RN BECOMES A "CODE TRAUMA" hours before AM shift

This is a tragedy worth your time and money.

Angel Bowman is a 46 year old nurse in the emergency room at Opelousas General Hospital. She is a dedicated worker, a joy to be around, with a contagious laugh that can be heard a mile away. She is a selfless soul that was dealt a blow by fate on the evening of Monday, September 4th.

She was involved in a horrific automobile accident when she lost control of the new SUV she worked so hard to finally afford. On a darkened remote LA road, taking a curve, flipping her new SUV several times, and striking two culverts before coming to rest, alone, in the middle of nowhere. It took less than a minute for this beautiful life to be upended and rerouted.

Laying there, unable to move her legs from a broken spine, with a bruised and broken heart, her thoughts shifted to her family: her fellow ER nurses, her brother with diabetes, her dogs. Unbelievably, but not surprisingly, her concern was her job. She implored her brother to inform her supervisor why she couldn’t show up for her ER shift in the morning. Suddenly, tragically, she was the patient. The trauma victim. The “code trauma.” She was airlifted to 2 different hospitals within hours and underwent emergency spine surgery to repair the severed nerves giving life to her legs; the appendages that carried her from room to room. The jovial nurse fetching one patient a blanket, getting another a pillow, another needing to get up to the bathroom, another needing a diaper change, another to stop the beeping. She may never walk again. Nurse again. Be a selfless servant to patients again.

Following surgery her heart stopped and she had to be brought back to life, or as we say SHE CODED. She is on medicine to keep her heart pumping. She is literally fighting for her life. She has a brother, her dogs, and US, her ER family. We are rallying to provide for her and ask that you please help us. You, reader, yes YOU!! You have family or friends who are nurses. Angel is one of our BEST nurses! She cares for her patients with a “joie de vivre”, a throwback to the good old days of medicine. She was with us, by our sides, on the front lines through COVID. This is the time when we rally around ONE OF OUR OWN. Thank you so much for your generosity.

Christopher J. Matt, M.D., nurses, staff, family, and friends of Angel