RICHMOND, Ky. (LEX 18) — The hardest part for Stacye Toups has been putting patients in isolation.
The former EKU student is now a fourth year medical student on the frontlines of the coronavirus response in Spain, where cases have spiked.
She works in a nursing home where her days now consist of calling families to give them updates on their loved ones, caring for patients and even crying with patients.
It’s only been two weeks, but Stacye Toups has already seen 15 people die from coronavirus complications. She had to call the families of five of those patients.
Toups is exhausted, both physically and mentally. Supplies are running low. And she knows there are many more weeks like this to come.
Toups has not retreated from this horrifying reality. She has risen to meet it.
Welcome to the life of a basic needs doctor at a nursing home in Madrid, Spain – the hardest-hit COVID-19 city in one of the hardest-hit countries in the world.
Toups during her days at EKU
Rewind 12 years.
Toups arrived in Richmond as a walk-on pitcher for Jane Worthington‘s EKU softball program.
She didn’t stay a walk-on for long.
As a freshman, the Loveland, Ohio native led the Colonels with 11 wins and a 3.13 ERA. By the time she was a sophomore, Toups had earned a scholarship.
Earned first team all-city, all-league and all-conference honors … team MVP … team Most Valuable Defensive Player award … set school records for ERA (0.51) and most innings pitched in one game (17) … had a career batting average of .339 … on the mound she went 28-11 with 419 strikeouts in 273 innings … earned three softball letters … also a member of the Loveland High School volleyball team.
![[Video Interview] Former Loveland High School student Stacye Toups on the frontlines in Spain](https://lovelandmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/feature-Stacye-Toups-2.jpg)
