COVID sees worlds collide for Laura Harris

Even if somebody had told Laura Harris that she was living the double life as a professional cricketer and an emergency department nurse, they unlikely would have predicted that her two worlds would collide on the eve of the WNCL Final.

A potential coronavirus outbreak in Brisbane prior to the Queensland Fire squad departing for Melbourne meant the entire squad needed to return a negative COVID-19 test in just a few hours before taking the field.

“At 10pm, our team physio rung and asked if I’d done a covid swab before because we’re going to need them back in time to play tomorrow,” says Laura

“I messaged Redders (teammate Dr. Georgia Redmayne) asking if she had done one before because even though I’d have done it myself, it would’ve been nice to have somebody with a bit of experience there too.

“Luckily we got away with it and some external people came in to do them. It made for a very interesting night.”

Undoubtedly a different build-up to a final to the norm and that’s not all that’s changed in the 12 months since we last spoke with Laura about her work as a nurse.

“Every day at work is sort of a mystery in terms of whether you’ll be back into gowns and gloves and face shields for every patient you work with, you’re just waiting on the next little outbreak and the next little outbreak after that.

“When the doctor caught covid off of a patient a few weeks ago now, we were back in masks for every patient we saw, not just those with cold and flu-like symptoms.”

Despite the year shrouded in uncertainty, nursing has still provided a nice little switch off for Laura during a title-winning WNCL campaign with the Fire.

“I still enjoy it as much as I always have,” says Laura.

“COVID brings a different challenge and in some ways a bit more excitement I guess, not in a “I wish people were sick sort of way but in the way that you could genuinely impact people’s lives every day on.

“I think we were probably doing that every day already but now there’s much more of a hype around it.”

It was the desire to have hands on job that led Laura into her nursing career originally and she’s loved the move into the emergency department.

“Originally, I wanted to be a physio but I saw my older sister studying it and it was two years of books so I decided that wasn’t for me, I didn’t enjoy being stuck behind a desk,” she says.

“Nursing was sort of my next thing along, I had a go and it’s worked out alright, since the move to emergency I’ve loved it being on the go all the time and I haven’t wanted to do anything else.”