A brightly lit Times Square, Central Park filled with tourists, the constant honk of New York City’s iconic taxi cabs.
Jess Esperti, a critical care nurse from Arizona, imagined her first trip to New York City to be just like it looks in the movies. It’s not even close.
“There’s nothing to do with everything closed; it’s nothing like I pictured,” Esperti says.
But she is busy.
Esperti is a volunteer nurse working in the intensive care unit of Elmhurst Hospital in Queens – one of the hospitals hardest hit by the novel coronavirus.
She is one of thousands of volunteers from across the country who answered the call to help, as the city continues to be the epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Her days consist of leaving her Times Square hotel to make a 6 p.m. bus, which is full of other volunteers. She’s dropped off at the hospital, where she works a 12-hour overnight shift, before returning to her hotel to sleep. She estimates she gets about an hour a day for time to herself. She’ll repeat that schedule for the next month.
Esperti says during her time at Elmhurst, she “hasn’t seen a single non-covid patient.”
“It’s horrible, it’s awful, it’s a pandemic. I never thought I’d see one in my life, but here it is right in front of me. It’s not just Elmhurst, it’s all the hospitals,” she says.
Esperti explains the worst part of the job is not being able to fully connect with the patients who, in the ICU, are typically on ventilators.
She recalls connecting with one patient over his shoes.
“They were the coolest pair of Nike’s I had ever seen. (Here) is this guy who’s vented, can’t talk to me, can’t answer my questions, but man, we like the same shoes.” She added, “It connects you as human beings. I take those little things and run with it.”
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Tomas Diaz, an ER physician from San Francisco, is also volunteering on the front lines for the next month.
He is among 200 healthcare workers who raised their hand when UCSF Health called for volunteers to travel cross country. Twenty made the trip last weekend and are currently spread out working shifts in the New York Presbyterian hospital system.
“There was a fair amount of survivor’s guilt being on the opposite coast and in a position of relative safety that prompted me and others who wanted to help,” says Diaz, who is working at Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan.
Camaraderie among health care volunteers
All of the volunteers are putting their lives on hold to assist the nurses and doctors in New York City who, in a lot of cases, have contracted the virus themselves or are on quarantine.
“I think the providers here are understandably pretty exhausted, so the relief that I am able to provide by taking over a few shifts is, I think, really helpful,” says Diaz.
Back in Arizona, Esperti’s four children are staying with family members, but she says she has “no regrets” about her decision, as it’s serving as a life lesson to them.
“I tell them all the time. If you see someone in need, you help them. You give them all you’ve got,” says Esperti.
Esperti says the volunteers share their lives with each other to get a break from the chaos of the hospitals. They share pictures of their families, or wedding pictures, or she says they’ve helped an engaged volunteer with important wedding planning decisions.
They also learn from each other.
“Being at the hospital with nurses from all over the country is amazing because people bring all sorts of different ideas, different ways that they do things at their hospital,” Esperti says.
Feeling the love
After a particularly tough night, Esperti took a video diary in her hotel room, explaining what she was going through and what her temporary life was like. She posted it on Facebook and the response from people across the country was overwhelming.
“Someone compared it to 9/11. When (that) happened, the country came together and supported each other and that is what’s happening now.”
Esperti has received care packages, filled with food like energy bars; personal items like compression socks and headbands; stationary so volunteers can write home; and essential oils so their face masks, which they reuse, smell nice.
She’s had so many deliveries that the hotel where she is staying dedicated an entire room for the packages.
“It’s absolutely amazing … what we really need are the bunny suits, we need respirators, shoe covers, hair covers,” says Esperti, talking about the vital personal protection equipment used by hospital staff when treating patients.
The volunteers are also grateful for the nightly cheers they hear coming from New Yorkers still on lockdown – a show of gratitude to all those on the front lines.
“All of that stuff makes all the difference in the world, especially when we’re missing our loved ones and especially when sometimes we think what we’re doing isn’t working and we can’t do it anymore. It’s all that support that literally pushes us through,” says Esperti.
So keep it up, they can hear you.
