KANSAS CITY, Mo. — There are angels among us. That’s the spirit behind a St. Luke’s Hospital award voted on each year by co-workers.
This year that angel isn’t a caregiver–it’s just someone who cares. St. Luke’s angel is Tyrrell Moore, an employee who goes way beyond his job to help others.
“I’m a people friendly person, and I like to talk a lot,” said 46-year-old Tyrrell Moore, who has been a housekeeper at St. Luke’s for 13 years.
“I got hurt before, I was run over, and I want to give my love to the family, I know how they feel,” Moore said.
At age 13, Moore was run over by a truck — putting him in the ICU for three months. Now, he prays for the families and patients because he said he didn’t have that when he was in the hospital, and wants to let people know someone cares.
“Come in there and put a little smile on their face,” Moore added.
Jim Gordon, the pastor at Pine Ridge Church met Tyrrell recently. In fact, he mentioned Tyrrell in a sermon because he fit into his message.
“I was talking about people who have been wounded in some way or another, are often times the best healers themselves,” Gordon explained.
One of the members of Pastor Gordon’s church suffered a stroke, so he was visiting him at St. Luke’s. A nurse was inside working when he got there, so he waited in the hallway — when Tyrrell walked by.
“I noticed he had a little picture of a blonde child, like a painting, and it was interesting so I said, ‘what does that mean to you?'” added Pastor Gordon.
That’s when Moore told him he’s an angel.
“And I said, ‘really, I’ve heard a lot about angels, I’ve always wanted to meet one,'” said Pastor Gordon, “And I said, ‘how many are there here? he said, ‘one, it’s me.'”
Each year hospital employees vote for a co-worker who demonstrates strong integrity in their work. This year, those co-workers deemed Tyrrell their heaven sent recipient of the “Angel for an Angel” award.
“Of all the doctors and nurses and medical people, experts, it was Tyrrell, it was the guy who comes in and cleans up and empties their trash that was most helpful,” Pastor Gordon said.
Moore’s supervisor, Amir Jahansouz, says he gets positive phone calls about Moore regularly. He says this angel without wings has a way of connecting with people.
“Tyrrell calls me and says come up here and meet my family, people sitting around the waiting room and he calls them his family, and they even call him a family member,” Jahansouz said.
Moore says he takes great pride in his award.
“I was happy,” said Moore, “I’ve never had anything like this!”
Moore says he’ll continue to be an angel here for as long as St Luke’s will have him.
A spokesperson for the hospital says St. Luke’s has more than 10,000 employees, just to give you an idea just how many people can be nominated.
