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MORGANTOWN -- Save the Date for the WVU Medicine Jon Michael Moore Trauma Center 13th Annual Night of Recognition (NOR) at 6 p.m. on Oct. 3, at the Morgantown Event Center at Waterfront Place.
The annual gathering honors the hard work and perseverance of those who play a role in caring for patients who have experienced traumatic injuries. Additionally, it provides an opportunity to share the stories of patients who have made remarkable recoveries and recognize the healthcare and support staff who started them on the path to recovery.
Sabrina Hanlon, 66, is a 2014 NOR honoree and grateful patient who credits the team with saving her life when her vehicle and a box truck collided on the interstate in Fairmont in April 2013.
"The Night of Recognition is fantastic because I got to meet the firefighters who helped extract me from my mangled car - the rescue people, the helicopter staff and pilot, paramedics," Hanlon said.
"I met all of them, and that was great because I do not remember much from that day. I do remember Brett, the firefighter who sat in the passenger side of my car and gently reassured me as emergency crews worked for two hours to free me. Many of those workers were volunteers. How amazing is that? They all deserve to be recognized and honored, and NOR does just that."
"The NOR is a unique event, where we are recognizing the skillful teamwork of hundreds of people whose small pieces of the care puzzle are put together to display a masterpiece of healthcare at its finest," Valerie Boley, B.S.N., N.E.-B.C., assistant vice president of the WVU Critical Care and Trauma Institute, said. "This is a feel-good event where we honor patients that have overcome significant trauma events and the team that helped them."
Boley and Hanlon's stories intertwine, as Boley is Hanlon's daughter and witnessed the incredible care and support her mother received at the hands of her coworkers.
"I had no idea how many people took such excellent care of my mother," Boley said. "Without this event, I would never have had the opportunity to thank many of them."
Another grateful patient, Ronald Stemple, 84, a 2023 NOR honoree, says he is truly fortunate to be alive after an accident on his Aurora farm left him with life-threatening injuries. Like Hanlon, his memory is blank from that day in November 2022, but he says the NOR was his opportunity to put faces to the names and voices he faintly recalls as he was flown to WVU Medicine J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital.
"I am thankful for the Night of Recognition because it gave me the chance to meet my doctors. They had taken care of me for weeks, but I did not get to properly thank them," Stemple said.
"That night was not about me; it was about them: the people all the way through, the ones who got me out of the woods to the trauma center and caring for me after. More than 70 medical professionals consulted with me in the six weeks I was in the hospital at Ruby. They are the reason I am alive."
At this year's NOR, attendees will hear the stories of two more patients whose lives were changed by traumatic injuries and how they found their path to recovery at the Jon Michael Moore Trauma Center.
"It is heartwarming to have witnessed this event evolve over the years," Boley said. "We mostly want to recognize at NOR, but we do use this event for fundraising efforts. All the proceeds go back into the communities that we serve by providing education, injury prevention, and outreach efforts to prevent more significant trauma from occurring."
For more information, to purchase tickets, or sponsor the Jon Michael Moore Night of Recognition, visit HSC.WVU.edu/Night-of-Recognition.