April Eldridge, Wellstar Douglas

Eldridge was nominated by nursing colleague Belinda Jordan, who shared how th recipient’s kindness changed a stranger’s life.

Eldridge had been at a shopping mall when she noticed a woman wandering the parking lot. Realizing the woman couldn’t find her car, Eldridge didn’t hesitate to help. She drove the woman around in search of the vehicle and took her home when it didn’t turn up. Waiting at the house was the woman’s frantic son, who revealed his mother had Alzheimer’s and may have taken an Uber to the mall.

“Her compassionate intervention didn’t stop there,” Jordan said. “She arranged for the family to find the support they needed for their mother. What seemed like a simple act of kindness — a drive to find a car — had actually been a lifeline.”

Eldridge knows what it means to face challenges. Growing up in Detroit and then Florida, she never knew her mother’s side of the family — her grandmother had been murdered. Then, at just 12 years old, her mother died and she was left in the care of her 18-year-old sister.

But amid the heartbreak, a moment of inspiration changed everything. At the hospital, Eldridge saw a man in a white lab coat treating her mother and everyone with kindness and respect. She assumed he was a doctor.

“He was so nice,” Eldridge recalled.

As it turned out, he was a nurse’s assistant — but his compassion made a lasting impression. Eldridge knew then she wanted to become a nurse.

Years later, fate brought them back together. She met him unexpectedly, and to her surprise, he still remembered her and her mother by name.

Eldridge earned her associate’s and bachelor’s degrees in Michigan and is in school now to be a psychiatric mental health professional.

“There are a lot of things people go through, even worse than I did,” she said. “They actually need to get that help so they can be that person God intended them to be.”

Eldridge has been a nurse since 2009, spending much of her career in the ICU. She’s witnessed countless moments of struggle and triumph, including one she calls a miracle.

A man had been critically injured in a traffic accident, and his family was debating whether to request a do not resuscitate order. Eldridge suggested comfort care and shared her belief that “God gets the last word.”

Three days later, she saw the man walking the hospital halls. That’s when she said, she knew “God works fast.”

When she’s not at the hospital, Eldridge and her husband run a car lot — something she’s been involved with since before becoming a nurse. They have three children: a son who is an EMT, a 13-year-old daughter, and her husband’s brother who they adopted when he was 4 years old. Now in his 30s, he’s very much part of the family, Eldridge said.

She said she handles the pressures of nursing through prayer and self-care.

“If I don’t have prayer, I feel doomed,” she said.

She’s seen nurses who treat the job as just a paycheck, but said that’s that’s never been her mindset.

“I know nursing is stressful, but the way I look at it, one of these patients could be a family member,” Eldridge said. “We became nurses to help people and get them back to optimal health. When you don’t care, you should get out.”

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