‘The soles were torn up’: Nurse gives the shoes off her own feet to patient in need

MADISONVILLE, Ky. (WFIE/Gray News) - A nurse in Kentucky is being praised for her generosity when it came to a patient in need.

When Lou Coulon came in for her shift as a nurse in the endoscopy unit on a cold day in February, she had no idea she would be leaving without her shoes.

Coulon said she first noticed a patient with holes in their shoes a few months before. When that same patient returned for another appointment wearing the same old shoes, she said the sight tugged on her heart strings

“The laces were all shredded, and the soles were torn up,” she described. “You could see through the sides.”

With ice on the ground and freezing temperatures, Coulon said she worried for the patient’s safety. That’s when Coulon decided to go above and beyond her job description- by giving the patient the shoes that she had on her feet.

The nurse said she had just bought the particular pair of shoes she was wearing that day for herself. She said she didn’t want to give the new shoes away at first, even though a small voice in her head told her otherwise.

“Something was just nudging me. I heard a voice saying, ‘Hey, take off your shoes,’” she said.

Coulon said she did not have another pair of shoes to wear home at the end of the day. However, she decided to get some socks with rubber grips on the bottom that the hospital keeps on hand for patients.

“I put them over my socks,” she said. “I thought, ‘Oh, that will get me to the car.’”

Fortunately, Coulon said she was able to find another pair of shoes someone had donated that were a few sizes to big that she used to get home.

“It kind of reiterated that I’m in the right place and the right profession,” she said.

Coulon has been a nurse at Baptist Health Deaconess Madisonville for six years. For eight years before that, she worked there as a housekeeper, studying and learning everything she needed to know to be a good caretaker.

“The nurses’ creed says that we will take care of those that are devoted to our care. That’s part of our profession, is to seek and look and pay attention to the welfare of our patients and to meet the needs that we can while they’re in our care,” she said.

Eventually, Brooks footwear, the maker of Coulon’s shoes, learned of her kindness and sent her a voucher to purchase any pair she wanted to replace the ones she gave away.

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