MENDOTA – At the end of March when Illinois was just starting to see an increase in COVID-19 cases, New York City hospitals were already in crisis, overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients. Nurses and doctors at those hospitals were becoming sick as well, which created staffing shortages and caused New York City hospitals to begin asking for medical personnel from across the country to come and help. That’s when Jennifer Escatel, a registered nurse from Mendota, decided to answer the call.

Escatel had been getting e-mails requesting the help of ICU (intensive care) nurses willing to go to New York City, so she decided to get more information. A graduate of Mendota High School and the IVCC nursing program, she had been trained as an ICU nurse at St. Margaret’s Hospital in Spring Valley before going into healthcare management. After talking with her family about the need for nurses in New York, she received their blessing to go and signed an eight-week contract.

Five days later on April 5, Escatel found herself on a plane to New York. Although her family supported her decision to go, not everyone understood why. “But I felt that I was young, healthy and had the skill set to do it,” she explained. “And they knew that as a nurse, my job is to take care of people.”

Escatel said she had never been to New York and in fact, had never traveled anywhere alone, so she had no real expectations before arriving. “I had heard all the horror stories about shortages of staff and PPE at the hospitals,” she said, “but that’s all I really knew.”

On April 6, her first day of work at NYU Langone Health in Manhattan, there were 560 COVID-19 cases at that hospital. Because she was working in ICU, Escatel said she had less exposure to the virus than if she had been working in the emergency department. Although she had patients with COVID-19, the ICU was in a new part of the hospital that had negative air pressure and the patients were already intubated when they got to her department.

The situation was much different in the emergency department. Escatel said patients coming into the hospital’s ER would line the hallways and the staff had to choose which person to help first. “When I got there, I think there were about 700 people dying every day in New York City,” she recalled.

One thing Escatel quickly realized was that people of all ages were getting seriously ill with COVID-19, not just older people. Some of her ICU patients were young – teens, 20s, 30s and 40s – and not in any other high-risk category, but they were getting just as sick as the older people. No one knew why. During her time at Langone Health, she also noticed that in her department men seemed to be getting sicker than women. “But every day was so different,” she said. “The beginning symptoms might be sore throat and fever but so many other types of complications would follow. It was scary.”

Taking the advice of a friend from back home, Carrie Bauer, Escatel began keeping a journal of her experiences. At the end of her third day on April 8, she wrote about her patients: “Good news. No one died. Bad news, they are still sick…I’m tired and my feet hurt. Fourteen hours today, 21,000 steps. Let’s see what tomorrow’s shift holds. I got this. No worries my friends.”

In her free time after work and on days off, Escatel was able to experience life in New York City for the first time. From her hotel in Times Square, she could walk 30 minutes to and from work or take an eight-minute Uber ride. At first, she was afraid to go out walking. On one of her very first attempts to venture out, she decided to walk half a block to a convenience store, but that trip ended with this journal entry: “Random guy invades my personal space and wouldn’t go away. I got scared, walked back to the hotel. Wanted to cry and fly home. I decided just to stand out front of the hotel and calm down. Then I met a group from the Navy staying across the street that got into town today. We decided to take a little walk and grab some food and snacks. All is well and I’m not coming home…yet.”

Escatel said before long, she became more accustomed to the city and usually preferred to walk everywhere. Because of stay-at-home orders, there were far fewer people on the streets than normal, but people were still going where they needed to. In her April 8 journal entry, she described the sound of sirens in the city, the people who would stop and wave in support of healthcare workers, and the local businesses that donated food daily. “Everyone is so appreciative for the help and being on the front line.”

Except for a nearby Target, Escatel said almost all of the stores in Times Square were closed, which was disappointing. “But it’s probably a good thing or I would have done some serious shopping,” she laughed. “By the time I left, the protests were starting so the Target closed then, too.”

By her second week, Escatel began to realize how mentally draining the job was, writing: “My brain hurts as much as my feet and back do.” But she quickly added that she was not complaining because she knew how hard the work would be and she was “up for the challenge.”

That week she also described what the days were like for her patients and for the medical staff. “These patients not only can’t breathe, but are in multi-organ failure. The very thin line of when to run the meds, when to turn them up or to turn them down falls into my hands.”

She said the nurse practitioners, physician assistants and doctors were all extremely busy and not always there to answer questions right away and the respiratory therapists were also “spread thin.” But she also felt that the doctors she worked with were quickly formulating a plan and she saw some people getting better. “It’s just the process of getting there,” she wrote on April 13, adding, “I can do this. I will do this. And giving up has never been an option! So far New York has been amazing. I even made it to Target to buy toilet paper!”

As Escatel had expected, there was not enough PPE at the hospital. One day when the strap on her N95 mask snapped she had to tie the two ends together because masks were in short supply. She also had to use the same gown in each patient room due to the lack of proper gowns.

But her work never stopped. “We were constantly moving for 13 hours,” she said. “The nurses had to help each other. We were the ones most familiar with the patients. We all had iPhones so we could consult with each other and with the doctors by phone because everybody was so busy. It was non-stop and always something different.”

Escatel recalled one particularly rough day when she had two COVID-19 patients, both in their 50s. “One will live and one will die. It’s sad,” she wrote that night. “It’s about 50/50 here. Seems every other room just about. I don’t think I sat down longer than 30 minutes today and that was to eat. Leave my hotel around 7:30 a.m. and get back around 9 p.m. Shower, eat and now sleep to do it all again tomorrow.”

Four days later, Escatel wrote about a 46-year-old patient who had no past medical history, was not overweight and had been on a ventilator since March 29. “The man probably has pneumonia. COVID has become a vicious cycle. Stay home people. Wash your hands. This is not a joke!”

But there were also many bright spots in her days thanks to friends, family and the Mendota community who sent care packages to Escatel on a regular basis. “That definitely made it easier to be there,” she said. “They sent boxes with snacks, special treats and fabric face masks that I could wear when I wasn’t at work, which was great because the N95 masks ate my face. There were so many nice surprises, which I appreciated so much. Thanks to my friends and family I will forever be known as the travel nurse with the snacks for sharing every day from my care packages.”

Most importantly, she was able to video chat with her kids almost every night. “It was hard for them but they understood that I am a nurse and there was a bigger picture,” she said. “If it wasn’t for the traveling nurses, way more people would have died.”

Escatel said the New York nurses were very grateful for the traveling nurses, a sentiment expressed in her April 18 journal post: “Everyone helps everyone and I love that! We are a team. No one fights alone!” Friendships were formed between the traveling nurses as well as with the nurses from New York. “One of the nurses from Florida I still talk to almost every day,” she said. “He decided to stay and extend his contract. They asked me to stay but I couldn’t wait to come home.”

But as the time drew close for her to leave New York, Escatel had mixed emotions. She was more than ready to get back home but she also knew there were things she would miss. The experience had been life changing and something that never would have happened working in a rural area. “Worked my last shift at NYU Langone!” she wrote on May 28. “I'm gonna miss this so much! But on the flip side I can’t wait to be home and see my kids! This was such an unreal experience. Something I will never forget. And something I hope to never experience again.”

The day she returned to Mendota, Escatel was warmly welcomed by family, friends and neighbors as well as members of the Mendota Police Department. Although the number of COVID cases was much lower here, she agreed that the stay-at-home orders, social distancing and other restrictions put in place were necessary. She was tested once for COVID in early May and 10 days later she had an antibody test, both of which were negative. “I wore the PPE properly and always washed my hands,” she noted. “Testing is important for the statistics, but many people who get COVID are not sick enough to go to the hospital, so they just recover at home and don’t get tested. We won’t ever have an accurate number of cases.”

Aside from family and friends, one of the things she missed most about being at home was simply the ability to go outside in the yard. In New York, there was really nowhere to just go out and get some sunshine. Even though she opted to pay for her own accommodations while in the city, which were very comfortable and spacious, she admitted to going a little stir crazy. “They offered free hotel rooms to the traveling nurses but those were very small – some had no windows – I couldn’t have survived that,” she said. “I would go up to the roof to read sometimes but I missed being able to just go out in the yard – when I got home I just rolled around in the grass.”

For now, Escatel said other than a short trip to Wisconsin Dells with her family, she is mostly just staying close to home. “I was definitely miserable for the 56 days I was in New York, but I am glad I did it and yes, I would probably do it again – just not right now,” she admitted. “My friends think I’m nuts, but I always say nurses are born, not made. We take care of people. But for now, I need some time at home.”