Glen Rock sailor serving aboard USNS Comfort, the ship sent to help New York City
Kim StrongWhen the USNS Comfort arrived in New York Harbor last month to help with coronavirus patients, Jacob Machulcz stood on the deck and called his mom.
Brande Machulcz had been looking at news reports from her home in Glen Rock, as the ship pulled in March 30. She saw crowds of people gathered at the dock to welcome the Comfort, a 1,000-bed hospital ship delivered by the Navy to New York to relieve the city's healthcare system.
She messaged her son: "Hey, are you on deck?"
Then her phone rang. Jacob, 23, was calling her on FaceTime to include her in the moment.
"Yeah, Mama was in tears, but proud tears," Brande said.
"It was pretty incredible," Jacob said in an interview from the ship this week. "I don't think a lot of us were prepared for how big of a mission it really was."
The sailors looked in awe at the crowds, helicopters overhead, news crews, and all those people, cheering for them.
"It's nice to know that the work you put in is being recognized," he said.
Working on the Comfort
To his mom, he's Jake. To the Navy, he's Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Jacob Machulcz, a surgical technologist.
"I just wanted to help people, and I thought this was the best way to do it," Jacob said of serving in the military. "There's healthcare opportunities all over the world."
He works with surgeons in the operating room, preparing instruments and positioning them for the doctors.
"It's my job to make sure that the surgeon only has to focus on the surgery," he said.
The mission for the Navy in New York City was to ease the burden of the healthcare system in the city that became the eye of the United States' COVID-19 storm.
As of 2 p.m. April 28, New York City reported nearly 158,000 coronavirus cases, 40,578 hospitalizations, 11,820 confirmed deaths caused by COVID-19 and 5,395 probable deaths from the virus, according to the city's Department of Health.
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The ship, which treated 182 patients while docked, is expected to leave New York this week. Originally deployed to care for patients without coronavirus, the Comfort started accepting them as the city’s hospitals became overrun with people suffering from the disease.
Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman told the Associated Press that the ship's departure “is a sure sign of modest progress in mitigating the virus in the nation’s hardest hit city and is a welcome sign.”
"The whole ship was reconfigured" for its stay in New York, Jacob said. And while getting close to COVID-19's epicenter gave him "a little bit of jitters," the crew was fully dressed in protective equipment while on the ship, and some sailors were moved off the vessel and into hotels during their mission.
"We're just really happy to be doing a mission, and we're really glad to help," Jacob said.
On the front lines
Brande Machulcz and her twins, Jacob and Hannah, are all working on the front lines of the pandemic.
While Jacob serves in the Navy, Brande works at Walmart, and Hannah is a certified nursing assistant at SpiriTrust Lutheran Home in Shrewsbury.
"None of us have skipped a beat," said Brande, who also has another son, Braden. "We just continue to go on."
She is comforted by Jake's phone calls. They give her a sense of peace and calm.
"Honestly, to me, God’s in control. I don’t have any control over this. It’s gonna be what it’s gonna be," she said.
Jacob graduated from Susquehannock High School in 2015 and tried a semester in college before deciding that he'd feel more comfortable in the military. He took the path of his older brother, Anthony Machulcz Jr., who has now been in the Navy nearly two decades.
The three older children lost their father, Anthony Machulcz, 12 years ago.
Next for the Comfort
The Navy reports that the 2020 deployment of the USNS Comfort and USNS Mercy on the West Coast are "providing medical support to Americans in regions significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Navy medical professionals on both ships will assist local health care providers by offering care to persons who do not have the virus, freeing local hospitals and clinics to treat COVID-19 patients."
Brande doesn't know when she'll see her son again.
"It sounds like they're hunkered down," Brande said. "I don’t think the Navy is letting anyone go home on leave for a while."
Kim Strong can be reached at kstrong@ydr.com.