THREAD about what it was like to report our story inside of Our Lady of the Lake's coronavirus battle. @DavidGrunfeld was kind enough to send me these photos. I'm so glad to see the story resonating w/ readers bc working on it resonated with me!
https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/coronavirus/article_783e7734-7910-11ea-9210-9bb35c89279a.html

The makings of this story began a few weeks ago, when @GordonRussell1 and @jdicolo suggested we start asking hospitals if we could report a narrative from the inside. @ololhealth greenlighted us. We agreed not to publish any patient information (2)

After we worked out the logistics, we went early Thursday morning because we wanted to watch the staff do rounds at 8 a.m. As we've reported, health care workers, by necessity, are going into coronavirus patient rooms less often. We knew that was an important window (3)

Patients inside of Our Lady of the Lake's coronavirus units are inside of negative pressure rooms, doors closed. We watched nurses as they pulled on gowns, glasses, masks, etc. to go into patient rooms, and watched through the windows from the outside (often alongside a doc) (4)

As we'd watch through a window as staff tended to patients, @JRichNOLA and Bud O'Neal, especially, would explain what was going on. We were as much students as journalists. I learned about "ABCDEF bundles" & oxygen being at 100% on ventilators vs 21% in the air we breathe (5)

Inside of the ICUs, the mood could change within seconds. People would be casually talking to us, an alarm would go off & they'd immediately spring into action. The more intense situations required teamwork: someone inside the patient room & someone helping outside (6)

My goal in constructing the story was to be as faithful & accurate to the scenes I witnessed & ppl I met as possible. A lot of people have asked why we didn't feature respiratory therapists, who are doing such important work! They were so busy that we barely saw any of them (7)

Many other unsung heroes inside of the hospital as well. Lots of nurses and doctors talked about how great their cleaning staffs are, and how they're convinced their nurses' stations/hallways/etc are cleaner than grocery stores because of the hard work from those staffers (8)

Mostly, we are grateful for the chance to have told this story as we experienced it. Thank you to those involved in making it happen. And if you like the story and/or photos, perhaps consider subscribing so that we can keep publishing more work like this https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/coronavirus/article_783e7734-7910-11ea-9210-9bb35c89279a.html