ER Nurse Describes Fighting On Front Lines Of Coronavirus Battle: 'I Know My Risks ... I Can Die'
JERSEY CITY, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- It's hard to know exactly what a health care worker on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic goes through on a daily basis.
CBS2's Jessica Layton got a behind-the-scenes look at a day in the life of one nurse in New Jersey.
Every day, within a few minutes of waking around 5:45 a.m., Maxim Cases is out the door.
"No breakfast at home, I just try to minimally contaminate my house," she says in a video.
She uses her 20-minute drive from Rutherford to Jersey City to mentally prepare for the next 14 hours.
"Just kind of hope today is a little bit better day," she said.
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The 34-year-old is an ER nurse at Christ Hospital.
Eight nurses are out sick, leaving sometimes just three nurses to cover the entire ER.
"The patients are sicker because they're not getting admitted. They're in the emergency room with us until we can place them somewhere upstairs," Cases said.
Cases recalled what the beginning of the pandemic was like at the hospital.
"I remember going to work and being extremely afraid ... By week two, I had a full-blown anxiety attack at work," she said.
Now, she holds the hands of the patients who are near death.
"I may be the last person they are close to," Cases said. "I know my exposure and I know my risks at this point."
"What is your risk?" Layton asked.
"I can die," Cases said.
Some coworkers already have.
It's a chilling possibility for Cases' husband, John, an essential worker for PSE&G who is taking care of their 1-year-old daughter, Savanah.
"I see people all the time, I check in on Instagram, and people are home with their families and they're hugging and kissing their kids and their husbands and doing photoshoots and watching TV and building forts and it's just something I so badly miss. Just to be able to hug them, or just touch them," Cases said.
While people in their homes are getting antsy and asking when they can go out again, inside the ERs and the ICUs, there's a different mindset. They're still laser-focused on saving lives.
CORONAVIRUS: NY Health Dept. | NY Call 1-(888)-364-3065 | NYC Health Dept. | NYC Call 311, Text COVID to 692692 | NJ Health Dept. | NJ Call 1-(800)-222-1222 or 211, Text NJCOVID to 898211 | CT Health Dept. | CT Call 211
And what about that plateau we keep hearing about?
"It's not taking into account all the people that are still on the ventilators in the hospitals who may never come off them," Cases said.
At the end of a long day, she walks out with her fellow ER warriors.
"I'm tired. Tired, exhausted," Cases said. "We exit the hospital the same way we come in. We walk past our external morgue."
She and her coworkers leave with a reminder of how we can all do our part to help our health care heroes.
"Stay home. Please stay home," they said.
