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'How many people did I kill?' Nurse's emotional TikTok confession

An ICU nurse in the US has made a tearful admission to TikTok, admitting she feels responsible for people that died during the height of the Covid pandemic on her ward, due to lack of resources.

In the clip, a user going by the name of Sunny Brooke from Arkansas, explains that she cared for Covid patients during the first wave of the pandemic and has only just begun to process the mental toll it took on her.

This included having to prioritise some patients over others, which she said was one of the "worst things" nurses had to endure.

Screenshot from Sunny Brooke's TikTok close up of her face book straight.
Sunny Brooke's emotional TikTok has been viewed over 910,000 times. Source: TikTok

Ms Brooke explained they ran out of "everything" — including ICU beds and ventilators — and as a result had an overflow of patients that needed critical care.

Hospitals overrun with Covid patients

Ms Brooke, who doesn't post TikToks under her real name due to fear that Covid deniers will find and harass her, reflected on not being able to provide everyone with the care they needed.

"We had all these high acuity patients that would've been in ICU if we had an available bed, or some would've been ventilated if we'd had a vent," she explained.

"When [higher care positions] became available, a lot of the time nurse would be asked 'who do you think needs this bed the most?'"

"They all needed it," the nurse said, before emotionally saying, "how many people did I kill?"

"How many people did I condemn to death because I recommended somebody else who had a better chance?"

Ms Brooke continued saying the decisions weren't made randomly or lightly — but she still carries the guilt with her over decisions made.

"How many people died because of my suggestion. How do you live with yourself after that?

"I'm sorry," she finished the emotional video. "I really am sorry."

In an earlier interview with CNN, Ms Brooke said many people approach her in public, including relatives who had lost loved ones that she had been caring for and Covid-deniers.

"We had people accuse us of giving their loved one something else so that they would die and we could report it as Covid.

"We heard it more than once that we were fudging the numbers, or we were killing people on purpose to make Covid look like it was worse than it was, or to make it look real when it wasn't," she said.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 53.8 per cent of America's population are fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

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