Nurse Whose Crying "I Quit" Video Went Viral Wasn't Telling the Whole Story

Credit: Nurse.iv/Instagram

A travel nurse whose tearful Instagram video decrying a lack of PPE at the hospital in which she worked went viral wasn’t completely truthful in her video.

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Imaris Vera, who is based in Chicago, said she quit because nurses in the designated COVID unit to which she was assigned were not wearing masks and she was not allowed to wear her personal N95 mask.

Vera said:

“America is not prepared and nurses are not being protected.

I quit my job today. I went into work and I was assigned to a COVID patient on an ICU unit that has been converted to a designated COVID unit. None of the nurses are wearing masks, not even surgical masks in the hallways when they’re giving reports to each other.

“I had my own N95 mask. I told my manager, ‘I understand we’re short on supplies, but let me protect myself. Let me feel safe. I have family that I have to come home to, and the way that things are looking, this is not going to get any better.”

Bernie Sanders retweeted the video, bringing even more attention to Vera.

Vera replied to Sanders from her now-deleted Twitter account, clarifying that there were some masks:

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She wrote:

Thank you so much for sharing Senator. We were each assigned 1 N95 per 1 covid patient’s room but was not allowed to wear it outside of the room, wear our own N95 mask around the Nurses station or Halls, which I came prepared with. HCPs absolutely deserve protection by any means.

It also turns out that Vera had not been a bedside ICU nurse for a year before the Wuhan coronavirus crisis emerged.

In a Facebook post that has since been deleted, Vera wrote that she was scared to go back into the bedside and into the ICU:

“I am scared, no doubt about that. I am not sure what to expect, but I have honestly tried to keep myself at a distance from social media and from the media in general; the information overload can be hard to sift through as far as what is credible and what is not, it t r i g g e r s me.

“I already suffer with anxiety and bi-polar depression and was feeling a heavy toll with transitioning back into the ICU after begin away from the bedside for a year. I am already feeling defeated before walking onto the battlefield; I know this isn’t the right mindset, but I am just sharing my raw emotions and thoughts with you all right now.”

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According to a report by the Daily Caller:

Imaris also appears to have tweeted that she would be “going back to workin [sic] the #icu in four days” on March 26. This indicates that she quit on her very first day back on the job. Imaris also appears to be attempting to transition to a social media influencer, according to her Instagram.

On that Instagram account, approximately three weeks ago she posted this video making light of the coronavirus crisis:

Our nurses, nurse practitioners, physician’s assistants, doctors, and everyone on the front lines in our hospitals and clinics deserve to have adequate personal protection equipment. There is no doubt about that. What we don’t need are unserious drama queens making the crisis worse by using social media as a way to work through their emotional issues – whether they’re nurses in suburban Chicago, pundits, or keyboard warriors.

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