'It's a different life': Sioux Falls native takes nursing career on road to fight COVID-19

Erin Woodiel
Sioux Falls Argus Leader

Sioux Falls native Amy Hindbjorgen heard the song “Sweet Caroline” play yet again through the halls of her new job placement, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

She hadn’t heard that melody in over a week, and it meant another COVID-19 patient was going home. 

Hindbjorgen, a traveling nurse, said she clings to those moments of victory that emerge from intensive care units during the coronavirus pandemic. As a critical care nurse traveling to hospitals in dire need of help, the patients she cares for rarely recover. 

“It’s ugly,” said the 34-year-old Lincoln High School graduate. “COVID is an ugly virus and it’s a terrible way to die. People who don’t take it seriously have not seen it through the eyes of an ICU nurse.”

Sioux Falls native Amy Hindbjorgen wears full personal protective equipment while working as a traveling critical care nurse at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

Hindbjorgen graduated from Lincoln in 2004 and earned a bachelor's degree in science from the University of Sioux Falls four years later. After graduating from nursing school at North Hennepin Community College in Brooklyn Park, Minn., in 2015, she became a trauma ICU nurse at North Memorial Health Hospital outside Minneapolis.

It wasn’t until four years later, in November 2019, that Hindbjorgen started her journey as a traveling nurse. She broke off an engagement and her beloved pet Siberian husky died within the same year, and she wanted to get away from it all. There was no way to predict that her shift in career would coincide with a global health crisis.

“Now, with the pandemic, I’m struggling in a new way,” said Hindbjorgen. “It’s a different life I suppose.”

She started work in the 32-bed ICU at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle at the end of March, around the same time the city was considered a potential hot spot for the coronavirus.

After six weeks, cases in Seattle were managed well enough that they no longer needed her help, so Hindbjorgen made the cross-country trip to the 40-bed Boston hospital ICU in mid-May. Instead of one patient for each nurse, a nursing shortage in Boston means she now handles three cases during every 12-hour shift. 

“The sense of being in the hospital in general right now with the pandemic is devastating, because you're alone,” said Hindbjorgen. “We do our best to make the patient feel like a person and be supportive as possible, even though we're basically strangers.” 

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Shaped by suffering

Critical care nurses provide essential and lifesaving medical help to those in their care. Equally important, according to Hindbjorgen, they also provide emotional support and companionship.

Due to the contagious nature of the coronavirus, families are not allowed to visit patients until they are at death’s door. For the majority, and sometimes entirety, of a patient’s hospital stay, Hindbjorgen and her colleagues are the only people at their side.

“It takes a lot to care for the patient, but it’s important to remember these are people,” she said. “When you’re fighting for your life, it’s uncomfortable, it’s miserable.”

Hindbjorgen hangs photos sent by family to brighten the room. She often holds phones or tablets for video calls. She reads text messages out loud to comatose patients, though she said she can only make it through the first few messages before her voice catches in her throat. She knows how it feels to hold someone’s hand as they die.

Photos:Coronavirus impact in Sioux Falls

The streets of Seattle look unusually empty as Amy Hindbjorgen takes a walk during her time off-duty from working as a critical care nurse in Seattle.

"You get attached to them, or they stand out after you spend so much time with them and talking with their families," she said. "They give us stories that shape who we become, what kind of nurse we are."

Hindbjorgen said it's hard to know that all the medical staff can do for their patients is treat the symptoms and provide supportive care until they recover or die. There is currently no treatment for the coronavirus itself. 

"We're supporting their body's systems to stay alive, but there's only so long we can do that," she said. "The answer is that we have no solution. We're doing trial and errors. We don't have enough data to say what the treatment is."

Since the beginning of her time fighting the coronavirus, she has only cared for two patients that have left the ICU.

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Change in protocols

Traveling nurse Amy Hindbjorgen visits Niagara Falls during a short vacation between hospital assignments in May.

The move from Seattle to Boston came with not only an increase in case volume, but a change in safety protocols and access to personal protective equipment for nurses like Hindbjorgen.  

At her first post, Hindbjorgen said her anxiety about entering into the fight against COVID-19 waned when she saw how effectively her assigned location managed the cases and protected the hospital workers.

Nurses wear a gown, scrubs with the pants rolled up off the floor, double sets of gloves, N95 respirator mask, scrub cap and plastic face shield before entering a patient room. They remove any jewelry or identification badges that require future handling. A second person is ready to help the nurse back out of their protective gear and wipe down both sides of the patient room’s door. 

Now, working in Boston, Hindbjorgen said masks are in short supply. She wears an N95 mask without a face shield for three 12-hour shifts before discarding it. ICU beds for coronavirus patients are still contained, but she said the system is less rigid and it’s up to the nurses to individually be diligent in protecting themselves as they move in and out.

“I try to follow the same rules from Seattle, but I just don’t have the extra help,” she said. “It’s an imperfect system but we’re doing what we can.”

Moment in history

While Hindbjorgen tries her best to lessen the feeling of isolation for her patients, her job comes with its own form of loneliness. She moves to a new city every few months and must keep herself away from others while she’s there.

“When I work in the ICU, I have to treat myself like I have COVID just in case,” she said.

Her life outside the hospital mainly consists of staying in her hotel room and taking walks around city streets. On her days off, Hindbjorgen sometimes walks eight to ten miles per day, because “there’s nothing else to do.”

A bright spot in her solitary travel came four weeks ago when she visited her family back in South Dakota between job placements. Despite not having lived here for many years, her father’s house in Sioux Falls remains her legal permanent address due to her constant traveling. 

“Sioux Falls is my hometown,” said Hindbjorgen. “I love the city, and I love to see how it’s changed every time I go back to visit.”

One change she is nervous about seeing is an influx in coronavirus cases now that the city is loosening restrictions. She said that practicing social distancing and sanitation is only going to be more important now that things are opening up.

"This is a moment in history in our lives," she said. "Someday we'll look back and know that we survived, and hopefully we'll be stronger, better and way more prepared."