Nurse breaks down what it’s like battling COVID-19 in emergency room

BARROW COUNTY, Ga. — We’ve been reporting for weeks on the shortage of medical supplies here in Georgia.

Now, we want to show you exactly what that means, through the eyes of someone on the frontline of the coronavirus fight.

Channel 2′s Christian Jennings talked to a metro Atlanta emergency room nurse over Zoom, who says she doesn’t feel safe.

For the first time in Laura Jones’ 10-year career as a registered nurse, she’s scared.

“I worked through Ebola, H1N1 and never had the fear I do now,” Jones said.

[SPECIAL SECTION --> Latest on coronavirus in Georgia and around the world]

Jones works in the emergency room at the Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Barrow County, where battling COVID-19 is a war, the same war medical professionals are fighting across the country.

“We’re seeing more people with more severe symptoms now than we had been,” Jones said.

Her body armor is PPE, or personal protective equipment. The demand is far greater than the supply, so those on frontlines are forced to adapt.

For example, Jones says prior to the crisis, nurses would throw away their N95 masks after each patient. Now they’re using the same mask for entire shifts.

“So, the patient in room one who may or may not have COVID-19, but the patient in Room 2 certainly does, well now, you’ve exposed all these people unnecessarily,” Jones said.

She sent Jennings a picture showing the bags nurses use to store masks and face shields.

[SPECIAL SECTION --> Latest on coronavirus in Georgia and around the world]

She recalls a moment this month where she froze and broke down in tears outside a patient's room.

“I was terrified because I knew if I went in there that it’s very possible, I’m going to get it and I have preexisting conditions,” Jones said. “My family (was) flashing in front of me…my two little boys.”

Jones said she is faced with tough emotions daily, not only from her own fears, but from the heartache that comes with seeing others suffer, and from having to turn away loved ones due to the hospital’s new strict visitor policy.

“I had to separate a man and his wife as she was coming the department and she was wailing in pain and he had to stop he couldn’t come back,” Jones said.

For the sake of the nation, she has just one simple request: stay home.

“Staying home is the key to this,” she said.