March marks two years since New York shut down in response to COVID-19. Medical staff had to step up when many people stayed home. People made signs and thanked nurses for their role in helping our community. What were they facing inside the sterile hospital walls day in and out?

A few nurses that have been in the ICU through the pandemic told Spectrum News 1 that the pandemic made them stronger as a unit; but some of the things they experienced were just too difficult to talk about.

“The first time I went into a COVID room, I was absolutely terrified of what could be,” said Alyssa Matuszczak, a St. Joseph’s Hospital ICU registered nurse. ”It's become part of our everyday life. We come to the hospital and we expect to see COVID patients.”

“I think that's what's kept me here for 15 years is, every day, coming to work with my friends and being an awesome team,” said Lane Knight, St. Joseph’s Hospital, ICU registered nurse practitioner.

What You Need To Know

  • This March marks two years since New York started shutting down in response to COVID-19

  • Nurses feel like the pandemic brought them closer together as a unit

  • At one point, they say the ICU grew from 18 beds to 28

Lane and Alyssa have worked as ICU nurses throughout the entire pandemic at St. Joe's. 

“It's been quite a challenge but eye-opening and humbling for sure,” said Knight. “It hit like a ton of bricks. It was, from our first patient that we saw to shutting down our whole unit and opening up a new unit that was all closed, to then coming back to our own native unit and doubling up patients per room.”

The nurses said they had to split rooms in the ICU, increasing their capacity from 18 to 28 patients from November 2020 through early summer of 2021.

“Sometimes it was scary to think that we would be burdened with additional staff need without having the staff there and the patient count would just continue to grow,” said Michele Doolittle, St. Joseph’s ICU nurse manager.

Doolittle has been with St. Joe's for 25 years. She says that, pre-pandemic, they were running short on nursing staff with people retiring.

“I think you could stop any nurse in the hallway and find a story from them that will stay with them for the rest of their life. COVID has affected us all separately and in different ways, and it could be with the same patient from something that you tried, and put all the effort in to save a life that it didn't happen, to actually having the miracle case that actually they got to walk out the door,” said Doolittle.

“It's nothing like you've ever, ever experienced. You build these relationships with patients, knowing that this could be the last conversation that they have. During the height of the pandemic, families weren't allowed to come in so they weren't able to say goodbye to their loved ones or see their loved ones. So we built these really strong relationships. We were the only people in their room for 12 hours in and out. So if they didn't make it out of the ICU, it's just a lot of emotional struggle and challenges that we had to face every single day,” said Matuszczak.

Reflecting back two years after the first COVID case came through their doors, they feel they're closer than ever as a unit.

“We really came together as a whole in those times with different nurses from different floors helping out different nurses, from pacu and OR who didn't really have the ICU experience, lended a hand and they were here to help,” said Matuszczak.

The number of patients in the ICU for COVID fluctuates, but the nurses said it’s not like the peak they were facing a year ago.