Jersey Community Hospital
Healthcare Heroes: Making History in a New Kind of War
The buoyant opening notes of “Here Comes the Sun” mean one thing to healthcare hero Victoria Hargrave, FNP-BC: a patient has defeated COVID-19. The Beatles song represents the culmination of grueling shifts Maj. Hargrave and other reservists have logged in the U.S. Army Reserve 807th Medical Command.
Maj. Hargrave, who hails from southern Illinois, was working as a family nurse practitioner at Jersey Community Hospital when she got the call: She was being deployed to fight COVID-19.
Where? Undisclosed.
When? Two days.
On April 1, Maj. Hargrave said goodbye to her husband and eight-year-old daughter and traveled to Stamford, Conn., just outside New York City. There, she’s reinforcing civilian healthcare heroes in one of the country’s hardest hit areas.
“This is not the war we expected to be in,” said Brig.-Gen. Joseph Heck, commanding general of the 807th Medical Command. “[But] it’s the fight that we are in.”
Maj. Hargrave was chosen for deployment because of her skills as a nurse. And she’s in good company: According to Col. Mary Reed, U.S. Army Reserve command surgeon, the reserve teams boast world-class clinicians with critical expertise from the military and their workplaces—like Jersey Community Hospital.
Jersey Community Hospital is proud to call Maj. Hargrave one of its own.