BC nurse takes to Instagram with tearful plea after death of COVID patient
Posted April 21, 2021 6:17 am.
Last Updated April 21, 2021 8:41 pm.
ABBOTSFORD (NEWS 1130) – A nurse in Abbotsford is begging people to do their part to limit the spread of COVID-19, saying the amount of death she’s seen in the last year weighs on her every day.
Kendall Skuta, a nurse at Abbotsford Regional Hospital, according to the Abbotsford News, took to Instagram on Tuesday to make her plea, posting a photo of herself, her hand across her mouth while she is obviously very upset.
“This is me during a particularly hard shift,” she writes, adding she felt like she had reached a breaking point and wanted to remember this moment.
Her post came as B.C. continues to see a record number of people with COVID-19 in the hospital. As of Tuesday afternoon, 456 people in B.C. were being treated in the hospital, with 148 of them in intensive care — both figures marking highs for the province.
“I was on the Covid ward and a patient had just cardiac arrested,” Skuta’s post reads. “People ran from all over the hospital and rushed to get their PPE on so they could help. We were running supplies to and from the room, everyone was taking turns pounding on the patient’s chest, praying for a sign of life again.”
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“It didn’t look good,” she added, noting CPR was performed for 35 minutes on the man who had no major pre-existing conditions.
Skuta says the patient didn’t make it. “He wasn’t even 60 years old.”
She explains the man had been transferred out of the ICU after he appeared to be making progress.
“I’m sure his partner was sleeping well that night knowing he was making progress. Instead, his family received a call at 2am (sic) with news that he had just died,” her emotional post continues.
Her post has been widely shared, with people echoing her pleas to follow public health orders and best practices to stop the spread of the virus.
She recalls the moments after the man was pronounced dead, saying all the health care workers “stood there for a minute. Silent. Exhausted. Heartbroken.”
“Lumps formed in our throats, tears filled our eyes. We looked at each other, trying to find the words – any words. There wasn’t a thing anybody could say,” Skuta’s post explains, adding she can’t count the number of times she’s had to run to a bathroom or empty stock room to take five minutes to cry by herself behind her mask.
Skuta ends her social media post by urging people to stay home, wear a mask, and get vaccinated if eligible.
“I ask myself every day ‘when will this all end?’ and ‘when will people take this seriously?'”
