SHARE ON: Emergency department nurses with the South Muskoka Memorial Hospital (Photo credit: Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare) “I don’t know if anyone could get through this on their own,” Registered Nurse Dan Gaughan tells the MyMuskokaNow.com newsroom. As National Nursing Week comes to a close, it’s served as yet another opportunity for us to thank the medical professionals that have been on the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic. “It’s been really touching to see the public support,” he says while fighting back tears. In August, Gaughan will celebrate a decade working at the Huntsville District Memorial Hospital, but this wasn’t always what he wanted to do. “When you stepped out the back door of my parents’ house you stepped into like 300 acres of forest,” he says. That’s why he ended up in the forestry industry for 15 years working in the bush in British Columbia, Washington State and Alberta. It was during his time in the latter province that he was offered a job for a “whole whack of money and good benefits” but instead of jumping at taking the job, it ended up as an “epiphany” that he wasn’t enjoying what he did. Before starting in the forestry industry, Gaughan spent time as a volunteer firefighter and did a handful of medical calls. “My dad had passed away and my mom was on her own and I knew as the years went on she would need more and more help,” he says. That was what inspired him to go to Trent University in 2008 to take its compressed nursing program. Once he finished, he started working in Huntsville and has been at the hospital ever since.