After Her Son Died, Ultra Humphries’ Therapy Was Helping Others

Ultra Humphries, BSN ’20, comes from a family of caregivers. Her grandmother and mother were both nurses. Growing up, she wanted to be a nurse, too. But her plans were sidetracked when she had her first child at the age of 16. Instead of nursing, she worked for the Post Office for 20 years as a supervisor. In 2013, her life took an unexpected turn when her son, Darnell, was murdered.

Humphries was so traumatized that she could no longer work at the Post Office, where her duties sometimes included walking with trainee mail carriers in the neighborhood where her son was killed. She retired and looked for ways to heal. “My therapy was to help other people,” she says.

Encouraged by a counselor, she began to volunteer at Oakland’s Highland Hospital, where her son died. Her first volunteer role was on the labor and delivery floor, where she assisted patients with labor and delivery breathing techniques, fed babies in the NICU, and performed other tasks.

“This brought me joy, reflecting on the time I gave birth to my son,” Humphries says. “I also was there to give support if the baby did not make it, showing empathy and understanding because I know how it feels to lose a child.”

Nursing school dreams

Humphries began to realize just how much patients needed her, especially those who were suffering. “I wanted to let people know, in their most vulnerable moments, that they can make it—because I made it too,” she says.

While volunteering, Humphries took community college classes to earn core credits for nursing school and attended SMU’s three-day “Nursing Success! Seminar” for prospective students.

“It was the school of my dreams,” she says. “I liked the values; I liked the teaching and one-on-one interaction they give students. Samuel Merritt had high standards and wanted to teach us everything we needed to know to succeed in the healthcare industry.”

Humphries worked closely with a counselor in the admissions office to ensure that she had the right grades and classes to be a strong applicant. Her hard work paid off when she was accepted in 2018 and earned a $20,000 Nursing Diversity Workforce program scholarship.

Ambassador, panelist, mentor

Looking back, Humphries feels she opened a new chapter during her time at SMU, where she became a President’s Ambassador, a student leader who takes on community engagement and leadership roles. She spoke on panels about student success and she was a teacher’s assistant for Professor Raymond Prior’s Medsurg III Critical Care class. She also started and continues to mentor a woman who is looking to make a career change and plans on applying to SMU.

Humphries graduated cum laude this December in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic, but was cheered on by her husband, children, grandchildren, and mother, who she takes care of. She currently works at the VA     in Palo Alto as a student nurse.

“I want to be a part of saving lives,” says Ultra, who is interested in critical care. “But if it doesn’t come out that way, I want to be on the other end—being comforting and empathetic and understanding to people’s families if they don’t make it. There was someone who was trying to save my son’s life, and there was someone at the end who was comforting me: It was a nurse.”