Photo By Cpl. Genesis Miranda | U.S. Army Col. Un Yong Rainey receives a coin from Lt. Gen. Randy A. George,...... read more read more
Subscribe
SEATTLE - With the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, healthcare professionals are working diligently to ensure their fellow Americans stay healthy and safe. Many who recently left the profession have rejoined the ranks in the battle against COVID-19. One such healthcare worker is Col. Un Yong Rainey, a recently retired Army nurse.
“I saw pictures on the news of doctors and nurses with bruising on their faces caused by the masks from hours-long care of COVID patients on a daily basis,” Rainey said. “It really gnawed at me, and as a nurse and member of the U.S. Army, I really needed to be with my unit.”
This was her experience of her first few days of retirement. When she heard that her unit was being deployed to support local hospitals, she immediately volunteered to come back to work.
As chief nurse of the 47th Combat Support Hospital at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, Rainey came back to work to support the Task Force 62 Field Hospital at the Seattle Event Center.
During her 25 years of service as an Army nurse, Rainey deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Rainey once again answered the call to serve by delaying her retirement for one year. This will be her last deployment as a U.S. Army Soldier.
It’s a different type of deployment than she is accustomed to, Rainey said, but she is happy to help in any way she can.
“It’s pretty amazing to think that we took an empty convention center, and we actually built a 250-bed facility,” Rainey said. “It’s just really been absolutely amazing and awesome to look at what we can do to help support the citizens of the Pacific Northwest.”
The mobile hospital site was designated to take in non-COVID-19 patients in an effort to alleviate any potential strain on the surrounding healthcare network.
Rainey said that a rewarding aspect of this mission is how Soldiers are able to relieve some of the burden carried by civilian medical professionals during this pandemic.
According to Staff Sgt. Aaron Blasingame, a Soldier with the 47th Combat Support Hospital, Rainey is not the type of leader who sits back and watches her unit do the work.
“She's a great leader,” Blasingame said. “[She’s] always wondering how things are going within the platoon, specific to the junior Soldiers, trying to figure out what she can do to help.”
A large part of Rainey’s job as a chief nurse is synchronizing all the moving parts and sections for an entire hospital to have the capability to be picked up and moved at any moment.
“It took everybody,” Rainey said. “What you don't see is the people emptying out the connexes, establishing the connexes, supplying all these beds, hooking up the power, hooking up the equipment, making sure that it is working.”
For her work at the mobile hospital, and for volunteering her service to the community once more before retiring, Rainey received a challenge coin from Lt. Gen. Randy A. George, the commanding general of America’s First Corps, and an elbow bump rather than the usual handshake due to social distancing.
“This country has given me so much,” Rainey said. “The Army has given me so much. My state has given me so much. So, this is just a little bit that I can do to give back.”
With the Seattle mission ending, Rainey plans to continue her work in the mobile hospital, wherever the next site may be, to help other communities in need of medical support.
| Date Taken: | 04.10.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 04.15.2020 21:25 |
| Story ID: | 367145 |
| Location: | SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 933 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, From retirement to deployment, Col. Rainey’s service during the COVID-19 pandemic, by SGT Laurie Ellen Wash, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
LEAVE A COMMENT