Stefanie Ott had no idea what she’d gotten herself into when she showed up for her first weekend shift in Queens. Ott, a nurse anesthetist from Nazareth, had volunteered to lend a hand at one of the New York City area hospitals that was being overwhelmed by coronavirus patients. She was immediately put to work in the ER. “It was constant triaging and putting out fires,” she says. “[COVID-19 patients] were constantly rolling through the doors.”
It was a routine she would repeat for two more weekends—three 12-hour shifts in the heart of the outbreak zone, then back home to her job in the Lehigh Valley, where she was also taking care of COVID-19 patients, and to her family, including four young children. Ott says she was nervous about exposing them to the virus; she quarantined herself as much as she could. A month would pass after her stint in New York ended before she felt comfortable hugging and kissing them again.
Ott hopes the worst has passed, and that there won’t be a second coronavirus wave that strikes during the already busy flu season. But if she’s needed elsewhere again, she says she won’t hesitate to offer her services. She has only positive things to say about her time on the front lines. And Ott gushes about the doctors and nurses she met along the way. “They embraced us with open arms,” she says. “They knew my name. They were excited to see me.” And many of them, she says, had been sick themselves with the virus, or had loved ones who were ill. “They’re the true heroes,” Ott says. “Their bravery inspired me. They fought for those patients, tooth and nail.”
