Amid COVID-19, why hospital staff are praying on flight decks, before shifts and in parking lots – Tennessean

TriStar Skyline Medical Center hosted a "Park and Pray" event to bring people together during the coronavirus outbreak. Nashville Tennessean

Labor and delivery nurse Sarah Kremer thinks it might have been the Holy Spirit.

She feltthis overwhelming urge to invite a few of her colleagues up to the Vanderbilt University Medical Centerflight deck to pray over the Nashville hospital, which is on the front lineof the state's battle against the deadly COVID-19 virus.

"I just couldn't shake the feeling," Kremer said.

OnMonday morning,she bowed her head, clasped her hands and crouched down on the worn markings of a hospital helipad. Four of her coworkers in matchinglight blue scrubs prayed with her as the Nashvilleskyline stretched behind them.

"It was very peaceful," said Kremer, who celebrated her 38th birthdayMonday. "It's one of the few things I feel like we have some control over in the midst of everything that's going on in our world."

From left, Vanderbilt staff members Tanya Dixon, ORT; Beth Tiesler, ORT; Sarah Kremer, RN; Angela Gleaves, RN; and McKenzie Gibson, RN, pray on the hospital's helipad. Kremer asked her group of nursing friends to celebrate her birthday by praying with her.(Photo: Submitted )

Hospitals keepers of the living and the dying have long inspired prayer.

But as the life-threatening pandemic spreads,many of the faithful are focusing more of their appeals to Godon these mighty medical institutions andasking their higher power to protect the people inside who aretrying to heal and survive.

It is an anxious time in the U.S. The novel coronavirus andattempts to slow its spread are upending nearly every facet of Americanlife. The future feels unstableas public health experts and elected officials warn the worst is still to come.

Stay informed: Sign up for the Coronavirus Watch newsletter to get the latest updates.

Manyare looking for light in this time of darkness, including medical professionals who are risking their own health to care for those who are sick from the disease.

"I think a lot of people during stressful times lean on their faith," said Christine Lunger, a 36-year-old nurse andclinical director of critical care servicesat TriStar Skyline Medical Center in Nashville.

"I think there is just a comfort in knowing that there's a higher power with us, supporting us doing what we're doing."

Nurses onteams Lunger oversees started praying togetheras more coronavirus patients came intothe hospital.

After the7 a.m.and 7 p.m. pre-shift meetings,those who want to participate gather in the break room and spend a few minutes asking God for good patient outcomes and giving thanks for their own health, Lungersaid.

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They pray God will protect them so they can continue to serve as many patients as they can for as long as they are needed, she said.

"It's been a good thing for the staff," Lunger said. "It really has a level-setting for the day that God is with us through this."

In an attempt to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, hospitals are severely limiting the number of people who cancome into theirbuildings. This means many patients are in the hospital alone.

Not only are health care workers addressing medical needs, but they are filling in as their patients'de facto family members and taking care of their spiritual needs, too.

Kim Fitzgerald, a nurse at Skyline, prays during a park and pray event at TriStar Skyline Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., Thursday, April 2, 2020. Participants parked outside of the medical center and prayed at their cars while practicing social distancing. (Photo: Andrew Nelles / The Tennessean)

That dynamic is what inspired another Skyline nurse, Kim Fitzgerald, to organize the park and pray event held outside the hospital on Thursday evening. Fitzgerald, 47, works in Skyline'sspecial procedures department.

Fitzgerald said she and her colleagues were recently prepping a sweet but scared 76-year-old patient for a procedure.

"She said, 'Will y'all just be my family for the day because my family is not allowed to be here.' She just broke down in tears," Fitzgerald said. "We started crying with her because I work with a bunch of softies here and everybody's like, 'Absolutely, we'll be your family for today.' We just loved on her."

Fitzgerald could not stop thinking about the patient.

Inspired by similar events happening elsewhere and what she believes was a nudge from God, she startedseeking permission and making plans for asocial distancing-friendly prayer event just outside of Skyline.

People want to help. They want to do something right now, something for the greater good, something that's bigger.

Vehicles streamed into the hospital's parking lot Thursday evening. Fitzgerald scheduled the park and pray eventfor 7:14 p.m. a nod to a Bible verse, 2 Chronicles 7:14:

"If my people, who are called by my name,will humblethemselves and pray and seek my faceand turnfrom their wicked ways, then I will hearfrom heaven, and I will forgivetheir sin and will healtheir land."

Together, they prayed and sang while keeping theirdistance.

"People want to help. They want to do something right now, something for the greater good, something that's bigger," said Fitzgerald, in a Thursday interview before the event. "This is something they can do to help to show love to our patients that are here alone to show love to our health care workers."

The Vanderbilt staff who found peace in prayer on the flight deck of the hospital are also inspiring others. A photo of the moment they asked God for comfort and protection for all who are a part of the medical center's community spread quickly on social media.

The positive response they have received totheir vulnerable moment is overwhelming. Kremer, the nurse who organized the prayer over the Nashville hospital, is normally aprivate person, but agreed to share the photo with the thought that it could offer people hope and turn them toward God.

The prayer calmed 46-year-old labor and delivery nurse Angela Gleaves. As a small breeze blew Monday morning,tears started to fall from her eyes.

"I just felt like that wind was God loving us and pushing us forward to go and do what we're supposed to do," Gleaves said. "We just want people to know that we're here, trained to do whatwe're doing and we want them to be as comfortable as possible."

Reach Holly Meyer at hmeyer@tennessean.com or 615-259-8241 and on Twitter @HollyAMeyer.

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Amid COVID-19, why hospital staff are praying on flight decks, before shifts and in parking lots - Tennessean