Woman who dressed as naughty nurse last year forced to become actual nurse this year

Karli Francis, 26, of Livingston, MT, did not expect to recycle last year’s Halloween costume into this year’s uniform. “I left the knee-high stockings at home,” she said, “the lace kept getting caught on my patient’s catheter.”

When Livingston was hit especially hard this summer by COVID following an influx of anti-mask sentiment, Francis answered the call to join the ranks of frontline medical workers, inspired by her brief night out as a naughty nurse in 2019.

“It’s wild. Last year I was doing Jell-O shots off a Jim Hopper look-alike and this year I’m giving flu shots to children with no idea if they’ll work. Will they? Why does nothing work right now?”

Prior to the pandemic and the economic downturn, Francis waited tables at The Short Stack Diner and made the bulk of her income during the summer by working beer tents at Red Rocks Music Festival.

“Short Stack closed permanently and music, hope, happiness, verified science…those things don’t exist anymore, so a three-month accelerated nursing program was the right move,” said Francis as she popped 64-year-old Ron Naselrod’s dislocated shoulder back into the socket. “Kinda like tapping a keg right?”

Livingston is one of many small towns around the U.S. experiencing a shortage of supplies, nurses and doctors to adequately respond to surging hospitalizations.

Despite being thrust into a profession with life and death responsibility on her shoulders, Francis says she still keeps things naughty. Like, HIPAA-appropriate naughty, but still, naughty.