First responder, nurse dies after COVID-19 exposure in Wisconsin. ‘She wanted to help’

A 15-year veteran of a Wisconsin fire department died of COVID-19 after she was exposed in the line of duty, her sister says.

Capt. Kelly Raether, 42, joined the Ixonia Fire Department in 2005 as an EMT before ascending the ranks to captain of emergency medical services, the department said.

Raether was on a call for the fire department when she was exposed to the coronavirus, her sister Kari told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She was sick for a month.

Ixonia Fire Chief Dave Schilling said he and Raether were tending to a patient in an ambulance in November who tested positive for the virus, WLWT reported. Schilling said he and his other partner were fine, but Raether “ended up testing positive.”

A few days later, she was hospitalized, he told the outlet. Her condition continued to worsen.

“(I) talked to her on the phone quite a bit, a lot of text messaging back and forth,” Schilling said, according to WLWT. “She was absolutely convinced that she was going to go into the hospital, get straightened out, and come back out again and go about her normal life again.”

On Nov. 27, the department announced Raether had died from complications due to COVID-19.

“As a department, we mourn Kelly’s loss deeply, and extend our thoughts and prayers to the Raether family in their time of need,” the department said, adding, “Rest in peace sister, we’ll take it from here.”

Schilling called Raether a “dedicated individual” who was deeply involved at the fire department, the Journal Sentinel reported.

She was a registered nurse with a passion for teaching, serving as a lecturer in nursing at Carroll University.

She was also working toward her doctorate to become an emergency room nurse practitioner, Kari Raether told the Journal Sentinel.

“She wanted to help more people in an ER setting,” Kari Raether said. “She just started that this semester.”

Raether previously earned her master’s of science in nursing, with a specialization in education from Walden University.

“I got into teaching to share my passion for nursing and education with others,” she wrote on her Carroll University faculty page. “ I love learning from the students as much as I hope they love learning from me.”

Dr. Teri Kaul, chair of nursing at Carroll University, said Raether had just gotten started.

“Her career as a nurse educator and leader in nursing had just begun,” Kaul said, the Journal Sentinel reported. “Nursing is a calling to serve others, which Kelly always did with honor and grace.”

Schilling said Raether’s passing is considered a line-of-duty death, WLWT reported.

“(Her) locker will remain empty. I’m not gonna replace (her),” he said. “No one is going to be going into that locker.”

Ixonia is roughly 35 miles west of Milwaukee.

Wisconsin has logged more than 391,000 cases of COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic and more than 3,400 deaths, according to data from the state health department.