Mercy Health Muskegon employees got a Thanksgiving surprise today, as President-Elect Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, surprised the nurses and thanked them for all their hard work during this pandemic.
Biden heard about the surge of COVID-19 in Muskegon and contacted the frontline workers to reach out.
Amy Moore, a Mercy Health Muskegon employee, can be seen in the video above holding up the phone for her coworkers to see the Bidens via FaceTime.
"You guys are incredible, you really truly are," Joe Biden said over the phone call. "I can't thank you guys enough... I think you underestimate how critical you are to the mental health of people."
Sarah Hyatt, a registered nurse who was in the room for the call, said that the President-Elect and his wife inspired her to keep pushing through these stressful times.
"It is definitely the pickup that all of us needed, for sure," Hyatt said. "I think we felt re-energized...we really felt that he truly cares about the frontline staff, and how we're doing, he really cared about what we need to take care of our community. That in itself, I think, was the biggest impact that we all felt. Some of the nurses were pretty emotional just from hearing from him, he and his wife both, they just cared so much."
In the conversation with the nurses, President-Elect Biden said 'Doctors may have saved the life, but it was nurses that made him want to live', which is a quote that hit home for Hyatt.
"That's our goal every single day, we want to touch the community, and we're the only ones that are there for them right now with no visitation," Hyatt said. "Our ultimate goal is to make them feel at ease and make them feel that they're safe and cared fo,r and after he said that, I just felt like we had another pick-me-up."
The video of the full conversation is available to watch at the top of this article, courtesy of Missy Morse, another employee with Mercy Health Michigan.
