Colorado hospital team made up of family save lives together "We raised them to care about people"
Colorado hospital team made up of family "We raised them to care about people"
Colorado hospital team made up of family "We raised them to care about people"
Colorado hospital team made up of family "We raised them to care about people"
One Colorado family is working together to save one life at a time. On any given day, you'll find the halls of HCA HealthONE Sky Ridge pulsing with sound, but the true heartbeat of the hospital is its staff.
"I've been in the ICU for about four years, but I've been at Sky Ridge for about six," said Abby Plotke.
She cares for the sickest of the sick, patients post-cardiac arrest, stroke and trauma, where every heartbeat counts.
CBS
"It's really rewarding when you have a patient who's been here two months and they finally get out of bed and walk again. It's very special," she said.
But Plotke couldn't do this job without support. Her mother, Julia Plotke, is the Emergency Room Trauma Coordinator, whose job starts before the stretcher even hits the ER doors.
"I oversee patients' care from when EMS picks them up, through the emergency room, ICU, rehab, and all the way to discharge, whether that's rehab or home," Julia Plotke said. "If there's an outcome we don't want, I go back through the chart to see if we could've done something differently."
She said she thought it would be hard to leave the bedside, but she knew it takes a family.
"It's not just physicians and nurses or, you know, directors like me, it's every patient who is touched by so many people," said Julia Plotke.
CBS
At HCA HealthONE Sky Ridge, several members of Plotke's family are working to save lives.
"So, there's me, I'm the Director of Trauma Services. My daughter Abby is an ICU nurse, my other daughter is an ICU volunteer, and my daughter Abby's husband is an admissions counselor in the emergency department," Julia Plotke added.
They don't all work on the same floor. They don't always have lunch together. But they're always close.
"I've seen her work my whole life," Abby Plotke said. "She had four kids and still made it look like she could do everything."
"We raised them to care about people, not to chase a paycheck, but to make a difference," Julia Plotke said.
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