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Two Traverse City Nurses headed to NYC to Help COVID-19 Patients in ICU

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The Big Apple is battling one of the nation’s biggest coronavirus outbreaks.

Now, two Traverse City natives and nurses are headed to NYC to work on the front lines.

Karissa Havens and Callie Leaman have joined a traveling nurse program to work in intensive care units in hospitals that have been hit hard by the outbreak in Manhattan.

24-year-old Havens is a TC West grad and currently works at a hospital in Kalamazoo.

“I’ve always wanted to do travel nursing, I just didn’t know when. When this pandemic started, I thought it was kind of a sign that I needed to jumpstart,” said Havens.

She thought about assisting in Detroit, but hospitals were not accepting first-time traveling nurses. New York welcomed her with open arms. She’ll travel there next week.

“I will be with a Mount Sinai Hospital group but there’s potential for me to float to any of the hospitals…I just really won’t know until they tell me the morning of where I need to be on,” said Havens.

Traverse City Munson emergency room nurse Callie Leaman has already arrived and has had to learn how to treat ICU patients in a matter of day.

“It’s bad out here. They are struggling. There are not enough nurses specifically and not enough ICU nurses,” said Leaman. “[The ICU] is full, pretty much all COVID patients all on ventilators really, really sick.”

So far, Callie’s team has had to turn five medical suites into ICU units to accommodate patients.

We don’t have any other options at this point,” said Leaman.

Callie is doing her best to stay safe on the job, but at least she knows her family will be healthy at home when she returns.

“I have two young girls at home, who I miss so much, but I think I get comfort in knowing that I’m not bringing home these germs to them every night,” said Leaman.

For now, she says the city that never sleeps may be taking a break – and that could be good for everyone.

“As far as the atmosphere goes, it’s definitely not typical New York. Out here, many times the streets are bare,” said Leaman. “It means people are staying home and doing their part to stay safe.”

Callie and Karissa will be helping out in NYC for at least the next several weeks.

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