SAN ANTONIO — Inside Brooke Army Medical is a team that you would normally never see.
Staff Sergeant Shane Gengler is one of many lab technicians that work inside this hospital. The Air Force tech has seen his job change drastically in the last few months.
“Honestly,” SSGT Gengler said, “in the beginning it was just pure craziness. Things were changing daily. Sometimes, things were changing hourly. It’s a really good thing that in the Air Force, we’re really flexible and they really preached that on us. You know, flexibility is the key.”
Before the pandemic began, this lab focused on blood tests. The techs were focused on looking for parasites, disease or other abnormalities within the blood that may be making people sick. Then the coronavirus arrived.
“It started off a little slow,” Gengler said. “You know, kind of like the news kind of trickling in, and this is kind of on the map. All of sudden, when this thing (coronavirus) just took off, it just took off. It flooded us and we start to shut down certain areas of the lab so we can just focus primarily on testing for the coronavirus.
Today, more than 350,000 tests have been done in Bexar County alone. Once a person is swabbed, that test is sent to a lab similar to the one at BAMC. It’s people like Staff Sergeant Gengler who confirm if someone is positive for coronavirus.
“This was really interesting to be able to see,” Gengler added. ”Hey, I'm doing some really cool here by putting out these results, and it's a nationwide event that I'm influencing and I'm affecting.
Gengler calls everyone from the people taking the tests, the lab techs, and even the doctors worker bees. He says they are all working to make a difference. And despite having a successful mission so far, Gengler has the same feeling as many of us.
“We're ready for it to be over,” Gengler says with a smile. “We're ready to get back to normal life.”