When Travis proposed the couple’s wedding request, Cassandra Minzler, a
registered nurse on 2 West at the hospital, never hesitated. “I said, ‘Of course.
at won’t be a problem at all,’” Minzler recalls.
A special task
Only weeks earlier, Waccamaw Community Hospital had been named one of the
best hospitals in the nation for nurses to work and excel, earning the American
Nurses Credentialing Center’s prestigious Pathway to Excellence award.
Minzler and her recruits—fellow nurses Ti any Floyd and Ellen Caughman,
along with scrub tech Beth Shaw—were soon bringing the Pathway to Excellence
designation to life for Travis and Kimberly as an impromptu wedding began to
take shape.
e primary task at hand was to create a makeshi wedding chapel in a
hospital solarium on 2 West.
“As soon as Cassandra told me what was happening, I said, ‘Of course I’ll
help,’” Floyd says. “ e couple had set a date and wanted to keep it. at’s all
we had to hear. It was so sweet, and I was so touched. We just went to work
immediately. We were going to make it special.”
Something borrowed, something green
A er quick calls to supervisory personnel, who also gave the wedding the
thumbs-up, a brainstorming session set everything in motion. White sheets
became both elaborate drapes over the solarium’s windows and a carpet, covered
in oral petals, for the bride’s wheelchair. Light tissue paper—usually used when
weighing newborns—was refashioned into large rose-like decorations. Other
patients even loaned their oral arrangements.
“We even made her a bouquet,” Floyd says. “When her family members came in
and saw everything, they were so appreciative. We asked them, ‘Is there anything
else we could do, anything else Kimberly would want?’ And someone said, ‘Is there
any way we could make her a veil?’ And we said, ‘Of course, we can make her a
veil.’ One of us had a headband, so we sewed some of the sheer white paper to the
back and, there, she had a veil she could wear on the back of her head.
“I guess we just all thought it was the greatest thing and so cool to be a part
of their special day. We even had other patients asking if they could come and
watch the wedding. It was so emotional for us.”
And there in the hospital’s solarium—long a er the sun had set but still on
their original wedding date of May 4—the groom and his bride, who wore a mint
green hospital gown, exchanged, in sickness and in health, their wedding vows.
“ ere wasn’t a dry eye in the place,” Floyd says.
It wasn’t until a er the ceremony that the Waccamaw nurses learned Kimberly
is also a nurse back in Ohio. “ at made it even more special for us,” Floyd says.
And for Kimberly too.
“We de nitely felt blessed that they did all this for us,” Kimberly says. “When
you go to school and graduate to become a nurse, you are told that every nurse is
part of a family. You are connected to other people as a nurse. I remember when
I rst saw what they had done, I just started crying. I never expected it. It was
absolutely beyond anything I could have imagined.”
And Travis, who had approached the nurses with a simple request, unsure
what reaction he would receive, couldn’t have been more pleased. “It was all
pretty wonderful,” he says. “I keep trying to come up with the right word, and all
I can come up with is
awesome
. It was just awesome. Maybe at the end of the day
it wasn’t the wedding we had planned, but we have an awesome story to tell.”
The extra mile
Pam Maxwell, BSN, RN, who serves as vice president of operations and
administrator of Waccamaw Community Hospital, said Travis and Kimberly’s story
is a clear example of the hospital’s commitment to providing a good environment
for its nurses—and why the nurses earned the Pathway to Excellence award.
“Waccamaw Community Hospital is a nurturing environment where nurses can
ourish, but most of all, where patients can be con dent that their nurses approach
their care knowing that they are valued and supported by our hospital,” Maxwell says.
“It energizes and motivates nurses to go that extra mile for their patients.”
Travis Smith and Kimberly Elgin posed in more traditional wedding attire a er her recovery.
Photo byWhitney Boyd, courtesy of First Glance Photography
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