First person vaccinated from COVID-19 in Southern Colorado reflects on past year
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) - December 14, 2021 marks one year since the first COVID-19 vaccine doses outside of a clinical trial were administered across Colorado and the rest of the United States.
The first person to receive the shot in Southern Colorado was Jeremy Hulsker, a registered charge nurse at UCHealth in Colorado Springs. Hulsker was also the second person statewide to receive the shot. Hulsker is now reflecting on that day and the year that has passed.
Seconds before getting the first dose of his vaccine on December 14, 2020, Hulsker said to Coloradans: "I would never ask you to do anything I wouldn't do myself, whether that's cleaning a room, mopping a floor, grabbing lunch, and in this case taking the vaccine.”
He now says that day is one he will never forget.
“Definitely one of the best days of my life," said Hulsker. "I think the general consensus of everybody that was there that day, was just happiness and relief."
Hulsker credits the vaccine with keeping him and his family safe over the last year.
"Eighteen months or so into the pandemic, and knock on wood, I haven't got COVID," said Hulsker. "My wife, who also works at UCHealth, hasn't had COVID. Neither of our children have got COVID. So I feel the vaccine as well as our PPE, has done what it was supposed to do, because I'm around COVID patients every single day during that period, and so far so good."
But despite the vaccine being readily available, more and more unvaccinated COVID patients are still ending up hospitalized at UCHealth.
This grim reality is pushing Hulsker to encourage everyone to roll up their sleeves for their shots, just like he has.
"Almost a full year into this, there's hundreds of millions of people worldwide that have been vaccinated," said Hulsker. "And what I can say is, that people now that are in our hospital, they're not vaccinated. They are sick or the ones that are dying, and the majority of those people say, 'I wish I would have got my vaccination.' One little shot or two shots to help prevent people being really sick.”
Since the first vaccinations one year ago, UCHealth says they've administered 795,800 doses of the COVID vaccine to people all across Colorado.
UCHealth is offering COVID vaccines to anyone 12 and older, along with booster doses. You can sign up by clicking here or calling their vaccine hotline at 720-462-2255.
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