Riverhead celebrates its hospital workers with ‘Heroes Way’

Peconic Bay Medical Center has a new address.

The Riverhead hospital hasn’t moved — the Town of Riverhead has officially renamed the stretch of Roanoke Avenue where the hospital is located “Heroes Way.”

Going forward, the hospital’s address is changed from 1300 Roanoke Avenue to 1 Heroes Way, PBMC president and CEO Andrew Mitchell announced at a ceremony outside the hospital this morning.

PBMC health care workers, many dressed in scrubs, joined hospital administrators, town officials, police officers and EMS workers for a brief ceremony saluting the heroes who worked relentlessly this year to save victims of the novel coronavirus.

Riverhead Town Supervisor Yvette Aguiar, who presented the hospital with a proclamation, said it was Mitchell’s vision that led to the new name.

“A hero by definition is a person who in the face of danger combats adversity through feats of courage, strength or ingenuity. It’s only fitting that we honor the men and women of our community, our frontline warriors, by renaming this portion of Roanoke Avenue as Heroes Way,” Aguiar said.

“We can never thank them enough for their dedication, hard work and sacrifices they made in order to protect our community in the face of adversity.”

PBMC vice president and chief nursing officer Chris Kippley performed a bit of the Beatles song, “Here Comes the Sun” — a tune the hospital played to celebrate every time a COVID patient was discharged.

“Ive been a nurse for 30 years and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Kippley said. “We were all very scared when this started. We didn’t know what was going to happen, how it was going to unfold, but the staff in this hospital — the nurses, the techs, the dietitians, the transporters, the security guards — they did exactly what they have done very single day at this hospital. They showed up and they took care of our patients and they did an amazing job.”

Riverhead Councilman Tim Hubbard, who credits the hospital with saving his life in January 2019, when a backyard fall resulted in a ruptured spleen, got choked up recalling how the emergency room team and the OR team came together to save his life that day.

“I was within minutes of bleeding out,” he said. “I am so grateful each and every one of you. The lives that you saved, the happy people that walked out that door to that song, you will never know how much it means to me and to everybody else in this area,” Hubbard said. “So thank you for your hard work and dedication we appreciate it and we love you all.”

Sherry Patterson, chairperson of Peconic Bay’s board of directors, said over the many years she’s been associated with the hospital, staff there had always worked hard to be prepared for a major emergency.

“But I don’t think anyone had any idea it would be something ike COVID-19,” Patterson said. “And when it happened, everyone from the top to the bottom stepped up and did they jobs just like it was any other day,” she said. “I think ‘Heroes Way’ says it all.”

Respiratory therapist Michael Messana thanked the community for its outpouring of support during “the most trying time of our careers… while we were fighting a war inside. The food, parades, pictures, flowers, gifts — these things gave us the support we needed to fight COVID-19, to get our patients better and send them back home to be with their families,” Messana said.

Mitchell said the COVID experience was one of the most frightening times in his 40-plus years in hospital administration.

“We really had no idea where the peak was going to be, and how this was really going to unfold — not just here in our community but across the entire nation. But it was also one of the most incredibly rewarding times,” Mitchell said.

“We could not have done this without our partners in first response and health care in this community,” he said. “And certainly our thanks to all of the EMS corps who come to this institution, to the police department, to all of the other first responders, we thank you so very much and we share, the Heroes Way naming of this street with you.”

With that, PBMC Deputy Executive Director Dr. Amy Loeb, joined by Mitchell and town officials removed the white cloth covering the new “Heroes Way” street sign.

Soon after the formal photo-op was over, hospital workers queued up to pose for pictures under the new sign.

Councilman Hubbard asked the surgeon who put him back together last year, Dr. Steven Ouzonian, to pose with him there.

“He’s my hero,” Hubbard said.