2. SOUNDBITE (English) Donna Rottschafer, COVID unit nurse:
"This past week has been probably the hardest week for me physically and em otionally. I've been here 21 years and I've seen more people pass away in the last week- in the past couple weeks really- then almost like combined in all of my career as a nurse. It's been really hard physically and emotionally."
3. Medium view of patient
4. Medium view of nurses
5. Close view of patient
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6. SOUNDBITE (English) Donna Rottschafer, COVID unit nurse:
"We're seeing patients who are maxed out on oxygen, who are basically just suffering. They wanna, they wanna die. They're telling us they wanna die but their families don't wanna let them go because they can't be here to understand what they're going through."
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7. SOUNDBITE (English) Caroline Brandenburger, COVID unit nurse:
"Just today we had two deaths on this unit. And that's pretty the norm. I usually see one to two every shift. Super sad."
8. Nurse holds balloon meant for a patient
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9. SOUNDBITE (English) Caroline Brandenburger, COVID unit nurse:
"They fight every day and they struggle to breathe every day even with tons of oxygen. And then you just see them die. They just die. And they, they fight dying. It's so sad."
As COVID-19 cases surge across Southern California, nurses at one hospital struggle to cope with the daily death toll on their full units.
"Just today we had two deaths on this unit. And that's pretty the norm," St. Joseph Hospital of Orange nurse Caroline Brandenburger said on Thursday. "I usually see one to two every shift. Super sad."
California health authorities reported Saturday a record one-day total of 695 coronavirus deaths as many hospitals strain under unprecedented caseloads.
California’s death toll since the start of the pandemic rose to 29,233, according to the state Department of Public Health’s website.
Meanwhile, hospitalizations are nearly 22,000.
A surge of cases following Halloween and Thanksgiving produced record hospitalizations in California, and now the most seriously ill of those patients are dying in unprecedented numbers.
Already, many hospitals in Los Angeles and other hard-hit areas are struggling to keep up and warned they may need to ration care as intensive care beds dwindle.
