Nurses find way to fulfill terminal patient’s wish to be baptized

Jeannie Guffey wanted to be baptized in July before her terminal lung cancer diagnosis ran its course, but the logistics of bed confinement on the fourth floor of an Alabama hospital’s intensive care unit made that a little complicated. Her medical ICU nurses at Huntsville Hospital—Emily Owens, Erin Powers, and Kaitlin Swaim—came up with a plan to make it work.

The nurses recognized how important Guffey’s last wish was to her and her family, so they got innovative, Owens shared in a Wednesday blog post released by the Huntsville Hospital Health System. After some online research, the nurses all chipped in and bought a kiddie pool from Walgreens, using their own money, and had it delivered via DoorDash to the hospital. They used an air pump to inflate it, then created a makeshift hose out of ventilator tubing to fill the pool with water from the hospital room’s sink.

The nurses then used the room’s ceiling lift to lower 74-year-old Guffey into the pool, where her son, Jody, performed the baptism ceremony surrounded by her family, including her husband, Ronnie. The moment was sweet and emotional, and the family was grateful to the nurses for going above and beyond in the 11th hour to make it work, daughter-in-law Carol Guffey shared, calling the event “a total God thing.”

Powers told WORLD that it was an honor to be able to give Jeannie Guffey the last thing she wanted before she went home. Being a nurse wasn’t just about managing symptoms and making people feel better, but about taking care of their spiritual, mental, and emotional health as well, she said. The nurses were there for every aspect, she shared.

A day after her unique baptism, Guffey left the hospital and returned home to spend her final days in hospice care with her family. She passed away peacefully just over a week later.