Georgia nurse comes out of retirement to help during pandemic

COBB COUNTY, Ga. - Imagine being retired from your job and reentering the workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic.

That is exactly what one Cobb County nurse and mother decided to do after feeling compelled to give back to her community in a time of need.

Mitzi Walters always wanted to be a nurse. The mother of two and grandmother of six actually graduated from high school early to get a jump on nursing school.

"I wanted to take care of people and give back do service and caring for individuals," Walters said.

In fact, Walters decided to come out of retirement and return to Wellstar Health System after learning about the nursing shortage during the pandemic. 

"I came back February and I actually reached out to Wellstar to see if I can help out with the nursing shortage," she said. "They were having to pull people from doctor's offices and different areas of the hospital to staff the vaccine areas and I was very happy to come back and help our community in any way I could."

 The mother and grandmother not only started her nursing career at Wellstar but also delivered both her sons there and says Mother’s Day has always been special to her.

"My first one, most people take going to labor and delivery and just delivery with a normal birth for granted sometimes and I didn't have either one.  Both of my children were premature. Steven was 3 lbs 3 ounces and Duncan was 2 lbs and 10 ounces," she said. "So we did not know when I delivered if your children were going to survive.  And now we have two very healthy young men, they are 31 and 28."  

Walters says she is happy to spend time with them after being separated during the pandemic.  

"We didn't get to see our grandkids for a while, they just now returned to school in the last six weeks," she said. "So they have been out of school …so we were not really able to get together with them. We have a new grandbaby and until we both got … both of our vaccines, we really were discouraged to be around him because of him being a newborn."

Many mothers and grandmothers have been frontline workers during the pandemic and FOX 5 wants to thank all of them for their hard work.

If you are wondering how Walters will be celebrating Mother's Day, her husband Dr. Steve Walters says he has special plans involving grilling up some steaks and allowing her time to rest.

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