South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Is your dog tired of walking, too?
Those waging South Florida’s coronavirus fight describe it from their point of view
What’s it like working on the front lines of the battle against the new coronavirus in South Florida? Here are some of the community’s traditional first-responders, along with others unexpectedly drawn into the fight, describing how their lives have been challenged and changed.
Klaus Campos
Registered nurse, Pompano Beach
Campos is a supervising nurse in a cardiovascular care unit at a Palm Beach County hospital. He and his wife live in Pompano Beach.
I signed up to be a frontline healthcare worker. I wake up every morning with some level of anxiety, but I am a nurse, and I treat patients in desperate times, which includes a viral pandemic, and I plan on continuing to do so. I’m appreciative of the media for highlighting the work of health-care professionals and the gratitude shown to us by the public, patients and their families.
We are all scared, but we know we have a job to do. As we have seen in many places around the world, PPEs are scarce but we do what we can with the little we have and try to remain as safe as possible. I have bought some of my own equipment to wear at work to help keep myself and my family safe.
I have seen some strong nurses break down, and I have myself been uneasy about this entire ordeal. I’m afraid I may expose my wife, who’s a pediatrician, and I’m afraid to visit my parents and family.
We hear reports of some health-care workers that have fallen victim to the coronavirus, others have quit, and some are fired for standing up for themselves. That just adds to the frustration and stress that COVID-19 has brought with it
Nurses’ voices are being heard and our profession is being validated. I’m proud of every health-care professional that has stood up to this challenge in China, Italy, Spain, the United States and all over the world, and I am proud to be a nurse in times like these. My colleagues have not backed down from the front lines, even with limited supplies and shortage of protective equipment, and I am very proud to stand next to them. But I do wish some health-care facilities around the country were as supportive of their staff as everyone else is.
To our advantage, our test results are
“We are all scared, but we know we have a job to do. ... I have seen some strong nurses break down.” — Klaus Campos, registered nurse, Pompano Beach
coming back much quicker than before. When we first started seeing potential COVID patients, test results would take around
7-10 days. Now we are seeing most results in 24 hours or less. This is in my facility. Nurses I’ve spoken to in other hospitals around the country are still waiting 5-7 days for their results.
Our patients are no longer greeted with a smile, but face shields and respirator masks. The agencies we sought out for guidance have become somewhat of a laughingstock. We weren’t ready, we don’t have enough supplies, our economy wasn’t ready, we are afraid of what is to come — but here we are, watching the casualties and statistic reports closely, and we are still showing up.
We are basically the only ones seeing the patients throughout their hospitalization, due to the limitations of visitors. We try to update family members as much as possible, but we are the only ones the patients see and interact with. Sad that many of them won’t even see what we actually look like.
I try to turn off the news any time I go into a patient’s room, and encourage them to find a movie or something else to watch, because all they’re seeing is the casualties going up. I have had a few ask me if I think they’re next. And all I can say is that myself and the team will do our best to prevent it from happening.
Lt. Thomas Noland
Deerfield Beach resident, firefighter-paramedic with Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue
Across South Florida, paramedics are finding that 911 callers have given an incomplete description of their emergency, leaving first responders unprotected from the truth: Covid-19.
I am currently stationed in Hallandale, but with the number of sick people out, I’ve been working all over the county, between Dania and Deerfield. I’m a second-generation firefighterparamedic. It was something I was raised in. It was a culture.
As first responders, we have to do our part to keep our families and our friends safe and really respect the whole quarantine. I have a young son at home who’s 7 months old and I’m taking extra precautions when I get home that everything I had at work, I’m taking off. I’m showering immediately, and I’m cleaning my hands constantly. At home, I’m constantly taking my temperature, my wife’s temperature and my son’s temperature. We’re doing everything we can on our end to protect my home front.
As first responders we don’t look at anybody differently, no matter what they called for. We treat them all the same. We’re public servants.
They’ll call and say, you know, “My husband fell and hit his head,” and you get there and the wife will be, like, “Well, he did fall and hit his head, but he also has had a cough and he was tested yesterday for Covid-19.” Now we’re already on scene, we’ve already walked into the residence, we’re already in that environment that we don’t want to be in unprotected. So now we have to start over. We have to make sure we get our equipment on, make sure everybody’s wearing a mask, have the loved one put a mask on the patient to help isolate anything they’re breathing out, and then do our job from there.
People are scared. Fear is ruling right now. They’re fearful for their loved ones, that they’re not going to get the care that they need because of this virus. And that’s the big misnomer that we’re trying to preach and get out to the world,
that no matter what you call 911 for, we’re going to show up and we’re going to do our job. If we have a heads-up on what it is going on, we’re going to be able to do an even better job.
Sean Cononie
Fort Lauderdale homeless advocate
Cononie recently had surgery on his head, followup treatment for a bout of meningitis, which left him with periodic dizziness, but undeterred.
I went out the other day. It wasn’t very good. I fell down two times. I’m just trying to do whatever I can do. We were helping a lady, and she had so much fluid coming out of her nose and mouth, and it got all over me. I had a barrier on, I had a mask on and everything. But I was very much concerned. Had to get the results of the person who we were treating. It was a horrible experience waiting. I’ve been bitten before. I’ve been stabbed with a dirty needle, by accident. Those things weren’t as scary as being almost exposed to this virus.
If we want to make sure we control the spread, how are we going to do that if we’re not figuring out what has to be done with the homeless? Put yourself in a situation right now. You’re homeless — you’re not being fed anymore because the people are afraid to feed you. So now you have to fend for yourself. What do you do? You go to local stores and get what you can. You have no way of keeping clean hands, so now your dirty hands are going into a store.
Most shelters are not taking people now because the CDC doesn’t recommend it, because if you have a virus-free shelter, what are you going to do, bring someone in to the shelter where it’s going to spread like the jail? Those jails are wildfires.
They need to go in and open up one of these parks that are shut down, put up tents. It’s not that we should contain them like criminals, but make them follow the rules: Shelter in place. And provide services. Provide a way for them to stay clean, keep clean, be fed, not spread, quarantine and be treated. It can be done in a few days. They’ve just gotta do it. The Army Corps of Engineers could do it today. It’s just a matter of saying, “We’re going to do this.”
The Rev. Sanford ‘Sandy’ Sears
Chaplain, Seafarers’ House, Fort Lauderdale
A retired U.S. Coast
Guard officer, Father Sandy, as he is known, ministers to visiting crew members and port workers through the multifaith Seafarers’ House (Casa del Marino) at Fort Lauderdale’s Port Everglades, a coronavirus hotspot where access has been limited.
My job is a ministry of presence. I reach out to seafarers. I look out for them. But I’m also ministering to the port, our port workers and our own employees. I had actually been in the port and had some contact with someone who was in the first scare in the cruise terminal where several cruise people had become ill. About that time, I came down with the flu. I was lucky to be tested negative.
I have been busy, but that ministry of presence has certainly changed, because I can’t get in and out of the port. Though I did sneak in yesterday, Palm Sunday. I gave palms to crew members in the Casa, and port security. My other ministry is port workers. They’re so uncertain because they have no idea what’s going on. They’ll pull me over and ask to pray with them.
People come into the chapel and pray, but the number is so small. [Before Covid-19] on a given Sunday we’d have, at different times 40 or 50 seafarers, when the big cruise ships were coming into port. When I was in yesterday, there was just two people.
The biggest challenge now is trying to connect with everyone. I’m doing everything by phone or internet or Zoom. Some of our chaplains are receiving email from crew members they have connected with over the years. They are reaching out and asking people to pray for them.
Spiritual care can be just having someone to listen to them. You know, a good visit might be, they’ll tell me, “I miss my family at home,” because they’ve been away for six to nine months. So they’re giving up weddings and funerals and births. It’s a very lonely thing. It’s not happening here, but several companies, in crew changes, have just left their crews in different areas, other countries, and not allowed them to get back home.
I tried to visit a vessel the other day, and I went up close to the gangplank to wave and see how they were. They kind of gave me the international signal for “Don’t come on board.” You know, shake your head and wave your hands? They’re just trying to be careful.
Katie Stoneback
Therapist, Children’s Comprehensive Care Center, Pompano Beach
Stoneback, of Deerfield Beach, teaches community reintegration skills at the long-term nursing facility at the Broward Children’s Center. Coronavirus lockdown rules have taken an essential tool that Stoneback used to treat children, her therapy dogs Callie, a Bernese mountain dog, and Lola, a pug. She misses their ability to make cooped-up kids laugh — even bring them out of a coma.
By the time the kids get to us, they’ve been in some kind of medical facility for, usually, a long period of time. Doctors and nurses aren’t their favorite people.
Most of our kids are nonverbal and they communicate with the dogs at that energy-based level vs. any kind of language. It’s happiness. The dogs are always happy to see you. It doesn’t matter what you look like, doesn’t matter where you came from, what your background is, who your parents are, what your political beliefs are, they don’t care.
Where we are, the dogs run free. We try to create a home-like environment, because the kids are there long term. And the dogs are free to roam in the halls. So, literally, every morning when we get there, they run to the cafeteria and they eat all the food on the floor that the kids may have dropped for breakfast.
The energy at work now is just so much more quiet. They bring the life and the energy when they walk in the door. Callie was the dog I trained with in school. Someone gave us the little pug three years ago, when she was a puppy. The kids got to name her and raise her. She’s been there since she was 4 months old.
We had an amazing kid who recently went home. He came to us after a terrible car accident, where — his parents love to tell the story — the hospital said he was brain dead. When they had pretty much pronounced him dead and went to take him off the ventilator, he started breathing on his own.
He was probably in the hospital for a couple of months before he came to our center, where we do the rehab. He was probably with us for a month or two. And nothing. We had tried many things before, and he didn’t move. He didn’t make eye contact. He didn’t do anything purposefully, that’s the word we use.
That was when we got
Lola. She was still a puppy. And we put her in his lap and he started petting her. That was the first thing he ever did, purposefully. We were, like, “Oh, my god!”
He must be 16 or 17 now. He is… amazing. [Laughs] He is still nonverbal, but he communicates. He calls us on video and he recognizes all of us. He recognizes the dogs. He can sing, but he can’t talk. So he sings us all these songs we used to sing.
The Rev. Sharon Hobbs
Pastor at Greater Saint Paul AME Church, Boynton Beach
The Rev. Hobbs came to the ministry after 25 years with the United States
Army. She retired in 1998 as a major, and her daughter is an Army colonel. Hobbs leads a largely older, black and Caribbean congregation at the oldest church in Boynton Beach.
Yesterday I did officiate a funeral. This person did not die of the coronavirus — he was 81 years old and he passed. We did it not at the church, but in a funeral home, and precautions were being taken, with the masks. There were only a few there and, of course, social distancing. It’s not that tragedy hasn’t struck, but you make adjustments.
There are some [in the congregation] that are, of course, fearful. Some people do have fear of death and dying. That’s why our new everyday [prayer] presentation is going to be a 10-minute thing on Facebook, to perhaps alleviate some fears. Not everybody calls you when they have a problem, but they are still listening.
Some of the people at Greater St. Paul had financial issues even before this happened. They haven’t said that — they haven’t said to me, “What am I going to do for pay? — but that is the human situation. Especially because we live in America and we’re accustomed to having things a certain way. It’s not a new thing, in my way of looking at it.
I use the term “desperately urgent” quite a bit, because that’s the way I feel about what I’m doing. Can you convince, can you share in such a way, where you reach people’s hearts and minds?
I do see that people are taking life more seriously. These are times when — I’m not going to quote scripture — but people are taking their salvation, their faith more seriously. This is time to be serious about where you stand and where you plan to stand, and do you stand?
Officer Jennifer Bickhardt Graziose
Wilton Manors Police Department
Bickhardt Graziose is a second-generation lawenforcement officer whose husband serves in the City of Lauderhill. She speaks about trying to enforce social distancing in the socially outgoing community of Wilton Manors.
We all took the oath seriously to help our community. Especially in a time like now, it’s important for the public to see that we are here when it’s good and when it’s bad.
A lot of community members have still been out and about, and we have been trying to encourage everyone to only leave their house for the necessities. Going to a doctor’s appointment, a pharmacy, going grocery-store shopping once a week, exercising.
But avoiding large groups. We want to encourage everyone to stay home, and that’s been our challenge, I’d say.
We’ve had some calls about people sitting outside of a business, and our officers will respond, our codecompliance officers will make contact with the business and let them know that you can’t have tables outside. I feel like they’re starting to see it, and understand that it is very serious. But we still want to stress that it’s out there and it affects all of us. We’re all in this, and we all want to stay safe.
Stephanie Gunderson
Director of outreach at Calvary Chapel, Fort Lauderdale
Gunderson is among the staff at Calvary Chapel who put on masks and gloves every day to provide medical workers at Fort Lauderdale’s Holy Cross Hospital with meals large enough to feed their families.
Whenever a crisis hits, whether a hurricane or even this pandemic, part of my role in outreach is crisis response. With this pandemic, we knew that food was a big need. Since we have a restaurant, we wanted to use our resource to help the community, particularly our first responders and those in the health-care field.
We are working hand in hand with Holy Cross Hospital, and every day we provide 150 family meals, which each feed four people. Many of them will eat it on their break and bring the remainder home to their family. Many who are working a long shift will be eating double portions themselves. We also don’t want them to incur the expense of stopping somewhere to get food for their family.
We give it out at 3 p.m. When we get there, we already have a line of doctors and nurses lined up on the sidewalk to receive it. They’re lined up with their masks on, some of them are grabbing food for their fellow staff members who are in surgery or working in the hospital. They are incredibly thankful. Which is very humbling, because we are so thankful for them. What we get in return has just been an incredible blessing.
They’re usually just relieved that someone is caring for them. We’ve asked them about the long hours that they’re working. With the fatigue that I’m sure they’re experiencing, we haven’t heard that vocally from them. They’ve just said, “We have a job to do and we’re gonna get it done.”
Josh Levy
Mayor of Hollywood
A father of two and a graduate of Hollywood Hills High School, Levy was elected to a four-year term as mayor of the city in 2016.
You just tackle whatever comes in front of you. For the three-plus years that I’ve been mayor, getting the city’s financial footing to be strong, growing its economy and improving neighborhoods has been my No. 1 passion. With this COVID-19 health emergency throwing a monkey wrench into all of that, things are on pause. But we’re going to have to see it through. So once this disruption goes away, and according to health experts that will be a number of weeks, but once it does, we’ll go back to work.
Look, the health issue, and worrying about people’s health and protecting one another, is primary. Secondary is the economic. It is difficult because you don’t know when you’re going to see the end. But,
I’ll tell you, the federal programs and the state programs are a straight-up lifesaver for people and for business. Because you can’t just stop working and stop earning. People just don’t have the ability to withstand that. So, thankfully, these governmental projects are going to be stepping in and helping people float the boat. Hopefully we’ll all survive that expense, years from now, when the cost of this will have to somehow be paid.
The public is responding very, very positively to the stay-at-home order. I took a drive yesterday — to go to the hardware store and I did need to visit the family business [Hollywood Kia] — to see the restrictions that are in place, at the beach area, the downtown area, the business closures. Just to observe the scene, so to speak. I’ll tell you, it looked very eerie, very strange to see the city at a standstill. To see the Broadwalk, which usually has thousands of people, empty. To see A1A with more bicyclists on it than cars. To see major thoroughfares like Sheridan Street empty. It’s basically a ghost town in many ways.