who dreamed of teaching nursing one day, died April 7, joining a growing list of health care professionals killed in the pandemic.
Born Vianna Fye in Port Huron, Michigan, she became a go-getter nurse who worked almost exclusively at night, putting in five or six 12-hour shifts a week, according to her husband, Bob Thompson, 60.
The couple met in 1991 on the Osan Air Base in South Korea, where he was an inventory management specialist in the Air Force, and she was a veterinary technician in the Army, caring for military police dogs. They bonded over two-step dancing and country music.
Vianna was a “proud momma,” often showing off photos and videos of their three sons on her phone, her husband said. As the main breadwinner for over eight years, she juggled two jobs to make sure her boys had everything they needed, including saxophones, drums and keyboards so they could play jazz and country music. “She was just sweet, big-hearted, caring, unselfish,” he said.
Before she died, Thompson was working two jobs: full time in the ER at the VA Sierra Nevada Health Care System in Reno, and part time in the ICU at Northern Nevada Medical Center.
In the ICU, she tended to a fellow VA health care worker who had fallen ill with COVID-19, according to nurse Underhill. Two days later, on March 29, Thompson arrived at work with a cough.
“She came to work sick, and we were all very concerned,” Underhill said. “Call it intuition, call it ‘Spidey sense,’ but I knew that moment that she was coughing that this was not going to end well.”
Underhill said Thompson already had a slight smoker’s cough, so she may have overlooked the fact that her cough was a classic symptom of COVID-19.
“She was in denial that she was taking care of this high-risk population,” Underhill said. And she was reluctant to miss work.
That Sunday shift would be Thompson’s last. Over the next four days, she wrestled with fever, weakness and shortness of breath. The following Thursday, she texted her husband from the bedroom: “Call the ambulance, I can hardly breathe.”
She was taken to the VA hospital where she worked and immediately sedated and put on a ventilator.
The next Tuesday, her organs were failing and it was time to remove life support, her husband said. They connected him on FaceTime to say goodbye, and a nurse held her hand as she died.
As a veteran, she qualified for an “honor flight,” in which the patient’s body is covered with a black box, draped with an American flag and wheeled through the hospital while others line up and salute.
Because of the infectious nature of the coronavirus, a flag could not be safely draped over her body, so someone walked in front of her with a flag.
Bob Thompson said the honor flight ceremony drew more people into the hallways than staff had seen in 20 years, “all the way from the ICU to the morgue.”
“God’s getting a hell of a nurse,” he said.
— Melissa Bailey | Published April 15, 2020
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Dr. J. Ronald Verrier Was Busy Saving Lives Before The Pandemic
(Courtesy of Christina Pardo)
J. Ronald Verrier
Age: 59 Occupation: Surgeon Place of Work: St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, New York Date of Death: April 8, 2020
Dr. J. Ronald Verrier, a surgeon at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, spent the final weeks of his audacious, unfinished life tending to a torrent of patients inflicted with COVID-19. He died April 8 at Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital in Oceanside, New York, at age 59, after falling ill from the novel coronavirus.
Verrier led the charge even as the financially strapped St. Barnabas Hospital struggled to find masks and gowns to protect its workers — many nurses continue to make cloth masks — and makeshift morgues in the parking lot held patients who had died.
“He did a good work,” said Jeannine Sherwood, a nurse manager at St. Barnabas Hospital who worked closely with Verrier.
“He can rest.”
Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Verrier graduated from the Faculté de Médecine et de Pharmacie in 1986 and trained at Lincoln Medical Center in the Bronx. He worked at St. Barnabas for two decades, performing thousands of surgeries on critically ill patients and trauma victims, while overseeing the general surgery residency program.
A towering presence with a wide, dimpled smile, Verrier watched his large flock closely — popping into patients’ rooms for impromptu birthday parties, pressing his medical school residents to sharpen their surgical skills and extinguishing doubt in bright, young minds.
“He kept pushing me forward,” said Dr. Christina Pardo, a cousin who became an obstetrician and gynecologist. “I would call him and say, ‘I swear I failed that test,’ and he would laugh. He was my confidence when I didn’t have it.”
“He was someone you’d love to see if you were having a bad day,” said Dr. Ridwan Shabsigh, chairman of the Department of Surgery at SBH Health System. “He would comfort your heart.”
The Verrier family stretches across continents — a boisterous crew of cousins who grew up as brothers and sisters, a pot of joumou, a spicy Haitian soup, always boiling somewhere.
Verrier, who spoke English, French and Creole, zipped around to a niece’s wedding in Belgium, a baptism in Florida, another wedding in Montreal. In February, he ferried medical supplies to Haiti, returning to St. Barnabas to fortify the hospital for the surge of coronavirus patients.
Verrier helped steer the hospital’s efforts to increase — by 500% — the number of critically ill patients it could care for, an effort he worked on until he became ill.
“He was at the hospital every day,” Shabsigh said. “This was a nonstop effort, day and night.”
Verrier discovered he was infected in early April. After developing symptoms, he worked from his Woodmere, New York, home.
Undaunted, he did not want to talk about being sick. “He has this personality that, ‘Everything is going to be OK,’” said Pardo.
Shabsigh spoke with him the day before his death.
“He understood the coronavirus, he understood the pandemic,” he said. “He still maintained a high morale and hope that he would recover.”
When his condition worsened suddenly, according to Pardo, Verrier was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital where he died.
After a powerful earthquake struck Haiti in 2010, Verrier tended to victims, treating dozens of patients who required amputations at a Port-au-Prince hospital.
“Sometimes you use a little anesthesia and you cut the limb,” Verrier said soberly in a video recorded at the time. “Because you have to save a life.”
— Sarah Varney, Kaiser Health News | Published April 15, 2020
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America’s First ER Doctor To Die In The Heat Of COVID-19 Battle
(Courtesy of Debra Vasalech Lyons)
Frank Gabrin
Age: 60 Occupation: Doctor Places of Work: St. John’s Episcopal in Queens, New York, and East Orange General in New Jersey Date of Death: March 26, 2020
At about 5 a.m. on March 19, a New York City ER physician named Frank Gabrin texted a friend about his concerns over the lack of medical supplies at hospitals.
“It’s busy ― everyone wants a COVID test that I do not have to give them,” he wrote in the message to Eddy Soffer. “So they are angry and disappointed.”
Worse, though, was the limited availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) — the masks and gloves that help keep health care workers from getting sick and spreading the virus to others. Gabrin said he had no choice but to don the same mask for several shifts, against Food and Drug Administration guidelines.
“Don’t have any PPE that has not been used,” he wrote. “No N95 masks ― my own goggles — my own face shield,” he added, referring to the N95 respirators considered among the best lines of defense.
Less than two weeks later, Gabrin became the first ER doctor in the U.S. known to have died as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the American College of Emergency Physicians.
Read more here.
— Alastair Gee, The Guardian | Published April 10, 2020
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This story is part of “Lost on the Frontline,” a project from The Guardian and Kaiser Health News that aims to document the life of every health care worker in America who dies from COVID-19 during the pandemic. If you have a colleague or loved one we should include, please share their story.
from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/lost-on-the-frontline-health-care-worker-death-toll-covid19-coronavirus/
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