Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
By Tom Archdeacon
They’ve all seen people in stores and clubs, standing outside restaurants and attending basketball games, meetings and church while refusing to wear masks. They’ve seen people letting their guard down and gathering in large groups.
They’ve even heard people denying the severity of COVID-19. And then there are those so irresponsible or obtuse or politically warped that they claim there is no coronavirus at all.
Dr. Brian Cothern and registered nurses Taylor Schweickart and Mylan Woods are all former Wright State athletes who now are working in the medical field.
They are putting their own lives on the line as they deal with the pandemic that has laid siege to the nation and they’ve seen, as Cothern put it, “the devastation” COVID can cause and how it can “really ruin families.”
And yet, when I suggested it would be good lesson for those selfish and clueless naysayers to spend a day with her at Miami Valley Hospital in order to see COVID-19 up close, Woods – a two-time Ohio Division II Basketball Player of the Year before playing at Northwestern and then for the Raiders – promptly disagreed:
“Actually, no I wouldn’t want that. I’d hate for other people to go through this. I’ve been that nurse who has had to FaceTime someone’s family when their loved one is in the hospital, maybe dying, and they can’t see them.
“The nurses up there in the ICU see that and feel that every day. The take it home with them. They’re battling some real serious mental health issues of their own now.”
