A Florida nurse working to combat “a cesspool of funky flu” in the emergency room has gained widespread attention from a viral video on social media urging people to take precautions to avoid influenza.
Following a 12-hour night shift late last week in an emergency room in Northwest Florida, nurse Katherine Lockler offered some advice.
“Here are some ideas how to treat the flu at home — wash your stinking hands,” she said in the video, which has since been viewed more than 5 million times.
Lockler said she has been most concerned with what she has seen in the hospital.
“The biggest problem for me was seeing people come in to visit [the ER] and not only being exposed to this awful flu virus, but not taking the correct precautions to get themselves disinfected before going out in the world,” Lockler told the Pensacola News Journal.
She could not be immediately reached for comment by The Washington Post.
Lockler posted the animated — and somewhat saucy — video on Saturday, explaining to people how the flu is contracted and how to help keep it from spreading.
“If you’re not aware of how the flu is spread, the only way you can get it is through your eyes, your nose or your mouth,” said Lockler, from Milton, Florida.
She then demonstrated how to minimise the transmission of germs while sneezing, quipping, “Watch this — I’m going to teach you all a magic trick. It’s amazing.” She filmed herself fake sneezing into the inside of her elbow — a move that’s commonly recommended by health professionals and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
For those who missed it, Lockler did it again in “slow motion.”
Lockler also warned healthy people to avoid emergency rooms.
“It is a cesspool of flu — a cesspool of funky flu at the ER right now,” she said in the video, explaining how — hypothetically — players on a softball team should not come to the hospital to visit a sick or injured teammate. “Because guess what? You just got maybe 15 new vectors, or carriers of the flu, by them all walking in.”
“Please don’t bring your team in. Please don’t bring your healthy children — especially your newborn babies — into the emergency room,” she said. “If you don’t have what I call a true emergency, this would not be the time to come to the emergency room.”
Lockler told Pensacola News Journal in a phone interview Wednesday that she has personally witnessed some of the carelessness.
“I saw a dad with a toddler crawling on the floor in the emergency room and I approached him and I said, ‘Hey dad, I do not feel that that’s a wise decision, your child is being exposed to some really nasty germs on this emergency room floor,’” she told the newspaper. “And instead of the dad receiving what a nurse of 10 years is sharing with him, he said, ‘Eh, it’s no big deal, it’ll build his immune system.’ So there’s a lack of understanding and a lack of interest in knowing what to do to protect themselves sometimes.”
As for the tone of the video, Lockler said that it may have sounded parental, but her intention was to educate — not to insult anyone.
“I think there’s a little bit of sarcasm in my voice because the instructions were given so many times and they were not received well,” she told the News Journal. “I tend to be sarcastic in all my speaking, but if it’s taken wrong I would definitely apologise to that group that misheard my message because of my tone. The message is still right on the money, but if the tone was offensive, that was not the intention.”
A harsh flu season is in full swing across the United States, with a sharp increase in the number of older people and children being hospitalised, according to the CDC. The Post’s Lena Sun has reported that since the start of flu season in October, nearly 12,000 people have been hospitalised — the highest number of those were adults older than 50 and children younger than 4, according to the most recent data from the CDC.
The CDC reported that since the beginning of the year, seven children have died of influenza and related complications. In total, the agency said, 37 children have died during the current flu season.
Following Lockler’s video, a online petition is urging support for “ER Nurses and staff and the spreading of education during this horrible flu season.”
The petition, which had garnered nearly 2,700 signatures by Friday morning, stated that the nurse “posted an AMAZING video to Facebook regarding the flu and how it is spread along with great tips on home treatment. For her time and effort, she is being reported to the Board of Registered Nursing and her hospital.” The Florida Board of Nursing was not immediately able to verify that claim.
In her video, Lockler explained that during this year’s flu season, many ER nurses are working 12-hour shifts with about “5 seconds to eat.”
“Please thank an ER nurse — and every nurse and doctor that’s taking care of sick people right now,” Lockler added. “We’re putting ourselves into the thick of some nasty germs to help.”
