On Nina Bennett’s first day at Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center in Brooklyn, an epicenter of the coronavirus, stretchers snaked around the walls of the emergency room department like a train. The curtained-off rooms that typically held one patient now housed two — the beds so close, the railings touched each other.

"My first full day there I had 11 patients and five were on ventilators,” Bennett, of Decatur, said. “Typically an ICU nurse usually has two patients on a ventilator. It was unlike anything I had ever seen. I thought, ‘What have I gotten myself into?’ ”

Bennett, 53, who worked as an emergency room nurse at Decatur Morgan Hospital, Lawrence Medical Center and Huntsville Hospital, represents one of a legion of doctors and nurses who signed up to serve on the front lines of the coronavirus in one of the nation’s hardest hit cities.

As of Friday (April 17), the United States totaled 661,712 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 33,049 deaths with 222,284 cases and more than 14,000 deaths in New York state.

“The worst part of it is the feeling of being defeated. You do everything to save a person’s life, and it just doesn’t happen,” Bennett said. “You kind of feel defeated after one, but after your shift keeps going and you have multiple deaths, you start wondering, ‘Is there anything I can do that is going to help?’

For Bennett, the journey to New York began a month ago from her Decatur home. She was working at a nursing home in Falkville at the time.

With the country still in the early stages of the virus, Bennett learned of the increase in cases taxing New York City’s hospitals. She heard about the first responders becoming infected, the hospitals filled with patients and the endless sirens echoing through the city’s empty streets.

She decided to act.

‘TRUSTING IN GOD’

“Having worked in multiple emergency rooms, I know it takes a toll on you as a nurse when you can’t save a life. I kept thinking about how these nurses have got to be exhausted,” Bennett said. “I prayed and read scripture, and I felt God saying, ‘This is where I want you to be. This is what I want you to be doing.’ I’m trusting in God and having faith in him.”

Through a staffing agency she found on Facebook, Bennett landed a position as an emergency room nurse at Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center, a 320-bed public hospital in Brooklyn. She arrived on March 30 and began working 12-hour shifts.

That was the same day New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a plea for medical professionals from around the country. “Please come help us in New York now,” Cuomo said at a temporary hospital located at the Jacob J. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan. “We need relief.”

As of mid-April, 93,000 medical professionals, including 25,000 from outside New York, signed up to volunteer, and around 12,000 were referred to hospitals, according to the governor’s office. That is on top of the thousands of doctors and nurses, like Bennett, placed in hospitals by staffing agencies.

Bennett’s decision to respond to the greatest need did not surprise her uncle, retired Baptist pastor Bill Pullen of Lawrence County.

“Nina is a very thoughtful individual. I would say she is a natural-born nurse with her way of being able to calm, soothe and ease people,” Pullen said. “She is in her calling.”

Bennett worked 14 straight days before her first off day.

“No matter what I say, I can never explain how terrible it is,” she said.

After treating dozens of patients with COVID-19, some as young as 19 and 25, Bennett knows the severity of the virus intimately. She knows how quickly the virus strikes, how a patient with an oxygen level of 98, who is talking and appears not to be in distress, can drop to a level of 68 within minutes.

“During that whole time, we are giving them antibodies and medications and putting them on oxygen. We’re doing everything we know to do to fight this virus, but when people start to decompose, it is so quick,” Bennett said.

DYING ALONE

Before placing patients on a ventilator, she encourages them to make a phone call to their families. For many, it is the last time they will speak to their loved ones.

“We try our hardest not to intubate because the times you see them come off the ventilator are few. Just like they decompose quickly when not on the ventilator, the same thing happens when they are on the ventilator. You can try to resuscitate, but it doesn’t work. They are just gone,” Bennett said. “To know that somebody died alone is the part that really gets to me.”

For the first time in her 20 years as an emergency room nurse, the task of placing the deceased in body bags has fallen to Bennett.

“At home, you clean them, place a sheet over them and call the funeral home. Here, there are so many that we put the ‘toe tag’ on them, put them in a body bag, zip it up and place the tag on the outside of the bag. That has been difficult,” Bennett said.

To protect herself from the virus, Bennett wears an N95 mask, which she changes out about every three days, a surgical mask and a cloth mask, a scrub cap, goggles, face shield and a gown covering her scrubs. When she returns to her hotel in midtown Manhattan, a 35-minute drive from the hospital, she takes off her shoes and badge, disinfects them, removes her scrubs, places them in a garbage bag by the door, cleans her personal protective equipment and takes a shower.

The medical staff at Woodhull is reminded every day of the danger of the virus, through the patients they treat and their own personal losses. Since March 29, a Woodhull radiology clerk and emergency room nurse have died from COVID-19.

With everyday posing an emotional, mental and physical challenge, Bennett turns to her faith and coworkers for strength.

“I know this is where God wants me to be. Having so many friends and family praying for me helps take away any fear I have,” Bennett said. “I look around at my coworkers too. I look at them and they’re still going. We are all in this together,” Bennett said.

Every day, Pullen prays for Bennett and the hundreds of thousands of first responders and medical personnel fighting the virus.

“I’m so thankful there are people like Nina out there serving day in and day out putting their lives at risk. I am so grateful to God that there are these types of people with those hearts,” Pullen said. “We all need to be in prayer for them every day.”

Bennett issued a warning for the people of Alabama, which, as of Friday had more than 4,500 confirmed cases and 149 reported deaths.

“I don’t want our state to get in the situation New York is in. Do not think this is a hoax. It is very, very real. Stay away from each other. It is not a time to have a party. It is not a time to hang out. We don’t all need something from Walmart or Target everyday. It’s a time to take this serious,” Bennett said.