In hospital rooms across America, where the sick are alone without family to comfort them, the grim task of offering solace often falls to emotionally drained hospital chaplains who are dealing with more death than they’ve ever seen. An all-formats team in Los Angeles captured intimate moments of chaplains helping families say goodbye.
Eugene Garcia, just two weeks into his job as the AP’s newest full-time video journalist, based in Los Angeles, came forward with an idea as he pored over all of the COVOD-19 stories we have done during the past year. We’d covered doctors and nurses, funeral homes and morgues, nursing homes, first responders, teachers, students and schools. What about hospital chaplains, he pondered.
Simultaneously, Los Angeles-based photographer Jae Hong also had been considering the idea, unbeknownst to Garcia, launching the two extraordinary visual journalists on their first story together: a deeply touching and heartbreaking journey into the daily lives of the often unsung and unseen heroes of the pandemic — the clergy.
Garcia and Hong have a knack for delving deep into the human side of the stories they cover. That fly-on-the-wall ability to observe helped them capture emotional moments as hospital chaplains at one Southern California medical center worked to give solace to people dying from COVID-19 and their distraught families.
The pair approached the story with sensitivity and care, maintaining distance to give the families, patients and chaplains space in these tragic moments but close enough to bring the story to life even as their subjects drew their last breaths. The package shed light on the stories of exhausted and emotionally-drained chaplains working in situations they had never experienced before. As one put it, “We weren’t trained for this.”
Chaplain Elias Mena prays with COVID-19 patient Zoraida Escorba at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles, Jan. 15, 2021.
AP Photo / Jae C. Hong
Chaplain Kevin Deegan arranges a video call with a COVID-19 patient’s family member at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles, Jan. 9, 2021.
AP Photo / Jae C. Hong
Sonya Rodriguez wipes her tears after seeing her father via video chat arranged by chaplain Kevin Deegan in a COVID-19 unit at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles, Jan. 9, 2021. “We need new words to describe where we are at now,” said Deegan. “This whole month has just been so far beyond anything I had expected.”
AP Photo / Jae C. Hong
Registered nurse Bilma Pellissery, left, prays with chaplain Nancy Many after receiving communion in the hallway of a COVID-19 unit at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles, Jan. 15, 2021. “I prayed for all the patients and for my own sanctity,” said Pellissery.
AP Photo / Jae C. Hong
Chaplain Anne Dauchy holds the hand of a dying COVID-19 patient at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles after a priest administered the sacrament of anointing the sick over the phone, Jan. 9, 2021.
AP Photo / Jae C. Hong
Chaplain Kevin Deegan places his hand on the head of a COVID-19 patient while praying for him at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles, Jan. 9, 2021.
AP Photo / Jae C. Hong
Chaplain Nancy Many holds a pyx containing hosts while preparing to offer communion to a COVID-19 patient at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles, Jan. 15, 2021.
AP Photo / Jae C. Hong
A patient holds a card of Our Lady of Guadalupe while talking to chaplain Nancy Many from his bed at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles on Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021.
AP Photo / Jae C. Hong
Chaplain Elias Mena, left, prays for a COVID-19 patient placed on comfort care as registered nurse Nikki De La Cruz monitors the patient at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles, Jan. 15, 2021.
AP Photo / Jae C. Hong
Sharie Duran blows a kiss to her mother, a COVID-19 patient, on a video chat arranged by chaplain Kevin Deegan at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles, Jan. 9, 2021. “We need new words to describe where we are at now,” said Deegan. “This whole month has just been so far beyond anything I had expected.”
AP Photo / Jae C. Hong
Chaplain Kristin Michealsen holds the hand of a deceased COVID-19 patient while talking on the phone with a member of the patient’s family, at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles, Jan. 9, 2021.
AP Photo / Jae C. Hong
Chaplain Kristin Michealsen holds the hand of a deceased COVID-19 patient while talking on the phone with a member of the patient’s family, at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles, Jan. 9, 2021. “I have never seen this much of death and suffering,” said Michealsen, who has been a chaplain for 13 years. “I often tell families that I'm holding their loved one’s hand when they can’t and that I am with them when they are dying when they can’t be.”
AP Photo / Jae C. Hong
A hospital worker places a “COVID Patient” sticker on a body bag holding a deceased patient at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles, Jan. 9, 2021.
AP Photo / Jae C. Hong
Transporters Miguel Lopez, right, and Noe Meza prepare to transfer the body of a COVID-19 victim to a morgue at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles, Jan. 9, 2021.
AP Photo / Jae C. Hong
Chaplain Kristin Michealsen leaves a COVID-19 unit after talking to a family member of a deceased patient as transporters Noe Meza, left, and Miguel Lopez wheel a gurney carrying the body of a COVID-19 victim, at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles, Jan. 9, 2021.
AP Photo / Jae C. Hong
Chaplain Nancy Many visits a chapel after offering communion to a COVID-19 patient at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles, Jan. 15, 2021.
AP Photo / Jae C. Hong
Chaplain Kevin Deegan walks past a crucifix in a COVID-19 unit at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles, Jan. 9, 2021.
AP Photo / Jae C. Hong
Chaplain Kevin Deegan, left, and registered nurse Michelle Stephens comfort each other in a COVID-19 unit at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles, Jan. 9, 2021. “He is my friend. He is a trusted co-worker. He is my partner in crime. We absolutely have been through a lot together,” said the nurse.
AP Photo / Jae C. Hong
Accompanied by a heartfelt text story written by John Rogers, the complete package was a visually driven, dramatic work of journalism that brought the audience into hospital rooms as dying patients said goodbye to their mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers with their faces and voices on the screen of an iPad.
“Yo, Ma,” a man says to his mother before breaking down in tears.
Chaplain Kevin Deegan, left, and registered nurse Michelle Stephens comfort each other in a COVID-19 unit at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles, Jan. 9, 2021. “He is my friend. He is a trusted co-worker. He is my partner in crime. We absolutely have been through a lot together,” said the nurse.
AP Photo / Jae C. Hong
In a true all-formats effort, the components — video, photos and text — complemented each other to create a powerful narrative. The story, photos and consumer ready video edit were used by websites across the U.S., including The Washington Post, ABC and Yahoo, while the longer form newsroom video was downloaded by customers around the globe.
For an arresting package that explores the compassionate yet crushing work of front-line chaplains, Garcia, Hong and Rogers earn this week’s Best of the States award.
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