A NURSE who rushed into a hospital room without a mask to save a coronavirus patient who had stopped breathing died just 14 days later.
Celia Marcos, 61, who worked for 16 years at the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, died on April 17 after testing positive for the virus.
Two weeks earlier, Marcos was working a shift when she realised that a man on the ward that she ran was not breathing.
At the time, her mouth and nose were shielded by only a thin surgical mask, but finding a more substantial N95 mask before entering his room would have used up time.
Colleagues said she ran into the room and began performing chest compressions, a technique intended to kickstart breathing again but that would have thrown particles from the infected man into the air.
She tested positive for the virus 12 days later and died after another two.
Following the incident, Marcos texted a niece saying, “I was the one fight in front of his face”, and expressing concern she had caught the virus, the LA Times reported.
Speaking anonymously to the Times, a nurse and former coworker alleged that Marcos had been working without the PPE that would have been required to protect her.
“The hospital wasn’t giving us appropriate PPE — the N95s were locked,” the nurse said.
A statement from the hospital denied the claims, and said the hospital worked according to local and federal guidelines.
“Despite these efforts, and our commitment to following all guidelines, we still lost one of our own to this terrible virus, and we feel this loss very deeply,” it said.
Marcos is among at least 36 health workers to have died in California since the start of the pandemic.
Almost 200 people attended a candlelit vigil in her memory on Wednesday night.
In a written statement, her son John said: “Our family in the Philippines is really grieving.
“My mom was the one everyone could count on.
“She was the same quiet, strong, supportive person in our extended family that she was to you here at the hospital.
“She was always the one to offer to help.”
Jerry Dimaandal, a former colleague of Marcos’s, said she had been a “dedicated nurse and friend”.
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