Jessica Rosalie Rhodes, who died at Valley of Fire State Park with a friend during a recent heat wave, was remembered Saturday as a vibrant, reverent and athletic person who dedicated herself to caring for people living with the COVID virus. -19.
About 125 people attended the celebration of life service for Rhodes, 34, inside a large auditorium at his church, Word of Life Christian Center at 3520 N. Buffalo Drive.
Rhodes, a graduate of the College of Southern Nevada who worked as a nursing assistant at Valley, Sunrise and Summerlin hospitals, has dedicated herself to working with Clark County residents during the pandemic, including comforting dying patients, according to her friend Shauntele. har.
“She said the scariest thing for her as a health care provider was not knowing how to treat the virus that was spreading so rapidly through our country,” Har said.
Har remembered Rhodes expressing how painful it was to see others lose loved ones to COVID restrictions.
“She and her team had to be the family of the patient,” he said. “They were the ones who comforted the patient by holding his hand at the end of his life so that he would not be alone and while he was dying.”
Another friend and fellow congregation at Word of Life Church, Destinee Thames, said Rhodes was a devotee of Spartan steeplechase and the Camp Rhino steeplechase workshop and training center in Las Vegas.
“Jessica loved fitness, that’s an understatement,” Thames said. “She loved it and pushed herself.”
He also loved his family, art and puzzles, spending hours on a Lego set with his nephew or drawing, Thames said.
“He was the life of the party and always cared about others,” he added.
Rhodes died on July 22 – just three days shy of her 35th birthday – while hiking in the Valley of Fire with her friend Diana Matienzo Rivera, 29.
According to Ruby Rhodes, Rhodes’s sister, the couple began the hike around 6 or 7 am that day.
Jonathan Brunjes, deputy administrator for Nevada State Parks, said the women had been hiking the 4.6-mile Prospect Trail and ran out of water when the temperature rose to 118 degrees.
The women were reported missing around 10 a.m. and were eventually located in separate areas, one around noon a quarter-mile from the trailhead parking lot and the other two hours later further up the trail, Brunjes said. .
The Clark County Coroner’s Office had not determined the cause or manner of death for the women as of Friday.
“He said that even though it was mentally draining and stressful, it was an honor to be of service to those who needed help,” Har de Rhodes recalled Saturday. “And that’s just the kind of person he was, with his huge heart to serve God, helping those around her.”
