Transcendients: Memorial to Healthcare Workers
Died 29 April 2020
CORRINA THINN
RACE/ETHNICITY Native American
OCCUPATION Licensed clinical social worker
LOCATION Tuba City, AZ
AGE 44
CONCERNS ABOUT ADEQUATE PPE? Yes
Social worker was a 'model Navajo'
Corrina Thinn grew up in a home without electricity and running water. That was common in her rural Navajo Nation community, about 60 miles north of Tuba City, Arizona. Years later as a social worker at Tuba City Regional Health Care, Corrina saw patients living the same way. She empathized with them better than some of her co-workers could. "Corrina would come home and say, 'I don't know why they're making a big issue out of it. We can get by,'" her mother, Mary Thinn, recalled.
Corrina did more than just get by. She was what her oldest son, Gary Werito Jr, called a "model Navajo.""She left the reservation to get an education,” he said. “And then she came home and helped her people." In early March, Corrina saw a patient while not wearing PPE, according to her sister Chris. That patient died shortly afterward of Covid-19.
After learning of her patient’s death, Corrina self-isolated. Her main concern was for her sister, Cheryl, who also worked at the hospital and had underlying conditions. Cheryl, too, became infected. Corrina was airlifted to Banner Thunderbird Medical Center in Glendale on 24 March and intubated on arrival. She died on 29 April – two weeks after her 44th birthday and 18 days after Cheryl died.
"What I think,” her son said, “is that my mom didn't want my aunt to go alone."
– Shoshana Dubnow