After broken foot, then COVID, RN finds way to help others

Posted: 06/15/2022

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In January of 2021, Marsha Moestchen’s life literally took a dive. The clinical care leader at Good Samaritan Society – Waukon in Iowa slipped and fell while working from home one Sunday.

“I didn’t put my hand on the rail and I slid with one foot and the other I landed on top of,” Marsha, a registered nurse, says. “My husband helped me hobble onto a bed which was close by. That was it. I didn’t walk again for three months.”

Marsha had broken her foot right in the middle of a COVID-19 outbreak at her long-term care location.

“The nerve pain was awful. I got in the ER on Monday. They sent me home. On Tuesday I was going back because I told my husband I can’t take it,” Marsha says.

To make matters worse, she came down with COVID the next week.

‘Pillar of the Good Samaritan’

Marsha’s administrator in Waukon, Steve Bargar, was new to the position and wasn’t sure how the center would move forward without her.