Not many people can say they won a major sports championship, and even fewer can say they also save lives. That's something that Laurent Duvernay-Tardif can do. The Canadian Super Bowl-winning football player has come back to his home province to work on the medical frontlines. In a cover story for Sports Illustrated, Duvernay-Tardif revealed that he had returned to Quebec to apply his medical expertise to the country's pandemic response. "I was assigned to a long-term care facility near my hometown on the South Shore, which is about an hour from Montreal," Duvernay-Tardif revealed. Even when another member of the staff recognized that he had just won the Super Bowl, he said all he wanted to do was help. "When you’re going in to help it’s more about your duty as a doctor and a citizen," he said, "It’s not the time to be the hero and be impulsive. You’ve gotta do it the right way." Duvernay-Tardif has a high profile as a professional athlete, but he has shouted out the massive efforts of all the other frontline health workers. In an April 29 Instagram post, he wrote "Yes, it’s me in this picture but this is not about me. This is about all the people who have been on the frontlines since day one of this pandemic." View this post on Instagram Yes, it’s me in this picture but this is not about me. This is about all the people who have been on the frontlines since day one of this pandemic. Now more than ever we need to work as a team and help where the help is needed. We all must come together and do what is best for society, even if that means stepping out of our comfort zone and learning new things. Thank you to the community of health care workers who welcomed me with open arms and trained me at the Long Term Care Home, some even coming out of retirement to give a helping hand. Thank you Elisa for the PPE training. Thank you Hélène for the elderly mobilisation training. Thank you Jean-Philippe for your help during my first shift as an orderly. Thank you Guylaine for the crash course on how to administer medication to patients. I accepted this opportunity with a lot of pride and humility. I will contribute to the best of my abilities to help: help put a smile on a patient’s face, help give a day off to nurses and orderlies who have been working countless hours since this pandemic started. We can all do our part and it's touching to see so many people of different professional backgrounds coming together to do what they can. We have to keep working as a team and we will get through this. Ça va bien aller 🌈 A post shared by Laurent D. Tardif (@laurentduvernaytardif) on Apr 29, 2020 at 4:53am PDT In his caption, he shouted out the people who helped him specifically get ready to jump back into the medical field after playing in arguably one of the biggest sporting events of the year. SI Daily Cover: Less than three months ago, @LaurentDTardif was protecting Patrick Mahomes in Super Bowl LIV.Now, the Chiefs lineman, who has a doctorate in medicine, is moving to the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic https://t.co/u6CvfZKehE pic.twitter.com/dLQ6jJkkw6— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) April 27, 2020 "Thank you Elisa for the PPE training. Thank you Hélène for the elderly mobilisation training," Duvernay-Tardif wrote, "Thank you Jean-Philippe for your help during my first shift as an orderly. Thank you Guylaine for the crash course on how to administer medication to patients." Long-term care homes in Ontario and Quebec have been hit particularly hard by COVID-19. Both provinces requested military aid from the federal government to combat the crisis.
