Jim & Kathleen Pitt, Progressive Care Unit Supporters

In 2006, Jim and Kathleen Pitt got the call that no parent ever wants to receive. Their son, Jimmy, a junior at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, was in a car accident that broke two of his cervical vertebrae and caused other serious injuries.

After a few months, Jimmy was flown to Baltimore and spent more than a year in various hospitals in the area, being treated for complications of his injuries and receiving rehabilitative care. In early 2008, he was transferred to the progressive care unit (PCU) at Johns Hopkins Bayview, where he stayed for eight months until he passed away. At a recent ceremony, the Pitts honored the PCU nurses with a $10,000 contribution to the unit.

“This unit needed to be singled out for providing superb care,” explains Jim Pitt. “Of all the hospitals and facilities he went to after his accident, I felt Jimmy received the best care in the in the Johns Hopkins Bayview PCU. The nurses were superb. I give them credit for my son living as long as he did. There’s an old saying that ‘doctors save the life, but nurses preserve the life.’ That’s very true—and why we feel so indebted to the nurses there. After Jimmy died, every nurse from the floor came to his funeral. When we presented the donation, every nurse on the unit was there—even those who weren’t scheduled to work that day. That’s how much they care.”