‘We need some kind of healing’

Danbury Hospital staff, families who lost loved ones to COVID-19 hold candlelight vigil

DANBURY — Al Coelho hadn’t been back to the Danbury Hospital grounds since his son died there last April.

Coelho, the connections pastor at Faith Church in New Milford, used to do ministry work at the hospital every day. He has switched to doing so virtually.

“That I haven’t stopped,” he said. “He (my son) wouldn’t want that.”

But he returned for a candlelight vigil Monday evening to remember his son, 32-year-old Bethel resident and Stamford probation officer Jonathan Coelho, and the more than 7,880 Connecticut residents who have died from COVID-19.

“He was just a loving person, and his smile was so contagious,” Al Coelho said of his son.

Nurses and community members stood in groups spaced apart on the sidewalk of Hospital Avenue in front of Danbury Hospital, which had the state’s first COVID-19 patient and confirmed COVID-related death,

The Danbury Nurses Union Unit 47, AFT Local 5047, which represents about 600 registered nurses at the hospital, organized the vigil. The nurses collected nonperishable

food for local pantries, which have seen an increased demand over the past year due to residents struggling financially.

“We need some kind of healing,” said Tiina Hawley, who has been a nurse for 33 years and treated COVID patients in Danbury. “This is why I’m here. I need to start healing, too.”

Janice Stauffer, president of the nurses’ union, said the group held the vigil to recognize the community that has supported them over the past year.

Stauffer has been a nurse for more than 30 years, most recently treating COVID-19 patients in the intensive care unit.

During the first few weeks of the pandemic, only nurses, the physician and the respiratory therapist were allowed in the room with COVID-19 patients, meaning the nurses served many roles, including housekeeper and phlebotomist, Stauffer said. They were the only companions patients had and the main connection families had to their loved ones, she said.

“We became like an empty shell,” Stauffer said.

But she said she is proud to have been there for her patients.

“That is what nursing is,” she said.

Hawley recalled the first time she saw a COVID-19 patient die. One of her nurse colleagues saw something was wrong from the patient’s heart monitor, put on a gown and held the patient’s hand while Hawley and her coworkers watched.

Hawley said she just had 21⁄2 weeks off and couldn’t sleep at night the first week.

“You feel like you stop living,” she said. “I don’t even know how to relax anymore.”

Joann Martin, who has been a nurse on Danbury’s intensive care unit for 16 years, recalled a patient her age saying to her, “Just tell me how I can live.”

“He died,” she added.

Her husband’s brother and three cousins died from the virus, too, she said.

Stauffer and other nurses said they relied on their colleagues for support.

“We were each other's family,” she said.

Stauffer described “living in fear” in the early months of the pandemic. She and other nurses removed their clothes in their garage and showered immediately

when they returned home. Hawley and her husband initially slept in separate bedrooms

Stauffer got COVID-19 in November

and was out of work for

22 days, but did not need to go to the hospital. She had a headache, diarrhea, fatigue and lost her sense of taste and smell.

“It was very scary,” she said. Al Coelho said he wanted to honor the front-line workers who cared for his son and other COVID-19 patients.

The Coelho family’s story reached across the nation when his wife, Katie, found a note her husband had written to her and their two young kids on his phone before he died.

“I love you guys with all my heart and you’ve given me the best life I could have ever asked for,” Jonathan Coelho wrote.

Jonathan and Katie Coelho have two kids, Braedyn, now 3, and Penny, who is almost 2. Their mom has decorated their home with pictures of their dad and Penny can point him out, Al Coelho said.

“Even though she is a young age, she knows Dada,” he said.

Stauffer said nursing will be

forever changed. She has sought help through the mental health programs the hospital offers.

“We lost something of ourselves through this pandemic,” she said.

H John Voorhees III / Hearst Connecticut Media Frank Salvatore Jr. holds a sign and candles in honor of his mother, Carole Ann Salvatore, who died on Christmas morning of complications from COVID-19, during Monday’s vigil in front of Danbury Hospital.

H John Voorhees III / Hearst Connecticut Media The Rev. Al Coelho, from Faith Church in New Milford, joined nurses from Danbury Hospital in honoring those lives lost since the outbreak of COVID-19 with a vigil on the sidewalk outside the hospital Monday. Coelho, who lost his son Jonathan Coelho, of Bethel, to COVID-19 in April, was listening to an opening statement at the vigil.

H John Voorhees III / Hearst Connecticut Media Nurses caring for patients at Danbury Hospital honored lives lost since the outbreak of COVID-19 with a vigil on the sidewalk outside the hospital Monday.

H John Voorhees III / Hearst Connecticut Media Registered nurse Janice Stauffer, president of the Danbury Nurses Union, talks with attendees at a vigil Monday to honor lives lost since the outbreak of COVID-19 on the sidewalk outside Danbury Hospital.

Contributed photo Jonathan Coelho, 32, of Bethel, died on April 22 after battling COVID-19 in Danbury Hospital for 28 days. He left behind a wife, a now 3-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter.