Minnesota ER nurse shares experience with Red Cross at LA shelter for fire victims
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Folks from around the country are flocking to California to help with relief efforts, as thousands of people are — and continue to be — displaced by devastating, deadly wildfires.
Among the 400-plus Red Cross volunteers and employees offering emotional support, food, recovery planning, shelter and financial assistance to people and pets in the Los Angeles area is an ER nurse from Victoria: 25-year-old Ryan Bohara.
He has deployed five times previously with the Red Cross, but never to a wildfire. Bohara joined MPR News host Cathy Wurzer Wednesday morning, stepping out in the midst of an overnight 12-hour shift at a shelter in a civic center in Pasadena.
What are you seeing at the Pasadena shelter?
We have about, I think, over 500 people sheltered with us right now. Currently, it’s a rough estimate. As people come and go, as you know, the evacuation orders get lifted, some people can go back to their homes, but basically, what I'm seeing is some people are coming from just the evacuation areas, but other people have completely lost everything. So they come to us to be sheltered and get support and resources they need to, you know, get past those immediate blocks and boundaries for them to get recovery.
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What immediate needs do people have? What kind of questions are you hearing from evacuees?
So a lot of the time it's asking about, ‘when can we go back home?’ But what we like to focus on at the Red Cross is making sure we're [meeting] their basic human needs and rights. And that's, you know, making sure they have food, they have clothing, they have clean water to drink, you know, a roof over their heads, and compassion and support for what they're going through.
So we usually provide mental health resources, spiritual care resources, and we also bring in the community and work with the city of Pasadena as well to provide these resources … and other people that provide donations. But really, meeting those basic needs first, so they can focus on themselves and kind of get their feet up underneath them and be ready for when they can go back home.
How are your skills as an ER nurse translating to time with the Red Cross?
Yeah, it really comes down to the mental health side of things. A lot of times we're replacing these medications, and they're old — you know, anything that was destroyed, like walkers and stuff. But a lot of what I do is really compassionate care and really sitting with them and listening to their story of what they've gone through.
Is the devastation as bad as it appears on TV?
I would agree so. You know, talking to some of these clients, one lady, she had her family home destroyed within seconds from this fire. She said she's lived there since, you know, she was seven years old, and now she's 65 living with her best friend in that house. That house no longer stands.
So it's really hard for these people… I haven't seen the fires myself because it's not safe to go over there. These people were running from flames, and some of them, their stories were just so horrific. So yeah, it is as bad as they say, even though it's kind of hard to see on the TV, what I'm hearing is it's traumatic, and it's so heartbreaking.
Why do you keep doing this very difficult work?
I don't know. There's just a passion for disaster work. And I think that, you know, coming from a nursing background, it's really a science and an art to it — the science [is] the medical side, but the art being, you know, the working on building human connection and weaving it through what I do as a nurse and building community.
And I find that doing disaster work with the Red Cross that is all of what I do, is building this, weaving connection with people so they can stand up together and come together as a community. And that's something I don't necessarily get in that ER, where I work, it's very medical-based, and you only have maybe 30 [minutes] to an hour before the next patient comes in, you're not really building those connections like you do in this… line of work.
The Red Cross said more than 750 evacuees spent Tuesday night in their shelters, which are open to all. Twenty Red Cross disaster responders from Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota have been deployed to California to help.
The organization is providing financial assistance to families affected by the recent wildfires. Donations can be made at redcross.org. They’re also facing blood shortages due to the winter weather and disasters and ask that people donate blood at a local drive. Check out a list of local blood drives through Jan. 31 here.
