This nurse brought a flurry of excitement to kids in the hospital.
Alex Classen, a clinical research nurse at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, didn't want the facility's young patients, who couldn't go outside and play, to miss out on the winter fun -- especially with all the snow Winter Storm Jonas brought in earlier this month.
So she had an idea. Since the patients couldn't go out into the snow, Classen filled up a basin with fluffy stuff the weekend of the storm and brought it right to them.
"They can see all the snow falling from the outside and they were really excited about it," the nurse told The Huffington Post. "But it's not the same for them -- to be able to experience it. So I thought, 'Let's give this a try and bring it in to them so they can touch and feel it."
The nurse explained that many of the kids have a type of immunodeficiency and are at the facility undergoing bone marrow transplants. The immunodeficiency puts them at risk for infection, and while they're undergoing transplants, they're even more fragile so they're unable to go out or be around many people.
She also added that there are kids from all over the world at the facility and some of them have never seen snow in their lifetimes. Classen didn't want them to miss out. So the nurse not only filled up a basin with snow to bring to the patients, she made several trips outside so all the kids would have fresh snow to play with.
The patients made snowballs, colored the snow with magic markers and made snowmen. One child even hit Classen with a snowball, making for a very eventful snow day.
The gesture delighted the kids.
"The nurses are incredibly compassionate and caring. They really look out for the kids and the parents, and it feels like a community," Jan Wiese, mother of 7-year-old patient Lucy, told CBS News. "Lucy has been at NIH for almost eight weeks and has barely been able to leave her room, so it was so much fun for her to be able to play with the snow."
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