Tag: Tara Rappleyea

On March 6, Tara Rappleyea was on the floor of Madison Square Garden performing to Amy Winehouse’s “Valerie” with her fellow Knicks City Dancers as the team took on the Oklahoma City Thunder. Less than a week later, her dancing gig was on ice when the NBA postponed the season due to the coronavirus. But the 27-year-old has hardly been idle. Her day job is working as an ICU nurse at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Somerset in Somerville, New Jersey.

“It seemed like it happened overnight. Our unit went from regular patients to COVID,” said Rappleyea, who lives in South Amboy and became a registered nurse almost two years ago. Before all this, she logged three 12-hour overnight shifts per week; now, she is working around 60 hours a week.

Whenever a COVID-19 patient is discharged, The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun” plays throughout the hospital. “You just get the chills,” Rapelyea said. “It reminds you why you are there.” The Jersey native, who graduated from Rutgers, joined the Knicks City Dancers in 2016.