When Colleen (Walker) Berenguer ’11 graduated from St. Mary’s High
School, a career in nursing wasn’t on her radar. Yet, nine years later,
her days have been filled with caring for patients in Meridian, Idado,
with a virus that just a months ago no one could have imagined.
Berenguer is one of several St. Mary’s graduates who are on the
frontlines caring for COVID-19 patients across the nation.
While Meridian, Idaho, where Berenguer works, has not been hit hard during the pandemic, she said that working on the frontlines of the COVID-19 fight has been a sobering experience. The range of reactions to the virus has been surprising, Berenguer said, with many young people having no symptoms at all to patients in their mid-40s seeming fine one day and deteriorating rapidly the next.
“You realize how serious it is when you see people who are otherwise
healthy, with no other underlying conditions, and they are on oxygen and
can’t make it to the bathroom on their own,” Berenguer said.
Read more on our blog.
*Note: Over the next few weeks, we will feature profiles of these alumni. (If you would like
to be featured, please contact Amy Partain, director of Communications,
at apartain@smhscs.org.)