Samaritan’s Purse airlifted a 68-bed emergency field hospital to Milan, Italy, on Tuesday, in order to provide care for those sickened by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The cargo plane carried approximately 20 tons of medical equipment, a specialized respiratory care unit developed specifically in response to COVID-19, and 32 disaster response specialists, including respiratory therapists, doctors, and nurses.
Kelly Sites is a disaster assistance response nurse with years of experience dealing with crisis. She said the work can be chaotic.
“A lot of things change rapidly, conditions change rapidly. We know to expect that, so we’re all prepared with everything that we need on the flight. We’ll hit the ground running,” Sites said.