Nevada nurse who came to NYC to work on the coronavirus frontlines claims minority patients are being murdered by negligent doctors misplacing ventilator tubes and giving unnecessary defibrillation, but 'nobody cares'

A frontline nurse treating coronavirus in New York has claimed that patients are 'literally being murdered' by medical negligence and mismanagement every day, but that 'nobody cares because they're all minorities.'

Speaking out in despair 37-year-old Nicole Sirotek described work at the frontline as like 'going into the f***ing twilight zone,' and told of hospital units in such disarray that she was once assigned to care for a patient already in a body bag.

She said, 'They're not dying of COVID. Yes people are going to die of COVID, I know this, I'm not like a new grad student. I am literally saying they're murdering these people.

'And nobody cares because they're all minorities and we're in the f***ing hood and that's not okay.'

NYC nurse breaks down over negligent treatment of COVID patients

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ICU nurse Nicole Sirotek spoke out in a tearful video about the mismanagement and medical negligence at New York City hospitals

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Sirotek, 37, (pictured with her husband) told of one patient who died while waiting for an X-ray because her warning that the anesthesiologist had misplaced a ventilator tube was ignored

According to Sirotek, 'I legitimately don't know what to do anymore. Even the advocacy groups don't give a s*** about these people. Like literally, Black Lives Don't Matter here.'

Sirotek made her whistleblowing allegations in an emotional video posted on YouTube. Her decision to go public was driven by despair as her attempts to advocate for her patients have all fallen on deaf ears.

She said, 'What I need is someone to help me save these people from being killed from gross negligence and medical mismanagement and no-one is listening to me.'

The city has had more than 170,000 cases of the virus. It became the epicenter of America's pandemic spread in a wave that saw hospitals and medical staff overwhelmed by sickness in their own ranks and patients beyond their help.New York City has been hit the hardest of anywhere in the country with the latest figures quoting 13,724 confirmed COVID-19 deaths and another 5,383 probable deaths.

The mother-of-two from Elko, Nevada was one of hundreds of medics to travel to New York as the virus surged. 

She left her young family hundreds of miles away to bring vital support to the city at the peak of its crisis. Posting on his Facebook page her husband, Ryon, 39, told how he missed his wife but was proud of her, 'kicking a**' in New York.

But according to the nurse's emotional video hospitals are no longer swamped as they once were and there are plenty of nurses in the wards on which she has worked.

There is now, she said, 'no reason' for the deaths that she has witnessed other than incompetence, mismanagement and a seemingly reckless lack of care on the part of some hospital personnel.

Sirotek said, 'They're medically mismanaging these patients…Nobody is listening. They don't care. I'm literally coming here each day and watching them kill them.'

Speaking from a hospital breakroom between changing units she recalled a series of deaths that she had witnessed that were not only avoidable but in some cases actively brought about by medical intervention.

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She described how a resident doctor defibrillated a patient with an already beating heart and a nurse who placed a feeding tube into a patient's lungs

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Sirotek's husband Ryon told how he missed his wife but was proud of her, 'kicking a**' in New York in a Facebook post 

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The mother-of-two from Elko, Nevada was one of hundreds of medics to travel to New York as the virus surged

She told of one patient who died while waiting for an X-ray because her warning that the anesthesiologist had misplaced a ventilator tube was ignored. She said, 'Literally only one side of his chest is inflating. He dies.'

She described how a resident doctor defibrillated a patient with an already beating heart. She recalled, 'The resident starts doing chest compressions which is not what you do. I run to stop him. He f***ing defibrillates him and kills him. I was literally saying, ''Can you stop him he's going to kill that patient?'' And the director of nursing just shook his head and I turned around and he killed the dude.'

Among other horrific incidents she listed are a nurse who placed a feeding tube into a patient's lungs, a nurse who administered a lethal dose of short acting insulin when she confused it for long acting and another who fell asleep at her station while a patient's blood pressure dropped without notice causing permanent mental impairment.

She told of one patient who choked to death on his own blood when the anesthesiologist ruptured his esophagus trying to intubate him and another whose lungs were 'blown out' by a wrongly set ventilator.

Several medics working with COVID-19 patients have raised concerns over the efficacy and potential dangers of ventilators.

A recent survey found that around 25 per cent of New York patients put on ventilators died with some doctors claiming they do little good to most patients and actual harm to many.

In a state of clear exhaustion, the nurse said, 'Guys they don't even know when people are dead. How many times have I told you they've assigned me a dead person?'

On one occasion she was assigned to care for a patient about whom she had expressed repeated concern the previous night. She said, 'They assigned him to me, and he was already in a body bag.'

In a desperate attempt to put the situation into some sort of context Sirotek said, 'I know this is a kind of extreme example but it's the only one I can come up with.

'It's like if we were in Nazi Germany and they were taking the Jews to a gas chamber and I'm the one saying, 'Hey that's not okay. This is wrong.' And then everyone tells me, 'Hang in there. You're doing a great job. You can't save everybody.'

The nurse accepted that some people will suffer organ failure and die and that not everybody can be saved but said, 'I'm pretty sure when you defibrillate someone with a heart rate of 40 and a stable rhythm that's murder.

'And I'm pretty sure when you put someone's PEEP (Positive End Expiratory Pressure on a ventilator) up to 25 and PEEP doesn't go past like 15 or 20 and you blow someone's lungs out and they die - that's murder.'

Sirotek's attempts to alert advocacy groups and nursing administration made, she said, no difference. She said, 'Can someone come up with some kind of solution for me? Because I'm kind of out of ideas. Am I the only one who's not a sociopath? To think that this is not okay?'

She said, 'I grew up poor. I know how it feels to have nothing and for nobody to advocate for you and that's why I get really upset.'

Before signing off to start her shift at a new unit Sirotek ended with the chilling message, 'Stay safe. Stay out of New York City for your health care.'