A crying nurse from Chicago used her Instagram platform to sob about conditions in her hospital. There weren’t enough masks! she sobbed. She couldn’t even wear her own N95 she brought from home! So heartless!

Her video went viral, and eventually CBS picked it up. “Good Morning America” gave her a platform, too.

The nurse’s name is Imaris Vera, and she claims to have over three years working in trauma, post-operative, cardiac, medical, surgical, and full-time critical nursing care. But what she saw in a Chicago hospital (which, interestingly, she didn’t name) finally broke her.

“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 things are looking, this isn’t going to get any better. America is not prepared. And nurses are not being protected.” 

Here’s that video of Vera telling her tale of being forced to work without adequate PPE. And how she finally chose her family over her career.

However, there’s a lot more to that story of the crying nurse forced to work without PPE. In fact, Vera is another Jussie Smollett — whipping up a story to gain attention.

First of all, Vera is indeed a nurse, just like Smollett is an actor. Or rather, was an actor. (According to IMDb, he hasn’t had any gigs since his 2019 hoax came to light. But I digress.)

Yet it turns out that Vera has not worked as a nurse for a year, and then decided to get back into the ICU. Okay, fair enough — hospitals need medical personnel, stat, and Chicago has a rapidly growing COVID outbreak.

However, she also wrote on her Instagram account that she has anxiety and bi-polar depression as well. As Twitter user Sumantra Maitra observed:

“This individual, and anyone with her level of mental fragility and disorders, shouldn’t be in some professions which demand fortitude. This is like sending a hippie to drive a tank.”

Now I’ll cut a little slack here — there are probably many, many good nurses who have emotional disorders and yet are consummate professionals. I’ve known bi-polar people from my own profession. But while the Crying Nurse may not be as batshit crazy as the Tiger King, her tale also has twists and turns of its own.

Because it turns out that medical personnel in the (unnamed) Chicago hospital did indeed have PPE available for use. Vera just couldn’t show up with her own N95 mask and use it. Plus, the hospital was conserving its PPE as well to maintain supply in a high demand situation.

And how do we know this? Vera said so in a response to Bernie Sanders, who saw her video. 

But because Vera has set her Instagram account to private and deleted her Twitter account, here’s a screenshot of her reply to Sanders:

Screenshot; click to enlarge.

Plus, while Imaris Vera freely admitted on Instagram to having depression and bi-polar disorder, I would add narcissism to that mix. I’m speaking as a layperson here, of course *wink wink.*

That’s because Vera has been boosting her brand on Instagram as a “Travel Nurse,” focused on “Nursing & Lifestyle.” She also labels herself as “Latina” and “Creator.” From this screenshot of her Instagram page, it appears that she currently has well over 13K followers — at least before she set her account to private.

Screenshot: nurse.iv/instagram.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? This crying nurse schtick is another bid for attention.

Ya think?

So why didn’t the media vet her story? Good question, but I think we all know the answer. If the media can somehow make the COVID situation worse, it gets more eyeballs on their stories. And if it can also be spun to make the Trump administration incompetent, then it’s a win-win for the media.

But now that she’s free from the anxiety of (allegedly) treating COVID patients in the ICU, maybe Imaris Vera can ease her fears on the beach, as well as promote herself on Instagram again. That is, after the beaches reopen.

Well now she has more time at the beach pic.twitter.com/OI4oFbPNi6

— Joe Voter (@JoeVoter5) April 6, 2020

This woman is an insult to every EMT, nurse, doctor, respiratory therapist, and any other medical professional dealing with this pandemic. Take, for example, my son-in-law’s mother, a registered nurse working at a hospital in the Washington, DC, area. I recently texted her with our concerns about her safety, and she responded:

“Thank you for your prayers! Yes, through our prayers we put our hope in Him and by His grace we are staying safe.” 

Now there’s a real nurse responding to a crisis with honor and dignity.

Featured image: NATO Training Mission Afghanistan/flickr/cropped/CC BY-SA 2.0.