ProRodeo Sports News - May 15, 2020

PRORODEO FAMILY NURSES Front Line ON THE ALEXA LARSEN

BY TRACY RENCK A mid the COVID-19 (coronavirus) Plenty of nurses have ties to the rodeo world. ProRodeo Sports News talked with a quartet of nurses who are courageously and unselfishly helping COVID-19 patients while weighing the risk on their own families. Nurses with rodeo ties working the pandemic pandemic, there have been heroes who have stepped up every day on the frontlines, such as service workers, doctors and nurses.

• Wife of five-time Wrangler NFR-qualifying bareback rider Orin Larsen. Flight nurse, Air Link, Scottsbluff, Neb. Holy moly, we have changed literally everything. We work on a rotary-wing (aircraft) and fixed-wing aircraft, and we are only transporting COVID patients by fixed-wing because it’s easier to clean. We have had to take everything out of the aircraft and put it in its own individual plastic bag and totally change the whole dynamic of our aircraft when we transport COVID patients. We do transfer the patients into Loveland, Colo., a lot. They have a COVID unit, which is a full wing of the hospital. I don’t feel like I’m a hero at all. There are so many nurses who are in the thick of it. I feel like the nurses in New York City are definitely the heroes. I don’t think we are ever going to go back totally to normal at least for the company I work for. We are actually wearing scrubs now instead of our flight suits, and we wear Tyvek suits over the scrubs and surgical gloves, goggles and face shields. All these changes came about with the COVID.

KERRI SHEFFIELD • 2018 Miss Rodeo America. Trauma ICU nurse at Texas Health Harris Methodist in Fort Worth. The trauma ICU recently was turned into a second all- COVID-19 unit. Whenever all this started our hospital was very prepared for it. Working in the trauma ICU we get a lot of car accidents and horse accidents, you name it. We had to cut off all visitors, which was one of the hardest parts because when you have a family member who is sick or anyone you love you want to be there. That put more stress on all the nurses because we are having to communicate regularly with the families to ensure them their loved ones are OK. Every day you go into work you always know you can be exposed to something, but we never think it is going to be anything like this. You just have to say a prayer when you walk into work, hope to God you do everything the right way, wash your hands enough and wear the right equipment. We really are, every time we walk in there, risking our lives with this virus. I’m grateful that I am still being able to take care of people, but I definitely don’t consider myself a hero. When I graduated from nursing school and signed my first nursing contract, I knew what I was getting into. Nurses were made for times such as this.

Photo courtesy Kerri Sheffield Miss Rodeo America 2018 Kerry Sheffield, left, poses with a colleague at Texas Health Harris Methodist in Fort Worth.

ProRodeo Sports News 5/15/2020

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