Concord Navy Reservist Nurse Called Up Due To Coronavirus: Watch

CONCORD, NH — A Navy nurse, with more than three decades of service, is being called up again to serve her country in the fight against the new coronavirus. Lynne Blankenbeker of Concord, a former Republican state representative from the east side, will soon be heading off to work on one of the Navy's floating hospitals. President Donald Trump directed the Navy to send the floating hospitals, the USNS Comfort and the USNS Mercy, to New York, New York and Los Angeles, California.

The president ordered the hospitals, which have 1,200 medical beds, operating rooms, and other medical facilities, to assist in treating non-COVID-19 patients, so hospitals in both cities can work on coronavirus patients — which are expected to surge in the coming weeks.

Blankenbeker, who is a captain and a reservist, can't talk about specifics of the assignment but said she was honored to be assisting.

"I will be serving, in any capacity that they need, in response to the COVID outbreak," she said.

Blankenbeker's specialties are trauma and working in the operating room but she will be able to do anything a nurse does. She could work logistics, patient safety, quality care, leadership, and risk management, "wherever they need me," Blankenbeker said.

Blankenbeker has served in Afghanistan previously so working on a Navy floating hospital in an American harbor is going to be a little bit safer that prior assignments. No pirates or torpedoes, she said. This assignment, she said, is about public service. Previously, Blankenbeker said, the Navy also went to Haiti after the earthquake, as a humanitarian effort. But now, the emergency is in America.

"This is a national emergency," she said. "This is exactly the thing we report for … nursing is a very noble profession. I'm honored to be asked to take care of the people of this nation."

Blankenbeker is also a candidate for Congress, running for the Republican nomination in New Hampshire's 2nd Congressional District, to face-off against incumbent U.S. Rep. Ann McLane Kuster, D-Hopkinton. In 2018, she placed third in a six-way race for the GOP nomination, falling around 1,200 votes short of Steve Negron, who is also running again in 2020. Other candidates include Eli Clemmer, a school teacher from the North Country, and Gilead Towne, a jeweler from Salem.

While she is serving, her campaign team will be working to keep her effort to win the nomination up and running. Blankenbeker is expecting the assignment to be a short one — and she will be back on the campaign trail, to taking on the political battle later.

"I've always run toward the fight," she said. "Not away from it … it's just a different mission this time."

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