Empowering the community to help one another

Sunny Goodyear, MSN, RN, CCRN
Injury Prevention and Outreach Coordinator
Holy Spirit Medical Center

“I loved being a bedside nurse and helping heal people after an injury or surgery,” says Sunny Goodyear, injury prevention and outreach coordinator at Penn State Health Holy Spirit Medical Center. “But being able to provide education so those injuries don’t happen in the first place is why I love what I’m doing.”

Sunny Goodyear was just 13 when she volunteered at Holy Spirit Medical Center and fell in love with nursing and education. After turning 18, she joined the hospital as a unit secretary, later earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing. For nearly 30 years, she served as a bedside nurse before transitioning to Trauma Services six years ago as the injury prevention and outreach coordinator, finally blending her two passions.

Sunny now leads safety programs across the academic health system’s five-county area, teaching topics like car safety, secure handgun storage and choking prevention at schools, community centers and businesses.

“Our biggest initiative is in the high schools with Stop the Bleed, a one-hour program teaching lifesaving skills to stop hemorrhaging,” she said. “I’m also working with the City of Harrisburg on a gun safety initiative focused on proper handgun storage.”

The greatest reward for Sunny is hearing how participants apply their training in real-life situations. One highlight was when two high school students, just a week after learning the Heimlich maneuver in her class, saved someone who was choking at a school craft fair.

“I love hearing stories like that,” she said. “It means I’m empowering our community to look out for one another, how to jump in and not be afraid to help.”

It’s stories like these that drive our purpose.