Dealing With Death

Kati Jo Daniels

COVID just hits your lungs and takes your lungs out. It’s miserable. I’ve held so many hands, hugged so many people and promised to be there for them. It’s just been heartbreaking. It’s been the hardest thing I’ve ever dealt with. I’m not an emotional person, but I probably cry after every single one of my shifts. We have dealt with more death in the last two years than my entire 10-year career in respiratory. We’ve had healthy people dying left and right, and in the worst ways possible, because you just can’t breathe.

“It’s been the hardest thing I’ve ever dealt with.”

Kati Jo Daniels, Respiratory Therapist

I had a young patient, the same age as me, who I had been with from the very beginning. I talked with him about his family, wife, and his two little girls who were the same age as my daughter. He told me how scared he was and I told him, “I’ll be here with you through everything and we’ll get through this together.” He got to the point where he needed to be intubated, and he looked at me and said, “I need you to tell my wife and my girls that I love them and that I promise I’ll always be there for them.” We intubated him and it just kept getting worse and worse, so we called his wife to come see him.

Right before she got there, his heart stopped. I was the one that started compressions on him. We coded him and coded him and we could not bring him back. And when I walked out the door after they called it, I saw his wife and little girls and I just lost it. I started crying and she looked at me and said, “You’re Kati Jo aren’t you.” And I grabbed her and I hugged her – just bawling. That was my first one. That was one of my hardest ones. Here’s this guy who I’ve been with from the beginning – he’s the same age as me, he has a family…it hit hard. I cried for a good three or four days after that.