'It felt like I was working in a war zone' - Michigan ICU nurse breaks down after 13-hour shift battling coronavirus
Michigan ICU nurse shares tearful plea after shift fighting coronavirus
Melissa Steiner, a registered nurse from southeast Michigan, recorded a tearful public plea asking people to take the coronavirus pandemic seriously after spending 13 hours caring for critically ill patients. Credit: Melissa Steiner via Storyful
MICHIGAN - An intensive care unit (ICU) nurse from southeast Michigan shared a tearful plea on social media after a long shift treating critical coronavirus patients, sharing the brutal reality of fighting the pandemic on the front lines.
Registered nurse Melissa Steiner recorded this public plea after her first shift in the newly-designated COVID-19 ICU at her hospital, saying it was “traumatic.”
“I don’t know what the f**k just happened,” Steiner says, before tearfully describing how she spent 13 hours caring for two critically ill patients while being isolated from her team, and with “limited resources, limited supplies, limited responses from physicians because they’re just as overwhelmed as we are.”
“This is my new normal for the next however many months it takes for this virus to die down,” she says. “I’m already breaking…please take this seriously.”
- NYC hospitals pushed to the brink in coronavirus fight
- Worldwide coronavirus infections top 500,000 as Italy reports more than 6,000 new cases
As of Wednesday afternoon, Michigan reported 2,294 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 43 deaths, according to local media.