Johan Sweitzer and Karen HayesWhen engaged couple Johan Sweitzer and Karen Hayes entered SylvanSport’s GO Camping Trailer Giveaway last fall, they had no idea what that would end up meaning to them.
Sweitzer is an emergency helicopter pilot and Hayes is a flight paramedic and critical care physician’s assistant. The duo works in the Charlottesville, Va. area.
The couple visited Brevard, N.C. last fall, where SylvanSport is headquartered, and entered the contest to win the GO. This spring they found out they won and ended up taking possession of it right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Originally supposed to be married in May, the couple had to postpone their wedding due to coronavirus. To commemorate the occasion, they took their new GO back to the spot where Sweitzer proposed – Reddish Knob in George Washington National Forest, on the Virginia/West Virginia border – and said they were so grateful for the stress relief it provided.
Hayes’ work puts her alongside patients often at their worst moments. Whether it’s on the side of a road after a severe accident and she’s hopping out of a helicopter – flown by Sweitzer – to care for them, or in the ICU at her local hospital, she cares for her patients at their most vulnerable times. With the arrival of COVID, the ICU became an even more intense setting for Hayes.
“The worst thing about COVID is that patients have no family there,” she said. “As healthcare providers we watch them go through awful situations without their family.” Karen goes on to say that even with all of the “devastating stuff going on in the world, there’s a lot of beauty around us.”
Adds Sweitzer, “We work in a very stressful environment and getting outside is important for our mental health and helps us to not get burnt out by our jobs. Winning the GO has made spending time outdoors so much easier and convenient for us to get outside and reset.”
