Charlie Ridaura, a registered nurse at El Centro Regional Medical Center, is pictured in the hospital’s E.R. Ridaura shared his experience of serving as an emergency room nurse during the COVID-19 pandemic for this Community Spotlight feature.
Photo provided by ECRMC.

You could say that for much of Charlie Ridaura’s life, he’s known he wanted to work in the medical field. His older brother is a paramedic, and Ridaura first planned to follow in his brothers’ footsteps by becoming a firefighter.

But the Calexico, California native changed his path while working as an emergency medical technician at El Centro Regional Medical Center.

“I started to like working in the hospital,” he said. “I was exposed to what nurses do, and I decided this is where I wanted to be.”

Today, the 28-year-old, who holds a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Grand Canyon University, is coming off the hardest year of

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