Throughout this recent surge, Sheyenne has been an amazing practitioner of compassionate care in our Emergency Department. There are too many events to list, but one that I think captures RN Smith's heart was witnessed by the family member of another patient and described on Facebook in August. I will copy and paste that description below:

Yesterday afternoon until 10:30 last night, I was at Southeast Emergency Room with my niece. It was an expected long wait, but we got called back. We know that wait can be the longest of all, you know, get your hopes up when your name is called, yada, yada, lol. We were put in a large room with a curtain divider and another bed in it. A man was in that bed and we could hear some talking, him answering them, the usual stuff. When asked about family to call, the man said he had no one. We were like aww. All of a sudden, our nurse heard him making noises and peeked over, and then all hell broke loose. Every nurse, the doctor, I'd say a total of 8-10 people went in with a crash cart and started working on him. The next thing we hear is a guy walk in and say that the man has a bleeding abdominal aortic aneurysm and he is a DNR. Two doctors agreed that the surgery to fix him was not survivable, he's bleeding out, and to give comfort measures only and let him pass. You could feel the collective sigh from the staff. A few walked out after a minute but a few stayed and what we heard from them was absolutely the reason these particular people are nurses. The man was apparently alert because they were saying, "It's ok. I am right here. I am not going anywhere, just relax. We are giving you morphine for the pain. I know it hurts. I am right here. Just look at me. Relax." We could not see what was happening but could picture from the words the sad scene of a scared, dying man, with no one he actually knew in the room with him. Only these strangers. These Nurses. One nurse, (I know was Sheyenne Wright Smith) said, "You know that Jesus loves you with all his heart." We are just staring at each other, can only see each other's eyes because of masks, but no words have to be said. We are just praying inside. Then all the nurses pray around him. A man they do not know, he does not know them, but are the last people he will see on this earth as he quietly slipped away. There was sniffling all around. And, the silence, I could not get over the silence of an emergency room! That was a day, and a man whose name I will remember forever. Thank you Southeast Health ER for humbling us.

There were several RNs involved in this particular event, but I feel that the way in which Sheyenne stepped forward to provide the dignity and comfort of a loving presence to a dying person without family speaks to the kind of nurse and person that Sheyenne is all of the time. Just a great, great RN and a gift to the patients and caregivers of Southeast Health.