CHARLOTTE, N.C. — If you have a friend or a family member who is a nurse, doctor or front-line worker on a hospital's COVID-19 floor, you've likely been privy to hearing about the pain and exhaustion they endure each 12-hour shift.
If you're a front-line worker yourself, putting your health at risk and your body through these taxing days, we thank you.
For many folks who don't have loved ones in the medical field, a nurse in the Carolinas decided to get candid and share those thoughts, experiences and truths with the world. She hopes that people would take the pandemic more seriously and consider getting vaccinated when it's available to them.
Ashley Griffith is a head nurse at Tidelands Georgetown Memorial Hospital in Georgetown, South Carolina. She's the voice and face in this video diary shared by Tidelands Health. Throughout the months of July and August, Griffith recorded a video diary of her life on the COVID-19 floor. An official at Tidelands telling WCNC Charlotte that since then "we actually have even more COVID-19 patients hospitalized than we did when she shot the video diary."
The video is a roughly eight-minute raw, behind the scenes look at what our front-line workers are dealing with as the Carolinas (and the rest of the country) continue to fight the pandemic.
With this diary, as Griffith calls it, are entries from different days. One day she's checking in to show all the IVs and equipment her patients are hooked up to, and other days she vents about how uncomfortable it is wearing the protective gear all shift. In a raw and real way, she shows how challenging this journey to eliminating the virus has become.
"There's nothing you can do to help them," she said, describing her patients. "You do the best you can, but I just wish people would start taking this seriously because we're tired and we want to help."
Since releasing the video, many supporters have shared messages of gratitude on social media for all Griffith is doing. One woman said Griffith cared for both of her parents when they were in the ICU.