When the historic winter storm hit the Bronx area, Chantelle Diabate, a nurse at the Hebrew Home in Riverdale, knew that she had to get to work and help her patients despite the bad weather.
So, Diabate started trudging through the snow on the long walk to work, reports the Daily News.
“I walked for about an hour and all I kept thinking was, I really love my patients,” Diabate said.
Diabate said that she could hardly believe it when she saw that the storm was picking up speed and that public transportation had been closed down.
“A friend walked with me and fell. At first I started out kind of like speed walking on ice. But then I realized this is like a workout and it’s dangerous,” she said. “Then I thought, you know what? A slow and steady pace is going to get me there, eventually.”
When she arrived, the Hebrew Home staff were overjoyed to see her.
“She was the only nurse that came in,” Hebrew Home supervisor Mojdeh Rutigliano told the Daily News.
Although a few members of the staff had stayed overnight to help out, more than 50 nurses had gone home on Friday and could not make it back.
“The majority of our nurses called in sick. They just couldn’t come,” Rutigliano said. “Talk about crisis mode. But it was such a relief to see her come in.”
But for Diabate, the idea of not coming was not even an option.
“I really have to love what I do to make such a commitment,” she said. “This is what it means to be a nurse.”