Yellow Springs kicked off the beginning of 2020, as always, with the traditional ball drop overseen by Lance Rudegeair; MTFR personnel handed out hot cocoa, and at least one marriage proposal greeted the new year.
The Reach Out Free Clinic, which was held each Tuesday evening at Central Chapel AME Church, celebrated a year of operation in early January. The free, donation-based clinic, a satellite location of Reach Out Dayton, closed due to the pandemic in March; the Dayton location shuttered permanently later in the year.
Nan Harshaw, longtime chair of the MLK Day Planning Committee, was awarded the annual Peacemaker Award at the 2020 Martin Luther King Day celebration. The late Willa Dallas was also recognized for her civil rights efforts and her role in initiating the annual local event.
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I cried at work yesterday. It seems I’ve been doing that a lot lately, but yesterday was especially hard.”
Chasilee Crawford, an ICU nurse working in the COVID-19 unit at Springfield Regional Medical Center, recently turned to Facebook with a widely shared post describing her sadness, weariness and frustration in fighting the pandemic that has seen a growing surge in recent weeks:
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I had two patients, one younger than me and one only a few years older. Both fighting for their lives from the coronavirus,” the post continued. “I thought I was going to lose my young patient yesterday after we intubated her. But between the respiratory therapist and my coworkers, we managed to prone her immediately and she survived. I spent the rest of the day stabilizing her. Before we intubated, her husband called me and begged me to come see his wife. He just wanted to hold her hand one more time. I couldn’t let him do it. The best I could offer was a FaceTime or Zoom call. I crie