Our healthy 74-year-old father affectionately known as Papa J suffered a cardiac arrest while playing pickleball. He received CPR for 30+ minutes out of the hospital requiring defibrillation multiple times. His prognosis was dire from the moment he arrived at Poudre Valley hospital with a pneumothorax undiagnosed pontine bleed and prolonged resuscitation. We did not know in that darkest of times that we would be so fortunate to have Benny Sheafor as his primary nurse in the ICU.

Benny typifies every good quality that a critical care nurse should have. He is unflinchingly alert thoughtfully thorough, tirelessly evaluative, and calmly effective within the most stressful physical and emotional collapses of patients and families. As a Doctor and surgeon for 26 years, I have not seen a critical care nurse function at a higher level when faced with a multisystem compromise. But what made Benny truly special was his desire to really know our comatose father and open himself up to our mom and 7 inquisitive desperate hurting hopeful adult children their spouses the grandchildren.

Over 20 days every hour we spent with Benny made him feel more like family. He was able to explain complex critical care in understandable compassionate terms. He advocated for us with each specialist we met asking questions for the family to provide context and cohesion. He got to know each of us genuinely attending to our individual struggles. Most importantly he recognized that providing care to the critically ill is more than drips lines rounding shifts electrolytes consults and skin management. He knew that what we needed as a family was for our father to be known and understood and within all the excellent medical management he provided he was terrific at getting to know Papa J through us. When Benny would say " I feel this is what Papa J would want" we agreed with him because he knew Papa J. Amazing to have that insight into a patient whom he never heard a word from. Many in medicine cautiously place an emotional wall between themselves and the families of the critically ill. Benny smashed that wall down and rejoiced with us for small victories, grieved with us in our loss, and wept with us in acceptance.

When faced with the impossible decision of prolonging care by going to surgery for fulminant sepsis or withdrawing care after asking each of the children their thoughts, our mom turned to Benny to ask what he thought. He is part of the family. We are forever grateful to Benny for his gentle, compassionate care for our Dad and us. If the aim of the DAISY Award is to recognize those who embody the highest ideals in Nursing and provide examples worth emulating I feel Benny Sheafor is very deserving. I hope his example will inspire others to allow themselves to feel and heal.