Dr. Owen Hanley, 42, one of the internal medicine doctors at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital, talked of what it was like for him and a nurse to hold the hands of a young father dying from COVID after they disconnected him from a ventilator, while his family watched on Facetime.

“He had a bunch of kids that are the same age as my kids watching this, saying, ‘I love you daddy.’ This is a guy that’s the same age as me. This is profoundly awful to watch people go through this,” he said.

Patients struggle to breathe for days or weeks with low oxygen levels and there is no simple solution.

“I guess my main point in this is that people are working really hard to try to care for people in the hospital,” he said, doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists and the entire support staff.

“This is something that while we don’t have a great treatment once you get COVID, we do have a treatment for this disease—and that’s a vaccine and wearing a mask.”

“Without community support in those areas this is going to continue to happen and we’re going to continue to watch people die from this,” he said.

He compared it to helping someone when a car breaks down in the winter at 40 below and most people will stop to assist.

“We have to get vaccinated, we have to wear our masks. because this is what we need to do for our community. This is what we’re obligated to do to help people, even in that’s inconvenient to us.

“I guess I would urge those out there who are not vaccinated to do this for themselves, for their families, for families of their friends and for your community at large.”

On Thursday, one of the COVID patients at the hospital had been vaccinated. The 15 others being treated had not. The vast majority of COVID patients are unvaccinated, not just in Fairbanks, but statewide. The patients who are sicker and more likely to die are mostly unvaccinated.

Hanley spoke at a press conference along with other doctors and hospital officials who provided other details on the local response to the crisis.