A five year old patient came into the ED in the early morning hours with respiratory distress. The patient was accompanied by his grandparents who had recently moved down to Florida from New York with their grandson. Apparently, the child's mother was wrapping up things in New York and was to follow soon. The child received treatment here in our department and made some improvement, but Dr. A felt he needed to be transferred to All Children's hospital. When the grandmother was made aware of the need for transfer she began to cry and told Nikki the story of having recently moved here, trying to care for the child until the mother moved here, having no money and no gas in their car to make the trip to St. Petersburg to be with their grandchild at this difficult time.

Having listened to this story and being the caring and compassionate nurse that she is, as well as being a mother herself, Nikki became tearful and decided she needed to do something to help this family. She pulled money out of her own wallet and initiated a collection asking other staff if they would be willing to help out as well. She was able to collect enough money to provide these grandparents with money for gas and other miscellaneous expenses so that they would be able to follow their grandchild to All Children's and be by his side.