Amy O' Sullivan, an ER nurse who has worked at Wyckoff Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, for 18 years, is on the front lines treating patients for COVID-19. Shortly after treating the first patient in New York City to be diagnosed with the viral disease, she contracted it herself. She was intubated for three days, recovered, and returned safely to work just two weeks later to continue helping patients.
Amy's heroism landed her on the cover of Time Magazine's Top 100 Most Influential People, where she represented nurses around the world. This week she called in to RADIO.COM's Kelly Ford on New York's Country 94.7 to share her story about getting right to work when the pandemic began.
"I had no idea I was going to be on the cover," says O'Sullivan. "Those nurses that I work with and every other nurse in the emergency room all around the world, that's what they all look like. They're superheroes. You have to be special to be able to do this, and especially now … everybody is wearing capes. Everybody is a superhero."
O'Sullivan says that when the pandemic began to hit and the hospitals started to see an alarming influx of cases, she and her fellow nurses didn't even question what they had to do.
"I think the first two days, we were all unsure, but after that, we were like: 'We gotta do this. We gotta take care of these patients.' And that's what we all did. We all just went to work. We got dressed in the morning, we put our gear on, and we went to work, and there was no stopping."
O'Sullivan recalled a few key moments that have really struck her during the pandemic. In one instance, she helped a woman get suited up in gowns and PPE in order to say goodbye to her husband, "and that was one of the few patients that actually got to say goodbye to their family."
And she says New York's Country 94.7 helped get her through some difficult mornings. She says she "would blast the station in her Jeep," kindly adding, "you got me through the morning, every single morning I drove in. It's really because of you and the music …. It made me feel good inside. It made me forget about what was going to happen."
O'Sullivan is not just a survivor herself. She has helped countless others survive as well this year. Listen to the full conversation above.
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