In an urgent plea two days before Thanksgiving, Salinas Valley Memorial hospital released videos of two of its respiratory therapists telling how caring for Covid-19 patients and sometimes watching the die has impacted them.
The videos were released earlier today after the hospital posted its highest number of Covid patients since the start of the pandemic, 32 on three Covid units, according to SVMH spokesperson Karina Rusk.
That's exactly half of the 64 infected patients in Monterey County as of Nov. 23, the highest number in the county to date, according to a state website that tracks all pandemic hospitalizations.
"Our frontline workers want to make one last appeal before the holiday to urge people to be safe and limit family gatherings," Rusk writes by email.
The two therapists are Luis Hernandez and Susie Rosales, each sitting next to ventilator equipment. Rosales says in the video that she has friends who have told her they don't believe Covid-19 is real.
"It's real, people are here, they're sick and they're dying," she says. Watching patients slip away, and families come to say their final goodbyes, "breaks mey heart."