Nursing home workers are some of the most dedicated in healthcare, often sacrificing on behalf of their charges. That commitment shines through in times of natural disaster.

In Colorado in January, a staffer used a smoke extinguisher to beat back fast-moving wildfires prior to evacuation.
And as tornadoes bore down on nursing homes in four states in December, workers literally held off a world spinning out of control.

One of the storm system’s most dramatic moments played out inside Monette Manor in Arkansas, where an LPN spotted a twister through a window and quickly set off a life-saving transfer of residents to areas away from windows. In the nightmarish seconds afterward, workers used their bodies to shield residents and held onto their wheelchairs with all their might.

When it was over, the building was all-but demolished and one resident had died. But emergency planners said the death toll could have been historic without prior planning and the staff’s quick reaction.

In Mayfield, KY, the heroics started earlier in the day. About 20 Mayfield Health and Rehabilitation staff members, aware of the weather forecast, practiced a drill that afternoon, asking residents to stage themselves in windowless hallways. The building was later annihilated, yet not one resident died.

Sarah Poat Stewart, LNHA, regional director of operations for ClearView Healthcare Management, called it “divine intervention” that a tornado- flattened wing had been cleared to prepare for construction.

To be sure, there are plenty of folks who deserve thanks when healthcare facilities are hit by nature’s worst. Stewart’s public thank-you list demonstrated the role nursing homes play in connecting communities:

A fellow administrator brought a chainsaw to clear an evacuation path; churches and schools sent vans and buses to ferry survivors to safety; and facilities with less damage sent maintenance workers to help.

Meanwhile, the Kentucky Health Care Association raised $67,000 to aid 27 storm-affected long-term care workers with their own recoveries.

Amid the devastation, these efforts to protect residents and support those who risked everything for them are a powerful reminder that no man (or woman) is an island when part of a nursing home community.

From the January/February 2022 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News