RALEIGH, N.C. — Stephanie Harrison knows people appreciate the work she’s doing.

What You Need To Know

  • Spectrum News 1 had a rare opportunity to go inside the ICU at UNC Rex Hospital

  • Covid-19 case numbers may be down, but healthcare workers say patients are as sick as they ever were

  • The ICU there hit a peak of 95 covid patients in early January

However, it’s not enough.  

“It would be more thankful for me if people wore masks and social distanced and listened to science," Harrison says, an ICU nurse.

Harrison risks her life every day on the frontlines at UNC Rex Hospital.

“It’s easy to kind of think 'oh, the numbers are down. I don’t really see it. I’m not in the unit...' It’s easy to kind of compartmentalize things. But when you come back and you see they’re just as sick as they were in December, in June, in July," she says.

Harrison's shifts can last 12 hours or more depending on how sick the patient is.

“[You] do the best you can…that’s all you can do. It’s a 24-hour healthcare, like there’s another shift coming, and they’re going to do as much as they can do too. Otherwise, it’s too much to put on yourself," Harrison says.

She probably puts on new protective gear dozens of times a shift and checks on her patients roughly every hour. Every two hours, she turns the patient over to prevent a pressure injury caused from staying too long in one position.

Currently, one of her patients is middle-aged and not eligible for the vaccine. The patient is sedated, so she doesn’t resist and can breathe easy with a ventilator tube she needs to stay alive.

Harrison talks to her any way.

“Some people wake up from comas and say I heard everything, that’s so sweet of you to say things," she says. "Just to err on the side that people can hear you and you want to make sure they know what you’re doing to their body when they can’t speak for themselves.”

When Harrison's not working to save a life, she tries to preserve a patient’s dignity, such as washing her hair.

“If I’m able to and I have time, I always want to try and do little personal care things they’re not able to do themselves," she says.

The average stay of a COVID-19 patient at UNC Rex Hospital is eight days, roughly twice the average of another patient. Still, many stay months or more.

“You also are with these patients for so long and so many shifts, all of us can get really involved and want them to have the best for their outcomes," she says.

Harrison feels every loss, usually later when she’s away from the hospital.

“Most of the time, things just hit me a little bit later, and I’ll be in my car and things kind of hit me, or just take a shower and just kind of sit with be like 'oh my God.' A couple times spoke with my husband and it just welled up. I don’t know what’s going to happen… I don’t know if i can sustain it," she says.

Harrison questions if she could tolerate another surge in the virus.

“I don’t know if I have it in me. It’s something that will take me some time to kind of process. We had so many patients. I've never seen so much death ever, and I hope I never do again," she says.