NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — According to the latest data from the Tennessee Health Department, more than 92,000 people have tested positive for COVID-19 and more than 900 people have died in Davidson County.
It’s behind those numbers that doctors and nurses are struggling.
In an open letter from an ICU nurse on the front lines, Makala Kuhr dedicated her video to all of those who have died from COVID-19.
“I really thought back to everything and every death that I’ve seen this year, and we had nine deaths in one day, and I remember just putting people in body bags, and a lot of people in body bags. Like one a day at one point,” Kuhr recalled.
Kuhr says her breaking point came one day when she lost a patient. Although the patient did not die from the virus, it made her reflect on everything and everyone around her over the past year. She decided to put her feelings into a video, focusing on how people continue to call her a “hero.”
“I don’t feel like a hero; I feel like I’m doing my job, and I’m not doing it very well,” said Kuhr.
She remembers her time in the hospital vividly. During the beginning of the pandemic, Kuhr was a nurse in the emergency room and recalls the anxiety that came from not knowing who or what condition her next patient would be in. At one point, Kuhr remembered she and fellow nurses working for a month straight with no break, trying to keep up with the patient demand.
“It was a constant beratement of trauma, and I think a lot of us didn’t realize and still don’t realize how to handle it. Not even realizing that it was trauma and that we really need to deal with it,” said Kuhr.
As the number of positive cases climbs, it’s the faces behind the figures that represent families waiting for their loved ones to come home.
“To have them call and say ‘we want you to do everything you can,’ but everything you can is just something that would lead him to living a life in a nursing home, not having any quality whatsoever, is really difficult,” said Kuhr describing one patient.
Now Kuhr worries another storm is brewing in the form of the delta variant, stating “people are ready to be done with COVID, but COVID is not ready to be done with us. I know a lot of nurses don’t want another wave, and I know that we can’t afford to because nurses are already burnt out.”