On NYC's front lines, health workers worry they will be next

NEW YORK (AP) — A nurse died from coronavirus after working nonstop for weeks at a hospital where staffers frustrated with dwindling supplies posed in gowns made of trash bags. An emergency room doctor fears he had the virus long before getting too sick to work. Another nurse worries the lone mask she’s issued each day won’t be enough to protect her from an unending tide of hacking, feverish patients.

At New York City-area hospitals on the front lines of the biggest coronavirus outbreak in the nation, workers are increasingly concerned about the ravages of the illness in their own ranks, and that the lack of testing and protective gear is making it not a matter of if they get it, but when.

"Our emergency room was like a petri dish,” said Benny Mathew, a nurse at Montefiore Medical Center who got word Thursday that he had COVID-19 and is now worried he may infect his wife and two daughters.

“I'm angry. We could have secured enough personal protective equipment months ago. It was happening in China since December,” he said. "But we thought it was never going to happen here.”

Some hospitals are now so overrun with dying patients that they’ve brought in refrigerated trucks to handle the bodies. At Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, 13 people succumbed to the virus in one day. City ambulances have seen a surge in calls, responding to nearly 5,800 on Thursday alone.

Several doctors, nurses and paramedics told The Associated Press of deteriorating working conditions in emergency rooms and ICUs that make caretakers even more vulnerable. Sick patients are placed in beds packed end-to-end. Limited supplies of face masks, gowns and shields have them wearing the same protective equipment all day. A lack of available ventilators could soon put doctors and nurses in the agonizing position of prioritizing who gets them...