Mary Anne was John’s obsession, and one day he raped her and got her pregnant. Mary Anne died while giving birth to a daughter, Mary Alice. John was so enraged by Mary Anne’s death that he despised Mary Alice and murdered her when she was ten years old.

The next day, John vanished. When the cops arrived at his house, they discovered him in the bathroom, his eyeballs ripped out and his mirror broken.

Since then, if you go into the bathroom at night, switch off the light, and light a candle, you can recite Bloody Mary three times and she will arrive; the next morning, they will find you in the bath tub, the mirror broken, and your eyes missing.

Scotie Rainwater from Houston Texas

There was once upon a time a small girl named Mary. She became gravely unwell and lapsed into a coma. The doctor was old and feeble, and he assumed she was dead since he didn’t know any better. He told the family, and the girl was laid to rest at a funeral. No one noticed the poor child had been buried alive!

Mary’s family resided close to the cemetery where she was laid to rest. Mary’s mother claimed to have heard a scream emanating from Mary’s tomb the first night, but no one believed her. Mary’s mother persuaded her family to dig up her tomb a few days later. They discovered Mary dead, but there were scratches on the top of the coffin, and Mary’s fingernails were bleeding from her desperate attempts to escape the grave.

Abigail Tucker from Hazel Grove
Rose Pearl from Temecula

There was a grumpy man who always was torturing his wife keeping her tied up and locked away in a damp cold basement. He gave her little food everyday and delighted in her suffering. One day when he was leaving he accidentally dropped his phone out of his pocket.

After much struggle, his wife was able to recover the phone and, with her hands tied behind her back, managed to dial 911. The police came and arrested the man for abusing his wife.

He was released from prison a few years later and found his ex wife with another man. He stalked her, attacked and killed her and fled the area. He went off-grid and lived in an old abandoned building. While he was venturing around the place for the first time, a broken mirror caught his eye. He picked up a piece and cut himself, his blood drizzling among the other shards of glass. The man was careful not to go into town for supplies so he tried to fix the mirror. He gazed into it admiring his repair work when his wife’s face appeared in the reflection. She reached out and took hold of the murderous man, pulling him inside the mirror with her. She cut his body into tiny bits, piece by piece.

This could happen to you if you break a mirror! The only way to avoid it is to count the pieces of broken glass and then wait that many hours. After that, bury the broken mirror in your backyard in the moonlight.

Stephanie from Aliso Viejo, C.A.

The version I know is that Mary was a beautiful girl who would not entertain any of her suitors. One evening, Mary went to take a bath. Two of the men who wanted to court Mary were enraged and together, they plotted against her. As she undressed they came out of their hiding spot and yanked out her hair and sliced her throat.

If you light a candle in front of a mirror those who want to call her say, “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, show your fright, show your fright this starry night.” If you have sinned, she comes out of the mirror and kills you the same way she was killed. If you are good then she gives you her blessing.”

Sel Flores from Keno

A young woman named Mary Scott had a child many years ago. Mary heard her baby girl cry out while she was having a bath. She ran to her baby’s crib only to discover that she had vanished. The child had been kidnapped. In her sadness, Mary killed herself in the bathtub.

Years later, this legend was mocked by a close group of girl friends who did everything together. However, one of the females took it quite seriously. She had been adopted at an early age and was the new kid at school. She was dubbed Lindsay by the group since she refused to reveal her real name. On the anniversary of Mary’s suicide, they decided to arrange a sleepover. Lindsay persuaded them to go to the bathroom and recite “Bloody Mary” three times.

The girls agreed because they didn’t believe the legend was true or that anything horrible would happen. The two youngest daughters were terrified, so they ran away from the house and returned home. The rest of the party followed Lindsay up to the bathroom. The females said “Bloody Mary” three times while turning off all the lights in the bathroom.

One of the girls noticed a pair of red eyes as they were ready to turn on the light. They all yelled, followed by a deafening silence. When Lindsay turned on the lights, she discovered that all of the girls had died. Their eyes had been clawed out, and they were all drenched. Lindsay was the only one who escaped with no injuries.

“Hello, Mommy,” she said, softly. Lindsay walked out the front door and disappeared. She goes from town to town, bringing new victims to her mother, Bloody Mary.

Cara Brokes from Philadelphia, MO

Bloody Mary was an adult and she was pregnant and her husband left her for another women and when she found out she tried to give herself an abortion and bleed to death in her bathroom floor. and now if you say bloody mary 3 times in the bathroom with the lights off she’ll come and scratch your eyes or and kill you

Rylie Ellis Myrtle Creek Oregon

There was once a beautiful woman by the name of Mary Worth. One day, she had a horrible accident. This accident caused her face to look deformed. Her face was so ugly, she wasn’t allowed to see her own reflection. One day, Mary couldn’t take it any more. She went to her bathroom mirror and saw her reflection. Mary was so horrified, that she was willing to do anything to get her old reflection back. She climbed in the mirror and went in search of her old reflection. She was so eager too get her old reflection back, that if you dare distract her from her search, she scratches your face until you look just as deformed as she does.

I was going for a sleep over at my friend Sam’s house. Sam and I were so bored we started to talk about legends. After a while, we talked about Bloody Mary. Sam wanted to see if it was true. We went in the bathroom to check if she would pop up. Sam held the candles while I chanted. After a while, a gust started to blow. Sam was horrified and tried to escape but the door was locked. Then we saw Bloody Mary in the mirror.

Honestly, she may be bloody but she was NOT ugly. I then heard someone whisper, “Now you will know how it feels,” in my ear. Sam heard the whisper and hid in the corner. Sam started to scream. “Sam what’s wrong?!” I said. Then my cheek started to hurt. When I looked in the mirror and noticed that I had scratch marks all over my face.

“Why are you doing this?! ” I said. ” I know you may think your ugly, but you’re not! It doesn’t matter what you’re like on the outside! Its what’s on the inside that counts! If you ask me, you look prettier than ever!” I said, hoping Bloody Mary would understand. Then all the madness stopped. The lights turned on and the scratch marks disappeared. The next day, I was blow drying my hair when letters started appearing in the mirror. I read what was being written on the mirror and the letters spelled out the words “Thank you so much.” – Mary Worth

I smiled. Then she appeared in the mirror and smiled back.

Melissa Delgado from Miami, Florida

Dillon Cooper from Pennsylvania
Nataya Porras from Clinton

The post Bloody Mary appeared first on Urban Legends Online.

Rumors abounded in the isolated industrial town. After local officials failed to respond to public demands for a search, a mob formed to conduct the search themselves. Locals invaded the Graveleigh Mill, armed and enraged, only to discover it had been completely vacated. The family was nowhere to be found. After search groups were unable to locate the culprits, others speculated that the Graveleighs had fled west. Others speculated that they had simply gone into hiding in the Patapsco Valley’s deep woodlands.

The village eventually returned to normal, and the memories of the missing youngsters faded away. Until 1869, when seven children vanished in the span of a week. Locals speculated that a “troubled” soldier from the civil war was to blame. Some of the town’s older residents, on the other hand, had a different theory. The Graveleighs were back. The disappearances of that week turned out to be isolated over time, and the Graveleigh family faded farther into oblivion.

The Graveleigh family had been forgotten when children went missing in late October 1919 and again in 1969, and the village accepted the unresolved disappearances as incidents of group runaways or bad luck.

Signs of the Graveleigh family have begun to appear in the woods 200 years after the first abductions. Hikers have observed the Graveleigh family emblem near trails and mill ruins in Patapsco State Park, and a collection of graves with the mark were discovered in a thicket off of Church Rd.

Authorities have dismissed the incidents as pranks. The most superstitious among us, on the other hand, believe we may be witnessing the reappearance of the family responsible for the disappearances that have afflicted the area every fifty years.

Nick DaMostra from Ellicott City MD

The post Mill Town Abductions appeared first on Urban Legends Online.

If you find yourself chased by an eight-foot-tall woman while visiting Japan, be wary! She was tall and skinny as a strip of paper in real life. She wears a robe that is either white or blue in color. Children have been known to compete with their classmates to summon Hanako-san. When youngsters are alone, she will abruptly approach them and make a repetitive sound with her deep voice over and over. If you look into her eyes, you will very certainly die within three days.

Ashley Yi from USA

The post Hachaishackusama Eight Feet Tall appeared first on Urban Legends Online.

A Message from Zuck

Hi I’m Mark, the Director of Facebook. Hello everyone, it seems that all the warnings are real. Facebook use will cost money. If you send this string to 18 different from your list, your icon will be blue and it will be free for you. If you do not believe me, tomorrow at 6 pm Facebook will be closed and to open it you will have to pay. This is all by law. This message is to inform all our users that our servers have recently been very congested. We are asking for your help to solve this problem. We require that our active users forward this message to each of the people in your contact list in order to confirm our active facebook users. If you do not send this message to all your facebook contacts, then your account will remain inactive with the consequence of losing all your contacts without the transmission of this message. Your SmartPhone will be updated within the next 24 hours, will have a new design and a new color for the chat. Dear Facebook users, we are going to do an update for Facebook from 23:00 p.m. until 05:00 a.m. on this day. If you do not send this to all your contacts, the update will be cancelled. You will not have the possibility to chat with your facebook messages. You will have to pay the rate unless you are a frequent user. If you have at least 10 contacts, send this SMS and the logo will turn red to indicate that you are a user Confirmed … We finish it for free. Tomorrow they start to collect the messages for facebook at 0.37 cents. Forward this message to more than your 9 contacts and it will be free for life for you. Watch and the ball will turn green. Do it and you will see Facebook is now free. Send to 10 people to reactivate your service again without cost.

Ann Skotschir from Akron, Ohio
Jenny Monteiro from Shingle Springs
Linda Perkins from Swansea, Illinois

Stickers on Your Car

Attention Mothers of young children. This story was confirmed by a Police officer to a neighborhood mom in Biloxi. A woman with 2 toddlers around 2 and 3 years old was out front in her yard while the children were playing. She noticed a sticker that was fixed on the back of her car. The sticker was black and had an X on it. She peeled it off. A couple of days later she noticed another black sticker with an x on it. This time it was on her windshield. Puzzled she went ahead an call the police who then came out to investigate. The cops told her she was being targeted because of her kids. The villains are watching her and have placed the X to show that she has children of interest. The police said they haven’t seen it here in a couple of years… Be Aware. Police also told the mother not to let her children more that 3 or 4 feet away from her, especially when shopping… they are watching and waiting to take her children.

The Terrors of 5G

On FaceBook a live video was posted in April of 2019, warning people about the dangers of 5G technology and how our exposure to the radiation waves will kill 200 million people by 2025. Statistical reports show a drastic reduction in population between now and 2025 to support and justify the warnings.

Margaret Sanfoord from Detroit, MI

FB Hackers

Be careful: I got a message from you or it showed up on your wall here. Please tell all the contacts in your messenger list not to accept friendship request from Andrea Wilson. She is a hacker and has the system connected to your Facebook account. If one of your contacts accepts it, you will also be hacked, so make sure that all your friends know it. Thanks. Forwarded as received. Hold your finger down on the message. At the bottom in the middle it will say forward. Hit that then click on the names of those in your list and it will send to them THIS IS REAL.

Sue Madaus from Fresno CA

Facebook Using Your Pictures

Don’t forget tomorrow starts the new Facebook rule where they can use your photos. Don’t forget Deadline today! It can be used in court cases in litigation against you. Everything you’ve ever posted becomes public from today – Even messages that have been deleted or the photos not allowed. It costs nothing for a simple copy and paste, better safe than sorry. Channel 13 News talked about the change in Facebook’s privacy policy. I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, messages or posts, both past and future. With this statement, I give notice to Facebook it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, or take any other action against me based on this profile and/or its contents. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of privacy can be punished by law (UCC 1-308- 1 1 308-103 and the Rome Statute. NOTE: Facebook is now a public entity. All members must post a note like this. If you prefer, you can copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once it will be tacitly allowing the use of your photos, as well as the information contained in the profile status updates. FACEBOOK DOES NOT HAVE MY PERMISSION TO SHARE PHOTOS OR MESSAGES

Steve Stein from Jackson, TX

The post Facebook Warnings appeared first on Urban Legends Online.

Marie has a clairvoyant mind and was able to advance through the ranks as a result of her ability to see into the future. She used a radio, switching the dials back and forth with her remarkable gift until she could hear and see the future in her own thoughts.

She saw Adolf Hitler die one day and all the Nazis become war criminals the next. Marie planned a plot to assassinate Hitler, triggering a chain of events that would bring the war to a close, portraying her as a true war hero.

Marie’s psychic abilities were discovered by one of her associates, who tipped Heinrich Himmler, who then recommended to Marie that she exhibit her abilities in public. As a result of her failure, Himmler labeled her a heretic and a traitor. She was sentenced to die in a river by drowning.

Her assailants bound her arms and legs and threw her from a dock into the water; all evidence of her presence (clothing, pictures, and jewelry) were later destroyed. Before she died, she cursed Himmler and all of his cronies, saying that if anyone hears her story, they will be unable to resist seeking vengeance on her behalf and will finally suffer a horrible death.

The only way to learn more about Marie’s narrative is to dial a radio back and forth with a clear head until you get a clear vision. You’ll get a glimpse of the world through her eyes and see her final moments. Before dipping Marie (you) in the water, Himmler will recite a prepared statement about Marie before she is killed.

After that, you’ll start dreaming about her and hearing her all the time. She’ll try to kill you because you’re the one who decided to use a radio to channel her curse. She can kill you at any time by drowning, but you can avoid it by simply avoiding water, or you could drown someone else, rekindling her enraged soul. Marie will be sealed once more if this is done, and the person who dialed the radio will receive a glimpse of their own future. Their future, like Marie’s, is unavoidable, whether it is a good one or a dreadful one.

The mythology began in Japan in the early 1980s and spread to Japanese schools as a hoax. One student would challenge the other to call Marie on the radio and learn their fate, but in exchange, they would have to kill someone.

Arisa Kumai from Hakone Japan

The post Drowned Dead appeared first on Urban Legends Online.

A teacher told a fragment of the story to his class on a bus ride while they were on a school trip. The kids and unfortunately, the bus driver, were paralyzed by fear. The bus crashed while the teacher was reading and survivors had no memory of what happened. I’ve heard that no one is able to read or retell the story because they die after reading it.

There are only bits and pieces left of the story, as no one will write it down or retell the tale. I know it’s got something to do with a town that got cursed after they ate a cow’s head.

There is a Cow head story that was rumored to be an unpublished piece from Sci-fi writer Sakyo Komasu, but I haven’t found evidence to the link the author to the legend. A Ukrainian folktale called Cow Head exists about a women who receives good fortune by offering food and shelter to a disembodied cow’s head that visits her in the night. A Gion Matsuri folktale called Somin Shorai exists about a poor but charitable person was looking for a place to stay the night on his journey and a 2003 film called Gozu directed by Takashi Miike neither of which are linked to the legend.

Merrisa Lukenman from New Jersey

The post Gozu (“Cow Head”) appeared first on Urban Legends Online.

If you happened across her in the woods you were supposed to turn around and pretend you hadn’t seen her. Then she would leave you be. If you threatened her she would eat you while screaming in anger and feasting on your flesh. If you listen closely at night you can hear her screams.

If you get lost in the woods she might approach you. If she looks into your eyes and decides you are a good person, she will lead you out to the nearest road or your way will suddenly become clear. If you are not worthy or a intend to do harm in her forest, she will lead you into a twisting labyrinth and make sure you get hopelessly lost. The path will disappear and you’ll never find your way out.

Cassity Degges from Brentwood

The post Cattywampus in the woods appeared first on Urban Legends Online.

The old story about this bridge goes that a Dutch boy named Amos fell in love with an English girl named Ingrid. They had to keep their love a secret from their disapproving parents.

One night the girl went to meet the boy underneath the Phillippi Creek railroad bridge but she slipped in the mud before he arrived. She removed her soiled clothes and tossed them into the water because she was afraid her parents would find them. Instead of waiting for the boy, she went home to put on different clothes with intentions to return.

The boy arrived and saw her clothes washed against the riverbank and believed that she had drowned. He was so devastated that he threw himself off the side of the bridge and died.

The happy girl returned to the bridge in a fresh outfit, anticipating meeting up with the boy she loved. She saw his body and noticed her discarded clothes nearby. His death was her fault! Consumed by sadness and guilt, Ingrid jumped from the bridge herself and lost her life in the same hour as her sweet Amos.

The two lovers lay dead on opposite sides of the river and their ghosts would be trapped there forever. The two lovers now haunt the bridge and grab people trying to cross causing them to fall into the creek and drown. Some people believe this story is true and others believe it was made up by the railroad workers to keep kids away from the bridge.

Amy Y. from Pinecraft, FL

The post The Amish Ghost Bridge of Pinecraft, Florida appeared first on Urban Legends Online.

The TRUMP Rules: Congressional Reform Act of 2018

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1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman/woman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they’re out of office. And, no more perks go with them.

2. Congress (past, present, & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

3. Congress must purchase their own retirement plan, just as ALL Americans do.

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people (i.e. NO MORE INSIDER TRADING!!!).

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen/women. Congress made all these contracts by and for themselves.

Serving in Congress is an honor and privilege NOT a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators should serve their term(s), then go home and go back to work … not get all kinds of freebies. NO WONDER THEY’RE FIGHTING EVERYTHING HE TRIES! Pass it on!!!! Let’s help TRUMP drain the swamp!! Just forward and send it to everyone you know. Let’s help trump get the country straightened out.

Gerry M. from Brush, CO

The post President Trump wants to drain the swamp… appeared first on Urban Legends Online.

I was destroyed by his clinical course in a way that has only happened a few times in my nursing career. It wasn’t his presentation. I’ve seen that before. It wasn’t his complications. I’ve seen that too.

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It was the grief. It was his parents. The grief I witnessed yesterday, was grief that I haven’t allowed myself to recognize since this runaway train got rolling here in early March. I could sense it. It was lingering in the periphery of my mind, but yesterday something in me gave way, and that grief rushed in.

I think I was struck by a lot of emotions and realities yesterday. Emotions that have been brewing for weeks, and realities that I have been stifling because I had to in order to do my job effectively. My therapist tells me weekly via facetime that it’s impossible to process trauma when the trauma is still occurring. It just keeps building.

I get home from work, take my trusty companion Apollo immediately out to pee, he’s been home for 14 hours at a time. I have to keep my dog walker safe. No one can come into my apartment.

I’ve already been very sick from my work exposure, and I’m heavily exposed every day that I work since I returned after being 72 hours afebrile, the new standard for healthcare workers. That was after a week of running a fever of 104 even with Tylenol around the clock, but thankfully without respiratory symptoms. I was lucky.

Like every other healthcare worker on the planet right now, I strip inside the door, throw all the scrubs in the wash, bleach wipe all of my every day carry supplies, shoes and work bag stay at the bottom of the stairs.

You see, there’s a descending level of Covid contamination as you ascend the stairs just inside my apartment door. Work bag and shoes stay at the bottom. Dog walking shoes next step up, then dog leash, then running shoes.

I dodge my excited and doofy German shepherd, who is bringing me every toy he has to play with, and I go and scald myself for 20 minutes in a hot shower. Washing off the germs, metaphorically washing off the weight of the day.

We play fetch after the shower. Once he’s tired, I lay on the floor with him, holding him tight, until I’m ready to get up and eat, but sometimes I just go straight to bed.

Quite honestly, I’m so tired of the death. With three days off from what has been two months of literal hell on earth as a Covid ICU nurse in NYC, I’m having an evening glass of wine, and munching on the twizzlers my dear aunt sent me from Upstate NY, while my dog is bouncing off the walls because I still don’t have the energy to run every day with him.

Is it the residual effects of the virus? Is it just general exhaustion from working three days in a row? Regardless, the thoughts are finally bleeding out of my mind and into a medium that I’m not sure could possibly convey the reality of this experience.

There’s been a significant change in how we approach the critically ill covid-infected patients on a number of different levels over the last two months. We’re learning about the virus. We’re following trends and patterns. We are researching as we are treating.

The reality is, the people who get sick later in this pandemic will have a better chance for survival. Yet, every day working feels like Groundhog Day. All of the patients have developed the same issues. This 23-year-old kid walked around for a week silently hypoxic and silently dying. By the time he got to us, it was already far too late.

First pneumonia, then Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), essentially lung failure. Then kidney failure from global hypoxia and the medications we were giving in the beginning, desperately trying to find something that works. Then learning that it doesn’t work, it’s doing more harm than good in the critical care Covid population.

Dialysis for the kidneys. They are so sick that your normal three-times weekly dialysis schedule is too harsh on their body. They’re too unstable. So, we, the ICU nurses, run the dialysis slowly and continuously.

They are all obstructing their bowels from the ever-changing array of medications, as we ran out of some medications completely during our surge. We had to substitute alternatives, narcotics, sedatives, and paralytics, medications we’re heavily sedating and treating their pain with, in an effort to help them tolerate barbaric ventilator settings.

Barbaric ventilator settings while lying them on their bellies because their lungs are so damaged that we have to flip them onto their bellies in an effort to perfuse the functioning lung tissue and ventilate the damaged lung tissue.

Lungs that are perfused with blood that doesn’t even have adequate oxygen carrying capacity because of how this virus attacks.

Blood that clots. And bleeds. And clots. And bleeds. Everything in their bodies is deranged. Treat the clots with continuous anticoagulation. Stop the anticoagulation when they bleed.

GI bleeds, brain bleeds, pulmonary emboli, strokes. The brain bleeds will likely die. The GI bleeds get blood transfusions and interventions.

Restart the anticoagulation when they clot their continuous or intermittent dialysis filters, rendering them unusable, because we’re trying not to let them die slowly from renal failure. We are constantly making impossible treatment decisions in the critical care pandemic population.

A lot of people have asked me what it’s like here. I truly don’t have adequate descriptors in my vocabulary, try as I might, so I’ll defer to the metaphor of fire.

We are attempting to put out one fire, while three more are cropping up. Then we find out a week or two later that we unknowingly threw gasoline on one fire, because there’s still so much we don’t know about this virus.

Then suddenly there’s no water to fight the fire with. We’re running around holding ice cubes in an effort to put out an inferno. Oh yeah, and the entire time you’ve been in this burning building, you barely have what you need to protect yourself.

The protection you’re using, the guidelines governing that protection, evolved with the surge. One-time use N95? That’s the prior standard, and after what we’ve been through, that’s honestly hysterical. As we were surging here, the CDC revised their guidelines, because the PPE shortage was so critical.

Use anything, they said. Use whatever you have for as long as you can, and improvise what you don’t have.

As we’re discussing medication and viral research, starting clinical trials, talking treatment options in morning rounds for your patient with the team of doctors and clinical pharmacists, suddenly, surprise! Your patient developed a mucous plug in his breathing tube.

Yes, that vital, precious tube that’s connected to the ventilator that’s breathing for them. It’s completely plugged. Blocked. No oxygen or carbon dioxide in or out. It’s a critical emergency.

Even with nebulizer treatments, once we finally had the closed-delivery systems we needed to administer these medications and keep ourselves safe, they’re still plugging. We cannot even routinely suction unless we absolutely have to because suctioning steals all of the positive pressure that’s keeping them alive from the ventilator circuit. One routine suction pass down the breathing tube could kill someone, or leave their body and vital organs hypoxic for hours after.

Well, now they’re plugged. We are then faced with a choice. Both choices place the respiratory therapists, nurses, and doctors at extremely high risk for aerosolized exposure.

We could exchange the breathing tube, but that could take too long, the patient may die in the 2-3 minutes we need to assemble the supplies and manpower needed, and it’s one of the highest-risk procedures for our providers that we could possibly carry out.

Or we could use the clamps that have been the best addition to my every day carry nursing arsenal. You yell for help, you’re alone in the room. Your friends and coworkers, respiratory therapists, doctors, are all rushing to get their PPE on and get into the room to help.

You move around the room cluttered with machines and life sustaining therapies to set up what you need to stave off death. You move deliberately, and you move FAST. The patient is decompensating in the now-familiar and coordinated effort to intervene.

Attach the ambu bag to wall oxygen. Turn it all the way up. Where’s the PEEP valve? God, someone go grab me the PEEP valve off the ambu bag in room 11 next door. We ran out of those a month ago, too. It’s all covid anyway, all of it is covid. Risk cross-contamination or risk imminent death for your patient, risk extreme viral load exposure for you and your coworkers, and most certain death for your patient if you intervene without a PEEP valve.

You clamp the breathing tube, tight. The respiratory therapist shuts off the ventilator, because that side of the circuit can aerosolize and spray virus too if you leave it blasting air after you disconnect. Open the circuit. Respiratory therapy attaches the ambu bag. You unclamp. Bag, bag, bag. Clear the plug. The patient’s oxygen saturation is 23%. Their heart rate is slowing. Their blood pressure is tanking. Max all your drips, then watch and wait while this patient takes 3 hours to recover to a measly oxygen saturation of 82%, the best you’ll get from them all shift. These patients have no pulmonary reserve.

All of our choices to intervene in this situation risk our own health and safety. In the beginning we were more cautious with ourselves. We don’t want to get sick. We don’t want to be a patient in our own ICU. We’ve cared for our own staff in our ICUs. We don’t want to die. Now? I’ve already been sick. I am so, so tired of the constant death that is the ICU, that personally, I will do anything as long as I have my weeks old N95 and face shield on, just to keep someone alive.

I’ve realized that for many of these patients in the ICU, it won’t matter what I do. It won’t matter how hard I work, though I’ll still work like a crazy person all day, aggressively advocate for my patients in the same way.

My coworkers will go without meals, even though they’re being donated and delivered by people who love and support you. Generous people are helping to keep local restaurants afloat. We can always take the meal home for dinner, or I can devour a slice of pizza as I walk out to my truck parked on the pier, a walk I look forward to every day, because it gives me about eight minutes of silence. To process. To reflect.

I’ll chug a Gatorade when I start feeling lightheaded and I’m seeing stars, immediately after I just pushed an amp of bicarb on a patient and I know I have at least five minutes of a stable blood pressure to step out of the unit, take off my mask and actually breathe.

Every dedicated staff member is working tirelessly to help. The now-closed dental clinic staff has been trained to work in the respiratory lab to run our arterial blood gases, so that the absolutely incredible respiratory therapists who we so desperately need can take care of the patients with us.

Nurses in procedural areas that were closed have been repurposed to work as runners. To run for supplies while the primary nurse is in an isolation room trying to stabilize a patient without the supplies they need, runners to run for blood transfusions.

Physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech and language pathologists being repurposed to be part of the proning teams that helps the nurses turn patients onto their backs and bellies amidst a tangled web of critical lines and tubes, where one small error could mean death for the patient, and exposure for all staff.

Anesthesiologists and residents are managing airways and lines when carrying out these massive patient position changes. Surgical residents are all over the hospital just to put in the critical invasive lines we need in all of our patients.

The travel nurses who rushed into this burning building to help us are easing a healthcare system. The first travel nurse I met came all the way from Texas. Others terminated their steady employment to enlist with a travel agency to help us. Every day there are more travelers arriving.

A nurse from LA came to me after she found out I was part of the home staff, in my home unit, where this all first started in my hospital what feels like a lifetime ago, and said, “I came here for you. For all of the nurses. Because I couldn’t imagine working the way you guys were working for how long you were working like that”. During our surge and peak in the ICU, we were 1:3 ratios with three patients who normally would be a 1:1 assignment. And they were all trying to die at the same time. We were having to choose which patients we were rushing to because we couldn’t help them all at the same time.

The overhead pages for emergencies throughout the hospital rang out and echoed endlessly. Every minute, another rapid response call. Another anesthesia page for an intubation. Another cardiopulmonary arrest. A hospital bursting at the seams with death. Refrigerated trailers being filled.

First it was our normal white body bags. Then orange disaster bags. Then blue tarp bags. We ran out of those too. Now, black bags.

The heartbreakingly unique part of this pandemic, is that these patients are so alone. We are here, but they are suffering alone, with no familiar face or voice. They are dying alone, surrounded by strangers crying into their own masks, trying not to let our precious N95 get wet, trying not to touch our faces with contaminated hands.

Their families are home, waiting for the phone call with their daily update. Some of their loved ones are also sick and quarantined at home.

Can you even IMAGINE? Your husband or wife, mother or father. Sibling. Your child. You drop your loved one off at the emergency department entrance, and you never, ever see them alive again.

Families are home, getting phone calls every day that they’re getting worse. Or maybe they’re getting better. Unfortunately, the ICU in what has quickly become the global epicenter for this pandemic is not a happy place. We are mostly purgatory where I work, so this snapshot may be more morbid than most.

These people are saying goodbye to their loved ones, while they’re still walking and talking, and then maybe a week or two later, they’re just gone. It’s like they disappeared into thin air.

That level of grief is absolutely astounding to me, and that’s coming from a person who knows grief. I was there at the bedside, I held my young husband’s hand when I watched his heart stop beating. I was there. That grief changes you immeasurably.

But this grief? This pandemic grief? It’s inconceivable. These families will suffer horribly, every day for the rest of their lives. They might not even be able to bury their loved one. God, if they can’t afford a funeral with an economic shut-down, their loved one will be buried in a mass grave on Hart Island with thousands of others like them. What grave will they have to visit on birthdays and holidays?

Yesterday, I was preparing for a bedside endoscopy procedure to secure a catastrophic GI bleed in this 23-year-old patient.

It was a bleed that required a massive transfusion protocol where the blood bank releases coolers of uncrossmatched O negative blood in an emergency, an overhead page that, ironically, I heard as I was getting into the elevator to head to the fourth floor for my shift yesterday morning; a massive transfusion protocol that I found out I would own as a primary nurse, as I desperately squeezed liters of IV fluids into this patient until we got the cooler full of blood products, and then pumped this patient full of units of blood until we could intervene with endoscopy.

Before the procedure, I stopped everything I was doing that wasn’t life-sustaining. I stopped gathering supplies to start and assist with the procedure.

I told the doctors that I would not do a required “time-out” procedure until I got my phone out, and I facetimed this kid’s mom because I didn’t think he would survive the bedside procedure.

She cried. She wailed. She begged her son to open his eyes, to breathe. She begged me to help her. Ayudame. Ayudame. She begged me to help him. She sang to him. She told him he was strong. She told him how much she loved him. I listened to her heart breaking in real time while she talked to her son, while she saw his swollen face, her baby boy, dying before her eyes through a phone.

Later in the day, after the procedure, his mom and dad came to the hospital. He survived the securement of the bleed, but he was still getting worse no matter what we did. He’s going to die. And against policy, we fought to get them up to see their son.

We found them masks and gowns that we’re still rationing in the hospital, and we let his parents see him, hold him. We let them be with their son.

Like every other nurse would do in the ICU here, I bounced around the room, moving mom from one side of the bed to the other and back again, so I could do what I needed to do, setting up my continuous dialysis machine, with the ONE filter that supply sent up for my use to initiate dialysis therapy. This spaceship-like machine, finicky as all hell, and I had one shot to prime this machine successfully to start dialysis therapy to try to slowly correct the metabolic acidosis that was just ONE of the problems that was killing him as his systolic blood pressure lingered in the 70s, despite maxing all of my blood pressure mediations.

Continuous dialysis started. You press start and hold your breath. You’re not removing any fluid, just filtering the blood, but even the tiniest of fluid shifts in this patient could kill him. But you have no choice.

His vital signs started to look concerning. I could feel the dread in the pit of my stomach, this was going south very quickly. Another nurse and the patient’s father had to physically drag this mother out of the room so we could fill the room with the brains and eyes and hands that would keep this boy alive for another hour.

She wailed in the hallway. Nurses in the next unit down the hall heard her cries through two sets of closed fire doors. We worked furiously to stabilize him for the next four hours.

Twenty minutes before the end of my shift last night, I sat with the attending physician and the parents in a quiet and deserted family waiting room outside the unit. I told his mother that no matter what I do, I cannot fix this. I have maximized everything I have, every tool and medicine at my disposal to save her son. I can’t save her son.

The doctor explained that no matter what we do, his body is failing him. No matter what we do, her son will die. They realized that no matter how hard they pray, no matter how much they want to tear down walls, no matter how many times his mother begs and pleads, “take me instead, I would rather die myself than lose my son”, we cannot save him.

We stayed while she screamed. We stayed until she finally let go of her vice grip on my hands, her body trembling uncontrollably, as she dissolved into her grief, in the arms of her husband.

This is ONE patient. One patient, in one ICU, in one hospital, in one city, in one country, on a planet being ravaged by a virus.

This is the tiniest, devastating snapshot of one patient and one family and their unimaginable grief. Yet, the weight is enormous.

The world should feel that weight too. Because this grief, this heartbreak is everywhere in many forms. Every person on this planet is grieving the loss of something.

Whether that’s freedom or autonomy sacrificed for the greater good. Whether that’s a paycheck or a business, or their livelihood, or maybe they’re grieving the loss of a loved one while still fighting to earn a paycheck, or waiting for government financial relief that they don’t know for certain will come. Maybe they’re a high school senior who will never get to have the graduation they dreamed of. Maybe they’re a college senior, who won’t get to have their senior game they so looked forward to. Maybe they’re afraid that the government is encroaching on their constitutional rights. Maybe it’s their first pregnancy, and it’s nothing like they imagined because of the terrifying world surrounding them.

Or maybe they lost a loved one, maybe someone they love is sick, and they can’t go see them, because there are no visitors allowed and they’re an essential worker. Maybe all they can see of someone they love is a random facetime call in the middle of the day from an area code and a number they don’t know.

Everyone is grieving. We’ve heard plenty of the public’s grief.

I don’t blame anyone for how they’re coping with that grief, even if it frustrates the ever-living hell out of me as I drown in death every day at work. It’s all valid. Everyone’s grief is different, but it doesn’t change the discomfort, the despair on various levels. We are at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Basic survival, physiological and safety needs. I’ve been here before. I know this feeling. How we survive is how we survive.

Now that I’ve had the time to reflect and write, now that I’ve let the walls down in my mind to let the grief flood in, now that I’ve seen this grief for what feels like the thousandth time since the first week of March as a nurse in a Covid ICU in New York City, it’s time you heard our side. This is devastating. This is our reality. This is our grief.

Sharon L. from California

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