"Please Don't. I Have Babies."
Alabama nurse’s husband forced to listen as she begged for her life before being shot dead
Source: The Independent
A close friend of mine is an ICU nurse, and over the years she has told me some absolute horror stories. Not about blood or trauma or the things most people associate with nursing, but about the anger, frustration, and sometimes outright aggression directed at her and her coworkers by patients and families.
Before she got into this profession, I don’t think I had ever really considered the danger that can come with being a nurse. I thought about the stress, the long hours, and the emotional toll. I didn’t think about the fact that simply showing up to care for people could sometimes put your own safety—or even your life—at risk.
Then I came across this story.
According to a lawsuit filed by her husband, 27-year-old Alabama nurse Ada Doss was on the phone discussing her workday, dinner plans, and the evening routine for her two little girls when everything changed.
Her husband, Drew, says he heard Ada suddenly plead, “Please don’t. I have babies.”
Seconds later, she was dead.
The lawsuit alleges that the man accused of killing Ada had been exhibiting erratic behavior for hours before the shooting. It further claims that security personnel had been made aware of concerns about his behavior but failed to locate or monitor him before the encounter.
Ada wasn’t walking through a dark alley at midnight. She wasn’t taking some enormous risk. She was leaving work. She was talking to her husband. She was thinking about getting home to her babies.
That is the part of this story that haunts me.
One second you’re discussing dinner plans. The next second your children no longer have a mother.
Drew later described Ada as the best person he had ever known and said she made sure their daughters knew every day how important they were to her.
Ada left behind a husband, a six-month-old daughter, and a two-year-old daughter.
For this story, I’m not linking to a charity.
I’m linking directly to the verified GoFundMe established for Drew and the girls.
Sometimes the most important thing we can do—the thing that helps us feel like we’re adding a little good back into the world—is help a family, left behind by something unimaginably bad, to pick up the pieces.