The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Kirtland grid great now on COVID-19 front line
Shoulder to shoulder, Christian Hauber and the members of his team huddled to go over their game plan.
A two-way starter and AllOhioan on Kirtland’s 2011 state championship football team, Hauber was no stranger to huddling with teammates to formulate a plan of attack.
But this huddle was different. And the opponent wasn’t the Coldwater Cavaliers, like it was in the 2011 state championship game at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium in Massillon.
This huddle consisted of only three people — a doctor, a nurse and himself.
And it took place in the emergency department at the Cleveland Clinic.
The foe was the first COVID-19 patient he was encountering.
“Just me, the doctor and nurse,” said Hauber, a respiratory therapist. “We’re all gowned up, huddled, planning. ‘This is what we’re gonna do.’
“I’m not gonna lie. I was so nervous. I’m the only person in my field there, and I’m thinking of how I’m going to get this tube down in this person and on a ventilator so he can
Former Kirtland All-Ohio football player Christian Hauber in his hospital scrubs at the Cleveland Clinic.
breathe again. That was my first ‘Oh crap’ moment.”
There once was a time Hauber was the running back who pillaged Coldwater for 196 rushing yards and delivered hit after hit as a linebacker on defense in the Hornets’ 28-7 win in the Division V state championship game in 2011.
He went on to play at Air Force and Akron before trading in his football spikes and shoulder pads for hospital scrubs.
He’s still on the front line of battle.
It’s just in an emergency room and not a field.
He’s seen more death — both coronavirus-related and not — than he’d care to see. But this is the lifestyle he signed up for.
“Death? Yeah, I’ve seen it,” he said. “As sad as it sounds, you see it so often it becomes normal, though it’s never easy. You just do your best to deal with it, try to leave it at the door when you go home and find good coping strategies.
“It’s a humbling experience being on the front lines of this and in the heat of a pandemic. I’m proud to be here and doing what we can to deal with this.”
Back in 2010-2011, Hauber’s life revolved pretty much around football. After helping Kirtland win the first of five state titles over a
Kirtland’s Christian Hauber is shown running against Bucyrus Wynford in 2011.
10-year span, Hauber played two years of football at Air Force, then transferred to Akron where he played football for a year and began his trek to a bachelor’s degree in respiratory therapy.
He has been employed at the Cleveland Clinic since last July, though he did work for the Clinic at Hillcrest in Mayfield during his final year of schooling.
Less than a year later, COVID-19 came to America.
“You didn’t know what to expect,” Hauber said. “You could see everything that was happening in China, in Italy. You couldn’t help but to think it can happen here. Then it took off in New York.”
Hauber knew quickly how integral his role in the rising pandemic would be. Difficulty breathing that can necessitate intubation and a use of a ventilator is a prime characteristic of the worse-case scenario of COVID-19.
As a respiratory therapist, Hauber knew he’d be on the front line.
“It was hard to know what to expect,” he said of February when he said, “everything changed.”
“I think we did a great job at the Cleveland Clinic of adapting and adjusting to the rules and protocols put in place, the equipment we needed to battle this. We always had a plan.”
Plan or no plan, it wasn’t easy then, and it’s not any easier now.
“Any time you have to put a tube down someone’s throat and hook them up to a machine to help them breathe, that’s hard,” Hauber said.
“It’s not good for a patient long-term. The longer a patient is dependent on a ventilator, the worse the outcome can be.”
Hauber works three 12hour shifts per week. Not all of his work revolves around COVID-19, but it’s a situation that is constantly in the forefront of his mind.
Gone are the days of coming to work in scrubs. Now he and his co-workers “gown up” when they arrive and leave those scrubs there when they go home.
“At the end of the day, this is what I signed up for. This is what we signed up for,” he said of him and others in the medical field.
“Seeing the stuff going on now is hard, but the reward you get out of it, helping people get better and saving lives, that’s why we got into this.”
Hauber is currently studying for graduate testing to pursue a Master’s Degree in Anesthesiology. That would license him to work in operating rooms during surgeries.
Doing that while working on the front lines against a pandemic wasn’t really his mindset when he was an
All-Ohio football player in 2011, let alone a year ago when he was finishing up his schooling.
“Back in high school, I knew I wanted to be in the medical field doing something,” he said. “I had no idea I’d be on the front lines dealing with a major pandemic no one had seen before. It’s been humbling.” Hauber said the good news is the curve of cases is being flattened, thanks to social distancing measures. But he warned America isn’t out of the woods yet.
He said practicing safe hygiene and adhering to social distancing mandates are still a good idea.
“Obviously, with things opening back up, you do worry about a spike again,” he said. “As far as the hospital goes, we’re prepared for anything. If there’s a second wave, we’ll be ready. As dragged out and hard as this feels, it is important for us to level the curve.
“Stay positive. These rules and protocols aren’t going to go away for a long time. But the best thing you can do is practice safe hygiene and stay positive. We’ll get through this.”