Deena Petringa (or Donna Petringa[1]) was a nurse at San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital and has been for 4 decades. She later dies of COVID-19.
History[]
Background[]
By 2020, Deena has worked as a nurse for 4 decades. During her time at St. Bonaventure, she was a nurse when Dr. Audrey Lim was a resident. At one point, when a doctor's treatment of Lim made her cry, Deena stood up for the young woman to the doctor and bought Lim time to compose herself. She also has a son named Jimmy and a granddaughter named Darcy.
Season 2[]
In "Quarantine," Deena is one of the few medical professionals trapped in the ER during a viral quarantine. Deena helps Audrey Lim, Shaun Murphy and Morgan Reznick treat the various patients during the chaos. After Shaun's sensory overload prevents him from coming up with an answer to Santa Pete's bowel obstruction, Deena offers a solution herself. However, despite their best efforts, the bowel obstruction turns into a bowel perforation, forcing the residents to perform surgery in the ER, guided by an ill Lim who collapses in the middle. During the surgery, a man collapses and Shaun returns to help Deena treat him, determining that he is in hypoglycemic shock and giving Deena instructions. When Kellan Park begins suffering an asthma attack and everyone panics thinking he has the virus, Deena remains calm and tries to treat Kellan whose inhaler is empty as well as the diabetic patient.
In "Quarantine: Part Two," having stabilized the diabetic patient, Deena continues treating Kellan, working to talk him through the asthma attack. She is aided by his father Dr. Alex Park who breaks into the quarantine to help his son. After Pete's surgery is completed, Deena aids Shaun in taking care of the patients in the waiting room as Morgan focuses on helping Lim and Park works on performing a bone marrow extraction. After Viola goes into labor and suffers complications, Shaun is forced to perform a C-section on her as his first solo surgery, guided by Dr. Garcia from outside and with only Deena to help him. At one point, Shaun is forced to yell at all three women when their shouting at him starts to overwhelm Shaun again. Shaun succeeds in delivering the baby, but he isn't breathing and Viola begins bleeding out. Though both Deena and Garcia urge Shaun to focus on saving the mother, he is able to save both with the help of Kellan. As everyone celebrates the successful birth, an awed Deena calls it a Christmas miracle. Deena later stands over Viola and her child as Viola's husband records his family with his cellphone.
Season 3[]
In "Disaster," Deena asks Dr. Audrey Lim, the new Chief of Surgery, about overtime pay for the nurses which both Andrews and Han refused to give them. Deena is pleased when Lim agrees, but becomes disrespectful when Lim later states that she can't afford to hire more nurses despite acknowledging that Deena is right about needing them. After seeking advice from Andrews, Lim tracks down Deena again and informs her that she can't give the nurses the additional staff as they will lose hours and overtime. Deena is displeased as it seems like Lim is doing them a favor by making sure that they never see their families. However, Lim informs Deena that the real problem is the crap part of their work that takes too long and too many nurses. As a result, Lim has bought new equipment to make their jobs easier. Deena is pleased with this and the two women exchange some friendly banter about the new equipment. Deena thanks Lim who tells Deena that she owes her.
In "Claire," Nurse Petringa acts as the scrub nurse on Dr. Claire Browne's first surgery as lead doctor. In this appearance, she refers to herself as Donna, despite all other official sources listing the character's first name as Deena. This is the only time Petringa's first name is mentioned on the show proper, so it is unknown whether this was a production error.
In "Moonshot," Deena monitors a patient, Rosalind, who is dying of heart failure, alerting Park and Shaun when she has trouble breathing. When the two drop by to visit as Rosalind's ex-husband sits with her, Deena informs them that Rosalind is very close to death. Rosalind dies shortly thereafter.
In "Hurt," after an earthquake, Deena runs the ER with Dr. Morgan Reznick, often clashing with her. Deena suspects that a patient is pregnant, but Morgan disagrees and dismisses Deena's diagnosis. Deena subsequently runs an ultrasound against Morgan's orders, but finds nothing. However, Morgan realizes that Deena was right and the pregnancy is ectopic. Unable to find an available surgeon and with the patient's falopian tube rupturing, Morgan tells a worried Deena that she will do the surgery herself.
In "I Love You," Morgan and Deena perform the surgery together, though Deena tries to get Morgan to minimize her role in the operation out of worry that she will damage her recently-operated on hands. The two succeed in saving the patient with Marcus Andrews taking over from Morgan to close up. However, the damage done from performing the operation may have destroyed Morgan's surgical career.
Season 4[]
In "Frontline Part One," Deena helps Morgan treat an elderly man, Walter, who believes he has diverticulitis and shows no symptoms of COVID-19. The two bond over the Yankees before Morgan takes Walter for a CT scan. A short time later, an alarmed Morgan calls Deena and orders her to put on her mask. Morgan reveals that Walter has COVID and both she and Deena have been exposed to the virus as has everyone who passed through the hallway that Walter was sitting in for an hour. Visibly worried, Deena looks around at all of the people passing by her.
In "Frontline Part Two," a few weeks later, an ill Deena is brought to the hospital by her son Jimmy where she is reunited with Morgan who got also got COVID, but recovered from it. Deena is admitted to the hospital and bonds with Morgan, offering her advice based on Deena's 40 years of nursing. As Deena's condition worsens she resists a ventilator, well aware of her chances on one and is visited by Lim who reminisces about a time when Deena stood up for Lim as a resident to buy Lim time so her attending doctor didn't see Lim crying. Morgan later shows Deena that she is not fighting COVID alone by opening the door to her room and shades so that Deena can see all of the hospital staff watching over her. Deena shares a memory with Morgan about a baseball game she took her son Jimmy to who plans to move to Montana with her granddaughter Darcy and allow Morgan and Lim to put her on a ventilator.
Days later, despite the ventilator, Deena's condition has continued to deteriorate and Lim decides that they have no choice but to remove Deena and allow her to pass. Morgan and Lim shut off the ventilator while placing Jimmy on a FaceTime call so that he can say goodbye to his mother. Deena lives long enough for Jimmy to finish his goodbye before she dies, reducing Lim and Morgan to tears at her death.
Three weeks later, Morgan gives Jimmy the game ticket Deena had shown to her. Jimmy reveals that Deena used to talk about Morgan a lot, particularly Morgan's actions during the earthquake and the price that Morgan had paid as a result. "She said that you can rest easy if you've got that... tough Reznick in your corner," says Jimmy. Morgan and Jimmy share a laugh over the fact that Deena didn't phrase it exactly like that before Jimmy leaves the hospital with Morgan still visibly upset over losing Deena.
Trivia[]
- Her name and type of nurse is mentioned in Claire.
Appearances[]
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