COVID nurse performs “Amazing Grace” at D.C. memorial to honor victims

Registered nurse Lori Marie Key has been engaged on the frontlines because the starting of the COVID-19 pandemic. On Tuesday, she honored the lives misplaced in the course of the pandemic by performing a heartbreaking rendition of “Wonderful Grace” at a memorial in Washington, D.C.

The ceremony, held on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, featured 400 lights to signify the greater than 400,000 People who’ve died from COVID-19. The Presidential Inaugural Committee hosted the ceremony on the eve of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. 

Key first entered the highlight in April when the U.S. was simply beginning to really feel the devastating results of COVID-19. She was assigned to the COVID unit at St. Mary Mercy Livonia in Michigan, and through a shift change sooner or later, she determined to sing the hymn “Wonderful Grace” for her coworkers in an try to uplift their spirits. 

Inside days, a video of the efficiency went viral, as deaths in Michigan surged effectively past 100 people per day. 

Previous to performing the hymn as soon as once more on Tuesday, Key mentioned the expertise of being a COVID nurse is “heartbreaking” — for everybody concerned. 

“It was heartbreaking for the sufferers who had been sick. It was heartbreaking for the households who could not be there with them. And it was heartbreaking for these caring for them,” she mentioned on the memorial. “However after I’m at work, I sing. It offers me power throughout troublesome instances, and I consider it helps heal.”  

Previous to her efficiency, Mr. Biden mentioned, “if there are any angels in heaven, they’re all nurses.” 

“We all know from our household expertise what you do, the braveness and ache you take in for others,” Mr. Biden mentioned. “Thanks.” 

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris mentioned that the video of Key from April “impressed our nation.” 

“For a lot of months we have now grieved by ourselves. Tonight, we grieve and start therapeutic collectively,” Harris mentioned. “Although we could also be bodily separated, we the American folks, are united in spirit, and my abiding hope, my abiding prayer, is that we emerge from this ordeal with a brand new knowledge. To cherish the straightforward moments, to think about the brand new prospects and to open our hearts just a bit bit extra to at least one one other.”

Greater than 24 million folks within the U.S. have examined optimistic for COVID-19, in accordance with Johns Hopkins University. Wayne County, the place Key’s hospital relies, has seen greater than 93,000 instances.