Cassie was on campus to complete her BLS course and heard through the grapevine that our unit was very busy. After completing BLS she came up and proceeded to help the day shift by discharging patients, triaging women who checked in with pregnancy complaints, assisted the day shift with 24-hour lab work, and testing on infants. Day shift alone had 10 outpatients on top of 5 women being in active labor and 2 of those women delivering their baby shortly after 1800. Cassie then proceeded to stay into the night shift to complete a late discharge to help us out since we had two babies that were less than an hour old along with a full floor assignment and three women in active labor.

We then ran into an emergency c-section on a patient who had reported vaginal bleeding and was experiencing placental abruption. Cassie took care of that woman and her infant after delivery while we proceeded to take another woman for an emergency c-section for fetal distress, and then another woman had to be taken to the main OR for her c-section because our OB OR was occupied. During that time, Cassie took the initiative to answer call bells, open the door for housekeeping and the lab, answered the phone, straight cath a patient who was unable to void after her delivery. While the patient's primary nurse was in the OR with another patient she took the time to warm and feed a very small baby that was struggling to maintain his temperature along with the large number of tedious tasks that occur with each delivery.

Not once did she complain about working that long on a day she was scheduled to be at home with her family. She kept saying, "If she was working and it was like this I would appreciate the help." Even after thanking her profusely for all of her help, she continued to ask us if there was anything else she could do for us before she went home at 0100 in the morning. Cassie's dedication to her coworkers and all the patients on the unit during the last 24 hours is invaluable. None of us would have survived without her.