Nurses in Iowa Are Fighting an Unprecedented Anti-Union Campaign [View all]

https://prospect.org/labor/2025-09-22-nurses-in-iowa-fighting-unprecedented-anti-union-campaign/



This July, Heather Torrence was in the middle of a 12-hour shift in the ER at Iowa Lutheran Hospital in Des Moines, where she’s worked for 14 years. An intoxicated teenage patient was brought in, and it was Torrence’s job to initiate the treatment process—drawing blood, taking vitals, and speaking to the patient and their family. But before Torrence entered the room, she noticed something that she thinks saved her life: The lights were out.

She proceeded with caution, opening the door to ask why the patient had turned off the lights. But before she could do anything, she saw a movement to her left and heard the patient scream: “I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking kill you. I’m going to kill you!” The patient attacked Torrence, stabbing and scratching at her with a pen and a pair of bent stainless steel forceps. Torrence shouted for security and wrestled with the patient. The entire ER stood still.

“My first thought was, who’s going to go home and tell my child that I was attacked and stabbed by someone his age?” Torrence said. “And then it was, as much as I don’t want this to happen to me, I need to stop her and keep her from doing this to someone else.” Security guards came running from a different part of the ER and pulled the patient off of Torrence.

It was toward the end of her shift, but she couldn’t leave: The ER was incredibly busy, not a rare occurrence. “I felt guilted because the department was busy, and so I ended up staying for another four hours [after the attack],” Torrence said. She left the hospital at 1 a.m. that night. When she removed her clothes—which were torn, even through multiple layers of fabric—she discovered yet another deep scratch that she hadn’t even noticed.

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