Holiday favorites visit patients at Macon hospital
“To have this, the light, and the smile on the children's faces is phenomenal.” said Diana Sutton, Chief Nursing Officer for Atrium Health Navicent.
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – After receiving many gifts over the past few weeks, the holiday season just keeps getting better for Atrium.
With less than a week before Christmas, Santa Claus himself, along with the Grinch, and Elf on the Shelf made the trip from the North Pole a little early to make an appearance at Atrium Health Levine Children’s Beverly Knight Olson Children’s Hospital.
The three Christmas legends, along with the help of the Macon-Bibb County Fire Department, waved at child patients going window to window from atop fire truck ladders.
“It’s just unfortunate these children are probably going to be in hospital during Christmas time and they’re not going to get to see Santa Claus,” said Shane Edwards, Fire Chief of the Macon-Bibb County Fire Department. “So these officers behind me brought this to our table and said, hey chief, we’d like to have Santa Claus be able to visit the children that are in the hospitals here this holiday season. So we thought it was great.”
“We reached out to Santa Claus, brought him all the way from the North Pole and grabbed the Grinch and the Elf to come in and help us with visiting the children who are in the hospital during this time,” said Edwards. “So it’s just one of those things that our firefighters wanted to do, to show the community that we do more than just fight fire. We’re doing more than just responding to emergency calls. They are stepping up and doing things that make a difference in the community. This is just one of those things.”
“To have this, the light, and the smile on the children’s faces is phenomenal.” said Diana Sutton, Chief Nursing Officer for Atrium Health Navicent. “A lot of them can’t come out of their room. They’re in the process of healing. So having the ladder go up from window to window, what an exciting time to be sitting in that hospital bed and being able to look out and see Santa or the Grinch coming up to your window to wave hi.”
