GRANT GOLD Q&A

Coronavirus front line in Texas ER

PROVIDED From left to right, RNs Rachel Lima, Grant Gold, Hallier Brimberry and Gold in PPE, in the Dell Seton Emergency Department in Austin at the start of the pandemic. Texas A&M College of Nursing Class of 2018, Gold said the ‘unknowns’ about COVID-19 in 2020 were the hardest to cope with.

By Benjamin Figueroa

Grant Gold is a 2018 graduate of the Texas A&M College of Nursing. After working as an emergency room registered nurse from 2018-2021, he now serves as a clinical specialist at Option Care Health in Austin.

Q: What was your initial reaction to the pandemic in March 2020?

A: SXSW was happening. I had almost a two-week break off at the end of March, and then all of this stuff unfolded. I came back to work after two weeks off. What am I walking into? There was no information at that point. We didn’t even have COVID[-19] tests readily available. Nobody knew anything. So I’m walking in and I knew it was going to be uncertain.

Q: What was the single-most difficult thing you experienced as a registered nurse working in the emergency room?

A: The unknown. The anxiety of the unknown. Toward the beginning, it was not bad, I would stay up all night the night before my shift. I didn’t sleep well. I just didn’t know what I was going to be walking into. I see … freezer trucks of bodies [in New York], and I’m like, is this going to be Austin? Am I going to have to do this? A: Not professionally. I vented a lot with my co-workers and my friends and my family. I felt that I was pretty good at compartmentalizing things. In the ER, you see a lot of very sad, very traumatic stories. Even to work there before COVID, you had to have pretty good mental protection mechanisms. Working out and yoga was what it was for me.

Q: What did you see happening around the COVID-19 anti-vaccine push as a nurse?

A: I’ve definitely heard of it. I know people who are healthcare workers, ER nurses, that I thought were very likeminded. Being in the ER, you thought you were surrounded by people who are like-minded, and you just can’t ever really generalize or stereotype people.

Q: What was going through your mind seeing the [A&M]-Alabama football game with almost no one wearing a mask?

A: What I can say with big events like this now happening, and ACL happening, I think for people who have gotten their two shots of their vaccine – that is the process — you get your vaccines, you have this immunity and you can now kind of re-enter society, hopefully.

And you use caution with masking — you know, you use it in large crowds still — because people can still spread it and carry it, even with these vaccines. I say that caveat for people who are vaccinated. Again, I’m not a doctor. I’m just going off of CDC advice and the recommendations of professionals.

But on the flip side, when you’re still just blatantly ignoring vaccines, not wearing a mask and you are going to these big things, it is frustrating to see because those are the kinds of people who are causing this resurgence in Texas.

Texas A&M Testing Sites:

Rudder Plaza Appointment required Monday through Friday, 8-6 Mays Plaza Appointment required Monday through Friday, 8-5

Texas A&M Health Maroon Line

Appointment required Tuesdays only, Clinical Building 1, noon to 1

Student Health Services

Appointment required Beutel, Monday, Wednesday and Fridays, 10-2

Mobile Testing Van

See Brazos Valley Health District for times and locations