Tune in to “Good Morning America” on Friday, Jan. 15, from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., EST, to watch a live interview with this all-female team in Alaska.
Largely cut off from the rest of the world, people living in the most remote areas of the Last Frontier are getting the COVID-19 vaccine due to the ingenuity and dedication of an all-female team of health care workers.
ABOUT THESE HEROES:
The team of one pharmacist, one medical doctor and two nurses traveled in one day by plane, sled and snowmobile to deliver the vaccine to people across rural northern Alaska.
At one point in the day, with only a few hours of daylight and in subzero temperatures, the team of women carried the COVID-19 vaccine off an Alaskan “bush plane,” and onto a sled attached to a snowmobile.
After arriving by snowmobile at their location, a local villager pulled them the rest of the way to their rural village where elders waited to be vaccinated.
“It was definitely an impactful and powerful moment to realize that we’ve all braved quite a bit to get there and provide care,” one of the female health care workers, Meredith Dean, a 25-year-old resident pharmacist who is originally from Tennessee, told ABC News.
In order to reach elders who are totally immobile and require a home visit, Dr. Katrine Bengaard, who is leading the COVID-19 vaccine distribution from Kotzebue, 33 miles north of the Arctic Circle, and a nurse traveled by snowmobile from each village.
THE CHALLENGES:
The nurse had to wrap the COVID-19 vaccine in a protective envelope and put it under her coat for the ride because the vaccine would freeze inside the needle in the frigid outdoor air.
“We did the best we could, we had to kind of come up with it in the moment,” Bengaard told ABC News.
Bengaard and her nurse safely and successfully inoculated a 92-year-old elder, who told them stories of her parents and the 1918 Spanish flu that decimated native Alaskans.
Together, the four health care workers together traveled hundreds of miles, flying into multiple villages by plane, to deliver 65 vaccinations, a heroic feat in the conditions they faced.
“We made it work and we had a really good time together,” said Bengaard. “We were all willing to crawl around trying to get into this tiny little plane. We were all willing to do what we needed to do.
The women said they will keep going out until everyone is vaccinated.
*Story by Kayna Whitworth, originally published on GMA 1/14/21
ABC News’ Joshua Ascher, Connor Burton and Rachel Hein contributed to this report.
Tune in to “Good Morning America” on Friday, Jan. 15, from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., EST, to watch a live interview with the all-female team in Alaska.