Florida nurse begs Covid-19 patient to go on ventilator: ‘You will die. I’m trying to save your life’

State’s hospitals are full with critically ill cases

A Florida ER nurse has told of her harrowing experiences working on the frontline against Covid, including having to beg a patient to go on a life-saving ventilator.

Lauren Anderson, 26, was forced to write a devastating message to a patient who was dangerously ill with Covid and needed to be intubated, but was asking to go home instead.

They could only communicate through notes, so Ms Anderson had to frantically scrawl on a piece of computer paper.

She wrote: “You will die honey! Please! If you want to live this has to be done now. If we don’t do it you may lose your only chance to live. You will DIE! I’m trying to save your life!”

Ms Anderson, 26, works at the Halifax Health Medical emergency room in Daytona Beach, Florida. She says the waiting rooms are full, beds aren’t always available and patients are brought in by ambulance round the clock, reports The Daytona Beach News-Journal.

“These are ghastly ill patients just constantly coming in” she said. “It’s like Pandora’s box when a patient comes in. We just always assume everybody’s got Covid, so they’re all in isolation.”

As of Wednesday, there were 144 Covid patients being treated in Halifax Health’s three hospitals.

“We can’t even build enough rooms overnight to hold these patients,” Ms Anderson said. “So they’re staying in the ER.”

The Florida Hospital Association says 60 per cent of hospitals across the state expect a critical staffing shortage within the next week.

Ms Anderson said since mask mandates were lifted, hospitals have had a surge of Covid patients coming in. As many as 3,000 cases of the highly contagious delta variant have been identified in Florida, according to data released by the Department of Health.

“2.0 delta variant, that’s from hell,” said Ms Anderson. “I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. I don’t know when this will end.”