79-year-old U.S. nurse who delayed retirement, retires after corona

A wave is rising in commemoration of the death of an old nurse in the United States, where the spread of the novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19) continues. Even at the age of looking at the eight-soon, he delayed his retirement while guarding the emergency room who fell in love with Abi Gyu-hwan, but eventually became infected with Corona 19 and died.

The protagonist is Batty Greer Gallagher (78), who worked in the emergency room at the Medical Center in Kusa Valley, Alabama. He closed his eyes on the 10th at the hospital where he worked. It was the day before my 79th birthday.

The Kusa Valley Medical Center in Alabama, USA, commemorated the death of nurse Gallagher through its official Facebook page. [페이스북 캡처]

According to CNN on the 19th (local time), Gallagher has worked as an emergency room nurse for 43 years. In the emergency room, he was called’mother’. Even in the elderly, she takes care of not only patients but also her nurse colleagues. It is said that he always bought hamburgers on his way to work for his colleagues who couldn’t get enough meals in an urgent emergency.

For Gallagher, this hospital is also special. She met her husband here, and raised her two sons to be nurses with her. Husband Chuck Teller said, “Gallagher loved work, and the hospital was like home.”

I had one chance to retire 16 years ago. 62 years old at the time. Most of his colleagues chose to retire, but he never stopped working. Rather, in August of that year, he left in search of a disaster site in the southern United States that had been devastated by the massive Hurricane Katrina.

Then, after breaking everyone’s expectations, he returned to the Kusa Valley Hospital again. At the time, he said, “I miss my daily life in the emergency room,” and promised “I will work in this hospital’s emergency room until the end of my life.”

A TikTok video created by medical staff at the Kusa Valley Medical Center in Alabama, mourning Betty Greer Gallagher, a nurse who died while caring for a Corona 19 patient. [틱톡 캡처]

Then, in March of last year, another crisis came. As Corona 19 spread, colleagues worried about the elderly Gallagher and recommended retirement. I stayed at home for two days at the request of my colleagues. However, on the third day, he returned to the emergency room with a hamburger in his hand. He said to his surprised colleagues at the time, “I am an emergency room nurse,” and “I can’t stop taking care of patients until I die.”

For the past 10 months, Gallagher has been at the forefront of the corona with nurses in her 20s. I worked two shifts for 12 hours each, and I never skipped night work. Gallagher’s peculiar pleasant personality became a vitality in the exhausted emergency room.

However, taking care of the patient and his colleagues, he could not take care of himself. A month ago, I started to breathe wildly. At first, I thought it was simply because of the accumulated fatigue. However, the result of the Corona 19 test was positive.

Betty Greer Gallagher (left), a nurse who was admitted to the hospital intensive care unit where she worked for Corona 19. [틱톡 캡처]

The doctor advised me to seek treatment at a dedicated hospital, but Gallagher declined. It was because he wanted to stay with his colleagues at the hospital where he was working. Then he closed his eyes in the hospital intensive care unit as two sons and dozens of colleagues watched.

Gallagher’s story was belatedly known as his colleagues uploaded a video of his life on the video-sharing app TikTok. In the video that has been viewed more than 300,000 times, a memorial message continues. Colleague Nikki Joe Hatten said, “Gallagher always wanted to help others,” he said. “I want everyone to live the life they want until the end of their lives, as he did.”

Reporter Lee Min-jung [email protected]