Ohio National Guard members aid COVID-19 battle

On Feb 2, 2022

With COVID-19 surging through Cincinnati earlier this month, hospitals stressed to the max, and health workers facing a ‘PTSD-like situation’ with the emergence of another contagious wave of the disease, Brian Wolterman received a call.

He had just returned to the Ohio National Guard after a 20-year hiatus a few months prior. On the other line was his new supervisor with the guard. His assistance was needed.

Inside Cincinnati’s hospitals: COVID-19 creates ‘PTSD-like situation’

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“At first I told them I kind of wanted to think about it because I wanted to talk to my wife, she had a pretty big say in it,” the 48-year-old Harrison, Ohio native said. “But I spoke to her and she said ‘Brian, you should do this.’ And I called my supervisor back and said ‘Sir, I’d like to volunteer.'”

Seeing the mission as a call-of-duty to help his community amid the spread of the omicron variant, Wolterman, a staff sergeant with the air national guard, joined the mission of nearly 200 other guard members to assist with hospitals and testing sites in the Cincinnati region.

Highly contagious and severely spread around the community, the latest variant overflowed the area’s health system once again beginning in late December of last year and into January. Wolterman arrived at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center on Jan. 24. He began assisting stressed health workers with patient and non-patient duties including stocking personal protective equipment to stations, transporting supplies, disinfecting surfaces and aiding nurses or staff members in providing care to patients.

“When I’m doing this stuff that means other people are free to focus on the patient,” Wolterman said. “The hospitals are very busy places right now.”

Gov. Mike DeWine first deployed the guard to assist with the spread of the latest wave of COVID-19 throughout the state on Dec. 17. He has sent out more than 2,300 members statewide to provide help to hospitals and test sites with ancillary tasks that help clear up the system. Members arrived in Cleveland in late December, assisting hospitals during the virus’s rapid spread in Cuyahoga County, but as the virus spread elsewhere across the state, so too did guardsmen.

Members first arrived in the Cincinnati area on Jan. 10 at three test sites to try to meet the skyrocketing demand for testing. Fifty guard members are currently assisting with testing while 50 others are working at the Christ Hospital Health System and 90 more are assisting UCMC.

‘Taxing at any individual level’

When many members, like Sgt. 1st Class Tim Birmingham, arrived at hospitals in the region, they were met with a system at its brink, in dire need of some relief.

“We see the standard ratio of medical personnel where they would have two or four patients under normal conditions,” said Birmingham, who leads a team of guard members at the Christ Hospital. “And the timing of the influx with everyone coming in sometimes exceeds those numbers. So that’s really the importance of having the additional soldiers and airmen on board.”

Birmingham leads a team that has its footprint everywhere in the hospital, from supply movement to sanitary duties to dealing with COVID patients themselves. He’s observed a hospital operating with an all-hands-on-deck approach but feels assistance from guard members is alleviating some of the stress.

“When it’s coming at you at such a rapid pace, it’s certainly frustrating and taxing at any individual level,” Birmingham said. “From the military side when we’re doing what we’re doing, right down to the civilians and the trauma clinics when they have one patient after another, after another. Of course it’s going to be taxing to them. But that’s what they do all their training for, to be able to exceed expectations and provide the appropriate level of health care.”

“What I am observing is that a lot of them are really stepping up to the task,” he added of both guard members and health workers.

The task is daunting, but the assistance is working, Birmingham said. And the numbers suggest the region is improving with COVID-19 as well. As of Monday, hospitalizations – which had lingered above 1,000 for most of January – dropped to 773. The positivity rate, which was previously above 30% has fallen to 23.1% and the percentage of occupied adult ICU beds in the region’s 40 hospitals was at 98%.

Calling the assistance from the guard an “additional layer of support” for the hospital, Deborah Hayes, president and chief executive officer of the Christ Hospital Health Network, said the guard has been crucial in maintaining normal hospital operations over the past few weeks in a video announcing they had arrived in the region.

“We’ve been very grateful to have the Ohio National Guard here at Christ Hospital Health Network,” she said. “…They have been extraordinarily helpful in both our clinical areas and in all of our support areas.”

“The national guard is a wave of fresh eyes and fresh energy,” she added.

Call to action

On any given day, Sgt. 1st Class McKinzie Baker sees anywhere from a few hundred to over a thousand individuals waiting in line to become tested at Crossroads Church in Mason.

“It’s always nice to be called up for humanitarian efforts,” the 43-year-old Cincinnati native said. “Often times we are pulled into situations where we don’t get to help our fellow citizens, so it’s nice to help the community that’s local to us.”

Baker has been assisting the site hosted by Newport, Kentucky-based Ethos Laboratories with day-to-day tasks such as prepping materials and swabbing patients. The deployment of the guard has not only helped hospitals staffs maintain patient care. But it has assisted test sites with enough manpower to distribute tests in a timely fashion.

In early January, testing became harder and harder to come by and individuals in the region often waited a few hours to get one. The guard’s deployment has drive-thru sites expand into more lanes and with increased staff, speed up the process of distributing tests.

“The patients that come through are happy we’re there because some of them have told us they’ve tried to get tests before and it was really difficult,” Baker said. “It’s good to know they can come in and not have to wait for an hour-plus to get tested.”

Lt. Corey Daria, a 30-year-old Cincinnati-native deployed to the drive-thru testing site near Riverbend Music Center, has witnessed a similar situation but said trends can be a rollercoaster.

“It’s really just been sporadic out here,” Daria said.

‘This is the exact reason why I signed up’

While they see it as their mission to respond to emergency situations and alleviate health workers battling capacity issues, many guard members are motivated by one other factor. It hits home.

Responding to areas where they grew up after seeing people they know die from the virus that has killed close to 90,000 Americans is a call to action they weren’t going to turn down. And many are in the front lines battling to eradicate it.

“I think it’s really priceless,” Birmingham said. “It’s an honor and a privilege to be able to come here where we’re making a direct impact to our neighbors, our Ohioans that we support.”

Health workers and the community, in general, have met their response with praise, Birmingham said.

“I’m really seeing a lot of smiles a lot of hugs of gratitude that we’re there to help,” he said. “I really think that’s vital to be able to come together like that.”

Wolterman, who began assisting a hospital in northern Ohio before making his way to assist near his hometown, said he’s been in many situations that are all-hands-on-deck over the years but has never seen anything like what hospitals are going through currently.

“I find it very inspirational,” he said of their efforts.

Daria was briefed on the situation unfolding in Cincinnati and didn’t hesitate to leap into duty. He wanted to protect his people.