It’s not every day that you look out of your window and see Batman, Spider-Man, Captain America and Iron Man waving at you. However, patients at UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital got that opportunity when some of their favorite characters united and rappelled from the roof to brighten their day.
Black Panther, The Flash and Loki also visited with patients as the other heroes swung around outside.
Once Spidey and his friends finished scaling the building, they joined forces with the real superheroes — our patients. The masked crusaders roamed the halls of the children’s hospital visiting with patients, taking pictures, giving hugs and meeting with our top superhero, UF Health CEO Ed Jimenez.
All in all, the day was tons of fun and the reactions from our patients, visitors and staff were priceless. One child approached the heroes with excitement and said, “I never knew you all were REAL.”
So how did our hospital pop up on the superheroes’ radar? Here’s the backstory: Jimenez learned that window-washers would be coming to our Archer Road hospitals and they often dressed as superheroes. How could we take this a step further to engage our youngest patients and their families? The UF Health Communications team jumped into action with the superheroes to help cure for the summertime blues. The Batmobile and the UF Health ShandsCair helicopter rushed the masked crusaders to the children’s hospital to save the day!
Special thanks to everyone who partnered to make this a memorable experience for our patients and their family members — employees from Security, Nursing and Patient Services, ShandsCair, Child Life and many more. You share your superpowers each and every day!
To view the superhero video and see photos from that special day, visit Bridge.UFHealth.org and type “heroic teamwork” in the search bar of the Bridge homepage.