8 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • JANUARY 2021
COVER FEATURE
HEALTHCARE HEROES:
Heroic. That is the best word to describe
the selfless acts that doctors,
nurses, and other medical professionals
have performed while bravely
serving on the front lines of the coronavirus
pandemic.
Since the first Covid-19 case was
confirmed on Long Island in March,
countless stories have emerged describing
the heart-wrenching decisions
medics have had to make, such
as holding patients’ hands as they die
alone because family members were
unable to visit due to restrictions
meant to curb the virus’ spread.
For their efforts, the Press has deemed
LI healthcare heroes “People of The
Year” for 2020. These are some of their
stories.
THE TRAVELING NURSE
The coronavirus pandemic has restricted
almost everyone’s freedoms
in America, but for Meghan Lindsey it
has done the opposite. This is the freest
she has ever felt.
Traveling to New York at age 33 to
work as a Covid-19 nurse was the first
time that Meghan, a married mother
of two, had ever left southwest
Missouri.
“It was my first time on a plane,” she
said, describing how she came to
work 12-hour shifts in the intensive
care unit at NYU Winthrop Hospital,
now known as NYU Langone Hospital
- Long Island, in Mineola. “Flying into
New York was the first time I’d ever
seen the ocean.”
There are many stories about the
lonely coronavirus deaths in the city’s
“This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do
something meaningful,” said Meghan Lindsey.
hospitals and the traumatic work of
the nurses who staff them.
Meghan’s story is about unexpected
opportunities. It’s a
story of how the pandemic
gave a woman the chance to
strike out into the world,
confront danger and
make a difference, and
how her husband stayed
home to care for their
daughters. It’s a story
about new beginnings.
“I always wanted to
do something for my
country,” said Meghan.
“This was a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity to do something
meaningful.”
Meghan’s first nursing shifts in New
York were a shock.
There are a lot of sick people in
Missouri with chronic diseases like
diabetes, where the progressions are
slow and the declines are familiar.
COVID-19 patients are stunned by a
virus that turns their lives upside
down and in many cases ends them.
“One of my patients had her toes done
up all nice and pretty and still had her
jewelry on,” said Meghan.
Because they were coronavirus patients
and visitors were banned, it was
Meghan who would hold their hands
as they died.
“Once you FaceTime and you meet
their family and you hear them
crying and sobbing, you know their
cute little nicknames and you start
to know them, it just gets to be really
personal,” said Meghan. “You have a
hard time separating yourself and not
truly grieving for them as well.”
Despite all the death, Meghan’s time
in New York’s Covid-19 wards was
unexpectedly affirming. The pandemic
gave Meghan something
that her life in Missouri so far
had not: a feeling of everything
sliding into place.
When Meghan graduated
from nursing school, it
wasn’t as she imagined. It
turned out to be just a job. She
mourned.
“Now for once, it’s
actually something
important,” said
Meghan. “This
is the first time
since I’ve
become
a
nurse that it’s like, ‘Yes, this is why.’ I
can make a difference, and I can help,
and I am strong enough for this.”
Her kids, she said, are proud of her.
“They know that what I’m doing is
hard and that I put my life in danger.”
Meghan often wondered if she should
come home. Her husband Aaron told
her no. He and the girls were fine,
what she was doing mattered and he
was proud of her. He sometimes called
her “superwoman.”
“If he wasn’t such a good dad and there
for my children, I could never do this,”
said Meghan.
THE PEDIATRICIAN
When a 3-year-old patient of New York
pediatrician Dr. Greg Gulbransen dislocated
her arm, he told her parents
not to take her to the emergency care
center, fearing that going there could
put the family at risk of contracting
Covid-19.
Instead, he said, he met them on their
front lawn, where he popped the girl’s
joint back in.
Nurse Annabelle Jimenez, congratulates nurse Sandra Lindsay after she is inoculated with the COVID-19 vaccine, at Northwell Health at Long Island Jewish
Medical Center in New Hyde Park. (Mark Lennihan/Pool via REUTERS)
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