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♦ Update: Lori Marie Key's pro-quality delivery of "Amazing Grace" after a shift on the virus war front line provided the closing segment track for "NBC Nightly News" on Monday.
"Michigan nurse inspires America" says the network, which plays a slide show of health care workers around the country during Key's a capella viral video in the 46-second video above.
Original article, Sunday:
How sweet the sound, indeed.
Lori Marie Key of Belleville, a 28-year-old registered nurse at St. Mary Mercy Hospital in Livonia, raised a beautiful voice in song for exhausted colleagues during a recent shift change. Her stirring delivery of "Amazing Grace" (below) captivated 2 South teammates who've worked "through many dangers, toils and snares," as a third-stanza lyric says.
It also attracts nearly 300,000 online viewers.
T'was grace that taught my heart to fear
And grace, my fears relieved
Key posted the video, taped by a fellow nurse, on Facebook last Monday. "I was requested to sing during our morning huddle," she said there. "This week on our floor has been CRAZY, we need the Lord's Grace and Mercy during this time.
Lori Key in a National Nurses Week selfie last year. "I am so humbled," she posts this weekend. (Photo: Facebook)
"Stay home if you don't need to leave the house. Pray for the sick and health care workers at risk for this disease."
A social media manager for St. Joseph Mercy Health System responed: "Thank you, Lori, for your beautiful initiative to raise your fellow colleagues' spirits as you fight tirelessly on the front lines of COVID-19."
T'was grace that brought us safe thus far
Another comment comes from an admirer in Chatworth, Ga., named Bee James, who saw the clip on ABC's "Good Morning America." He posts Friday:
I am just an old Baptist preacher from Georgia. This morning I saw you singing my favorite hymn, 'Amazing Grace' in the most beautiful and heartfelt passion I have ever heard it.
As you serve there on the fromt lines that are filled with danger, you and all those with you are in my many prayers. This has the potential to be one of the greatest Easters ever, as Easter is simply about those two things we all need right now -- hope and victory.
In reaction to the growing attention, Key says this weekend on Facebook: "I am so humbled. Thank you everybody for the comments and love! To nurses everywhere, stay strong for our patients."
She tells Freep reporter Elisha Anderson about working overnight 12-hour shifts and having "to put a patient in a body bag for the first time. The western Wayne healthcare hero adds in the phone interview:
"It just takes a special type of person to be a nurse and we are going to stay encouraged and we're going to hold to our oath and take care of our patients, more than ever. Because they need it the most right now.
Experience the impact of these 42 seconds of grace:
