Local paramedic on front lines dies of COVID-19
Paramedic Bobby Harrell never refrained from doing his essential job.
Not when the I-40 bridge into Memphis was shut down and a sick child needed transport in 2016, and not when the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the world.
“He had been doing it for 35 years,” said Tara Harrell, his wife. “He said nothing is going to stop him.”
Harrell, of Marion, Arkansas, was 53 years old. He tested positive for the disease Dec. 16, said Angela Mabry, who was his supervisor at Baptist Ambulance.
Throughout his career, most recently as Baptist Ambulance area supervisor for Crittenden County, Harrell saved numerous lives, Mabry said. The pandemic didn’t deter him from his job, which included transporting COVID-19-POSItive patients this year.
“Whether he knew he was going to get a patient for transport that was absolutely Covid-positive or whether it was picking up an unknown (patient), it didn’t matter, we just did it,” she said of his work during the pandemic.
Baptist Ambulance provides ambulance services for Baptist hospitals and medical facilities in the Memphis area. Harrell was a local paramedic for years prior to the supervisor job he began in October. Mabry first worked with Harrell in the late 1990s.
“He had worked for several private services over his time, not only with Rural Metro Ambulance and Baptist but with Pafford EMS and Crittenden EMS, just off the top of my head,” Mabry said.
Local news outlets highlighted the seasoned veteran Harrell in July 2016, after he helped transport a sick child to Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital from the I-40 bridge blocked during a Black Lives Matter demonstration. WREG-TV reported he carried the child over a concrete barrier on the bridge to get him into the ambulance, which then turned around and left I-40 to reach the hospital via I-55.
“That made him so happy, because he said, ‘I’m not doing anything unordinary,’ ” Tara Harrell said of the I-40 bridge response. “… He said, ‘I’m not a hero, I was doing my job.’”
Bobby Harrell performed a mix of supervising and frontline duties for Baptist Ambulance as the provider worked to fully staff his team, Mabry said. Before December, Baptist Ambulance’s area operations only had three COVID-19 cases among its employees, she said. During December, Harrell, Mabry and other employees caught the disease.
“Reality has hit, that’s for sure,” she said.
Tara Harrell, a private nurse, said they both were very cautious about avoiding illness throughout the pandemic, with Bobby Harrell’s only exposure coming on the job when he was transporting a COVID-19 patient or entering homes.
The day before he tested positive, Harrell had been riding in an ambulance “all day because they were short of medics, so he picked up a shift to help them out,” she said.
When he returned home that night, he felt sick and had a fever.
On Dec. 16, Bobby Harrell began the day feeling great, Tara Harrell said. He went to work before coming back home that afternoon “feeling horrible” with a high fever. They took COVID-19 tests at a local clinic. He tested positive, she tested negative.
Mabry said a few days after he received the positive test, Harrell’s oxygen levels were low and he was admitted to the hospital. He died Sunday afternoon.
On the job, Harrell “was always on his game” and cared about his patients and coworkers, Mabry said.
Outside of his job, she said Harrell was a jokester with a passion for Ole Miss sports. They attended an Ole Miss football game together Nov. 28 as part of a medical team assisting during the game.
“That was something he and I had in common,” she said. “We loved some Ole Miss football.”
Harrell was “a big teddy bear” around children, Tara Harrell said, be it on the job or elsewhere. Adults knew where they stood with him not long after they met him, she said.
“You knew if he would like you or not in a few minutes,” she said. “... If you were questioning it, you knew he liked you. Otherwise, you would know in about two minutes. He was very opinionated.”
Harrell said the public doesn’t fully understand how overwhelmed paramedics are amid the pandemic, adding that they already encountered high-risk situations before 2020. Bobby Harrell was frustrated that EMS workers taking COVID-19 patients to hospitals weren’t getting the vaccine earlier, she said.
“They have to walk into anything,” she said. “The EMS world is just not recognized enough.”
Bobby Harrell’s funeral will take place Monday at First Marion Baptist Church in Marion, Arkansas. A visitation for the public is scheduled for 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. prior to the service.
Max Garland covers Fedex, logistics and health care for The Commercial Appeal. Reach him at max.garland@commercialappeal.com or 901-529-2651 and on Twitter @Maxgarlandtypes.