COVID Heroes In our midst

Brad Becker spent 23 years in the Army, first as a combat medic, then as a respiratory therapist.
“I’ve seen a lot of stuff in a lot of different places,” he said, including service in Iraq.
It may not surprise you, then, to learn that he uses military phrases when describing the treatment of COVID-19.
“The battleground is you, inside of you,” Becker said. “It’s not the war that kills you; it’s the collateral damage.”
He and his coworkers at Owatonna Hospital are part of a much larger group of what is being called “Frontline Heroes” of the pandemic.
Becker, who’s worked at the facility since 2012, is one of four respiratory therapists managing a schedule of 24/7 coverage for some of the sickest patients.
The team of respiratory therapists sees patients of all ages, from the emergency room to the nursery to the intensive care unit, treating lung and breathing issues.
“Everybody truly likes what they do. They’re really good, professional people,” Becker said. “And everybody is tired.”
The staff at Owatonna Hospital had the benefit of time to plan, watching as the virus spread in places like China and Italy, then New York, as health care professionals dealt with thousands of critically ill patients.
“That’s when we started to build a strategy,” Becker said. “We have a set number of resources, so we started stocking up on supplies and equipment we’d need. We were very concerned we wouldn’t have enough oxygen, or equipment, to be able to treat the numbers (of patients) we might get.”
Early in the pandemic, they tried to get more of the disposable supplies and figure out how best to conserve them given the face of mask and other personal protective equipment (PPE) shortages.
“We made big changes, things like negative pressure rooms and putting HEPA filters into walls,” Becker said. “If you’ve done the (prep) work, have the processes and a really good group of people all working toward the same goal, then you’re ready.”
The COVID patients started arriving as summer approached, with emotions ranging from doubt to fear.
“I’d have people say to me, ‘you just want to keep me here (for money),’ and I’d say, ‘no, I don’t.  I want to let you walk out of here, but you’re going to be blue by the time you get to your car, and you’re not going to make it home.’”
Becker has treated dozens of patients and said he lost about 15. The majority of them, he said, were between the ages of 50 and 70.
He was the last person to speak to them – and listen to them – before intubating them. Loved ones, remember, couldn’t be with them.
What would he say in those moments, standing beside the ventilator?
“They know it’s bad, and nobody wants to go on the machine,” Becker said. “I mostly told them to keep the faith, to be positive. I told them there is another side of this, but if I don’t do this now, you’re going to die in front of me.”
Telling their family members was another difficult task.
“I would say, ‘I can’t do anymore, any other way. I have no choice; I have to make interventions that are medically necessary.’ Then we did what we needed to do.”
That same theory applies when he comes home, he said. Every day, even now, a trash bag hangs on the outside door handle. Becker strips off his clothes, puts them in the bag and takes them to the washing machine.
“Nobody touches it,” he said. “I don’t want to share this with anyone.”
Becker has been “exposed so many times, at very big levels,” he said. The precautions and PPE have worked: He has not caught COVID-19 and was vaccinated “as soon as it was available.”
Though he believes vaccines are a personal choice, Becker said freedom of choice comes with “the responsibility of those decisions. You have to think about protecting yourself. We have tools out there, and the vaccine is a good tool. You should at least be affording yourself those tools.”
The coronavirus is “a disease that has a lot of tentacles,” Becker said. “Everybody’s going to have obstacles, from (gastrointestinal) problems, to blood clots, to lung issues. It really takes a village to do this; no one group is more important than the others.”
That village includes the housekeeping and maintenance staff, in addition to the medical personnel.
And, of course, there are a multitude of success stories.
Becker said he’s seen plenty of patients who survived, despite a very bleak outlook. But as the delta variant of the virus spreads, he’s hearing something else from recently admitted patients: regret.
“Almost to a person, they say, ‘I wish I’d gotten the vaccine,’” he said. “After vaccination, you can still get sick, but the symptoms are muted. This new variant maybe isn’t as virulent, but it looks more transmissible.”
That’s how it works with viruses: The first, or “novel” strain kills the host; subsequent strains tend to spread more easily.
The take-home lesson from Becker, who has seen firsthand the people struggling to breathe, struggling to survive, is this:
“Please think about getting vaccinated,” he said. “If you don’t want to, please protect yourself and your family. You don’t want this disease.”