Issue link: https://nnumagazine.uberflip.com/i/1068650
12 N A T I O N A L N U R S E W W W . N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G O C T O B E R | N O V E M B E R | D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 8 NEWS BRIEFS CALIFORNIA W hen mary-jane Perry's four children and husband sat down for Thanksgiving with the grandparents in Sacra- mento, the registered nurse wasn't at the table. She was 60 miles away, providing medical care for those devastated by the November wildfire that destroyed thou- sands of homes and killed more than six dozen people in Butte County, Calif. When the call went out for nurses to join National Nurses United's RN Response Network (RNRN) disaster relief program, Perry knew she had to go. "These are like my brothers and sisters and I wanted to help out," said Perry, an RN at Kaiser in Sacramento. Any doubt she had disappeared when her 6-year-old daughter gave her the blessing to go. "She said, 'Momma, it's okay, we have food, we have beds, help those people, who don't have that.' I was really touched and I knew it was the right decision to go," Perry explained. The emergency room RN was one of nearly a dozen registered nurses and a nurse practitioner whom RNRN deployed to the Camp Fire, the most destructive and deadly fire in California history. Some 153,336 acres burned, almost 14,000 homes were destroyed, and 86 people died. Stories painted a dramatic picture of elderly people trapped by the flames. "[People] couldn't get out," said Rebecca Blecker, an RN volunteer from Kaiser in South Sacramento. "You can tell the fire moved so fast, the trees at the top still had green on them. Everything on the ground was just black." The volunteer nurses worked at three shelters, two of which were churches hastily turned into shelters to meet the immense need. Many of those seeking medical treat- ment were in search of medications they lost in the fire and suffered from chronic diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension, depression, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The RNRN nurses provided critical care as part of a full medical team working around the clock at the shelters. Blecker believes the climate crisis played a decisive role in creating the "perfect storm" that propelled the Camp Fire. She said as a nurse, she knows the value of prevention and says it is imperative that our climate crisis be taken seriously and addressed by our leaders. "Disasters like this are costing us more money and more peoples' lives than if we addressed climate change," said Blecker. "We need to start refocusing our state of mind on how we are going to save Mother Earth or we are not going to be here." No matter how devastating the tragedy is she is inspired by the resilience of the people she met in the shelter. "What I love seeing is how people are experiencing this crisis and coming together as a family, everyone is looking out for each other," Perry said. The tragedy strips away all those things that are not important and makes stark what truly matters, she added. "You hear all these stories when people were told to evac- uate, they had to decide quickly what was the most important," Perry said. "People find out what is really important, they escaped with their lives. And they recognize how precious life is." —Rachel Berger RNRN volunteers provide aid to Camp Fire victims Nurses spend Thanksgiving helping those who lost all