Hospital nurse embraces his work on frontlines of battle against COVID-19
Ross Palmer is waiting to grow up.
A father of two teenagers and self-described “skiing addict,” the 64-year-old Rollinsville resident still races down country roads on his Buell motorcycle when the moment hits him.
And one day, maybe even someday soon, he says he’s going to buy a dirt bike and take it on the mountain trails near his home.
“That’s just where my brain is at,” Palmer says with a laugh.
Yes, it’s safe to say Palmer isn’t like most people his age. Or like most people for that matter.
Maybe that’s why it’s so easy to believe him when he shrugs off the risk he takes every time he shows up for work as an emergency room and intensive care nurse on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic at Avista Adventist Hospital in Louisville.
Even as COVID-19 spreads across Colorado — a virus, it must be noted, that’s exceedingly more fatal for those in Palmer’s age group — the 20-year health care veteran says he doesn’t give much thought to the threat to his own health. Rather, it’s the well-being of others, and those he comes into contact with, that are top of mind.
“I have a job to do,” he says. “I love doing my job, and I put those kinds of worries on the back burner because I try to keep myself as educated as possible to keep myself safe and the folks that I’m around.”
Palmer has a history of doing such things.
As a young man, the New Hampshire native served four years in the Air Force as an electronics technician, followed by another seven in the Army, three of which were as a helicopter pilot in the 101st Airborne Division. Once he returned to the states, Palmer earned his nursing degree at Ventura Community College in California. He had been turned on to the field after getting his EMT certification with the 101st, as well as a stint in ski patrol while stationed in Germany.
Palmer moved to Colorado in 2002, eventually settling down in Rollinsville in Gilpin County. He has a 16-year-old son, Kodiak, and 13-year-old daughter, Samantha, who primarily live with their mother in Lakewood.
If they’re worried about what Dad is doing these days, they certainly haven’t shared it with him, Palmer says.
“They know as far as my psyche or whatever that I ride motorcycles fast, I fly in helicopters,” he says. “I’m not the safest person in the world, but I do think about stuff before I do it. That’s probably the only reason I’m still alive.”
Like any nurse, Palmer is the eyes and ears of the doctors at Avista Adventist.
During a typical week, like this past one, he works four 12-hour shifts between the emergency room and ICU. He administers medication, asks pertinent questions of the patients in his care and does his best to educate and ease their concerns. The latter has become more challenging in recent weeks, he admits, with anxiety running high amid the coronavirus crisis.
Guidelines from the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been changing by the day, and sometimes even the hour. Not everyone who wants a test is eligible to receive one, which means Palmer must refer some patients to the CDC and state of Colorado websites.
And with personal protective equipment at a premium, he and his colleagues must also be cognizant of the resources they have to protect themselves and others from getting the virus while simply doing their jobs.
“I think that kind of sums up nursing, that sums up health care,” said Sharon Robinson, Palmer’s supervisor at Avista Adventist. “You signed up to do this job, you signed up to take care of people who are sick, and that’s what (Palmer)’s doing. He’s doing it in the (emergency room) and he’s doing it in the ICU with the sickest of the sick.
“I think we all have that inside us; that we signed up to do this. This isn’t the time to step away. This is the time to go in and help people, help people who really need it. That doesn’t mean that people aren’t scared. It just means that you do what you are trained to do and what you are passionate about doing.”
Of course, this may only be the beginning of the crisis here in Colorado.
The number of infected is rising by the day, with Robison and health care administrators across the state preparing for the worst but hoping for the best.
Nurses such as Palmer are taking extreme steps to make sure they don’t bring the virus home with them. Palmer leaves his work clothes and shoes at the hospital and washes his hands “at least a couple hundred times a day.”
“Just being able to change somebody’s life for the better, I think that’s what life is all about,” he says. “That’s why we’re put on this earth, or one of the big reasons, to help out our fellow man.”