The Blue Angels gave health care workers a salute in the sky over Jacksonville Friday. Several health care workers at Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville watched from Baptist Heart Hospital’s patio with the hospital’s president.
"It was great to see the support and it just gave us all a good feeling knowing that we're thought of, that we're loved, and it's very much appreciated," Judy Sessions, Director of Ambulatory Surgery at Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville, said.
People on boats in the St. Johns River that the patio overlooks honked their horns and thanked the health care workers.
"It was especially nice seeing the boats and having them come by and having them wave to us and telling us thank you. It was really heartwarming. We really enjoyed it," Sessions said.
Michael Mayo, the president of Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville, graduated from West Point and is from a military family. He said the flyover is special for more reasons than one.
“It brings it all together because what I learned in the military and how I act as a leader and work with my team is reflected in the military and I talk about that a lot with our team members, and so that represents all the good things that come together when people give sacrifices to protect others and that’s what our nurses and our health care workers do,” Mayo said.
“It is just exhilarating and what they represent in terms of our country and the freedoms that we have and the precision that they do as a military unit kind of replicates what we do in the hospital and represents what all of our nursing staff do to take care of patients,” he said.
The nurses and doctors said the flyover also was special coming during Nurse Appreciation Week.
“They’re going all over. I think they’re lifting people’s spirits, and I think that’s what we need right now,” Jessica Lapidus, a nurse at Baptist, said.
A salute in the sky, giving superheroes in scrubs a heroes’ honor.