Healthcare workers have few spaces of sanctuary, between risk at work and anxiety at home that our loved ones could catch the disease from us.
Healthcare workers have few spaces of sanctuary, between risk at work and anxiety at home that our loved ones could catch the disease from us.
When Nowhere Feels Safe, Finding Sanctuary on the Drive Home
Photographs and Text by Alex PotterJune 10, 2020
The coronavirus pandemic has exposed many things: inequalities in health care, lack of preparedness, and the value of essential workers. It has also forced many health care workers to spend time in solitude and isolation, while never feeling entirely secure. Our homes, once a refuge, are now potential incubators that put our families at risk.
Having worked in multiple emergency departments, including in Iraq during an active conflict, I am used to nursing under stressful situations. Yet nursing during the coronavirus has brought a different type of stress - dread from an invisible enemy that, as yet, has no vaccine.
My colleagues and I have few spaces of sanctuary, between risk at work and anxiety at home that our loved ones could be exposed.
But there is one sanctuary, a place that is just ours: Our cars. In our cars, we can breathe, sigh, cry, listen to music, pray, or just decompress, if only during our drives home.
I photographed my colleagues, all emergency room nurses at Rhode Island Hospital, after our 12-hour shifts. While sitting inside their cars, I asked them how they are coping during this difficult time.
“I'm afraid to bring it home to my family. I often drive around downtown at 3:30 a.m. after a shift to just think and be. At night the city looks no different during Covid than it did pre-Covid. Empty streets, street lights. It's peaceful.”
Missy Arruda
“In the ER, we're used to having a crowded waiting room. Family members along with patients. All that came to a stop pretty fast. People became scared quickly and just stayed home. Possibly taking home what could potentially kill someone is a frightening burden to carry.”
Maggie Brant
“I feel like I have a different face for each angle of my life. One for caring for my patients, and another for caring for my family. Each present themselves with insecurities and the hope that I am getting it right.”
Melissa Aldrich
“The fact that I cannot hug my family after a long shift has got to be the worst part. Afraid that I may pass something to them, I refrain ... because I worry, and couldn’t possibly live with myself if I harmed them in any way.”
Veronica Medieros
“Being at work makes me feel normal. It’s when I’m not at work that I have a constant worry that what I do for a living could be putting my family at risk.”
Kellie Laneres
“I want to be around the few people who care about me, and I can't. I feel selfish for wanting to. I don't see them because I won't put them in danger.”
Derick Waters
“We didn’t really know what to expect. The rules and information changed everyday. I worry about what I could be bringing home to my family. We take precautions, but they’re not infallible. The fear is always there.”
Jessica Willis
“I haven’t seen my family in months, and worry that if I do go around them, I will get them sick. The only people I have spent time with outside of work are my co-workers, who are the only people who understand the stress that we deal with at work. That has become our new normal.”
Lauren Beardsley
“I have never in my life wanted to hug my mother, father, sister, and brother so bad. I'm praying for the day that we no longer have to live six feet apart.”
Melissa D’Antouno
Alex Potter is an emergency nurse and photographer currently based in Rhode Island
Produced by Crista Chapman