Westfield couple making ear guards for those on COVID-19 front lines

April 14, 2020 | Dennis Hackett

WESTFIELD – After donating ear guards for masks to Baystate Noble Hospital, Brandy Latshaw and her fiancé Earl Metrock have ramped up production and started a GoFundMe to make masks for health care workers and others on the frontlines a little bit more comfortable.

Latshaw explained that the idea to create the ear guards came from a nurse from the hospital asking on Facebook if anyone had 3D printer to create the guards.

She said, “One of the nurses from Noble shared a post about these ear guards being made by a boy who lives in Canada and was asking if anyone had a printer, and Earl has a printer and I asked if it would be possible and that’s where we started.”

Currently they are making 100 masks each day and nine every hour, but it is a time-consuming process. “We’re working from about 7 in the morning until about 11 at night. That doesn’t mean we’re standing next to the printer all day long but it’s going down and resetting things every hour,” she said.

Latshaw added that the guards are being spread out throughout the area. “They are going all over the community, the fire departments and local police departments should be receiving them shortly. They’ve gone to urgent cares in the area, some have gone up to East Longmeadow, they’re being dispersed around the area,” she said.

One of the biggest difficulties so far has been getting the word out about the GoFundMe and that they are making the guards.

Latshaw said, “It’s been difficult to get the word out but I was able to post on the Westfield Community Forums, but people can’t share off of the forums but it’s basically been word of mouth at this point.”

She said they had made 448 masks at the time of the interview but expected that number to be over 1,000 by the time the story was published.

Latshaw said she and Metrock are happy with the work they’ve done so far.

“That’s 100 people who don’t have sores behind their ears, and that’s a pretty good feeling,” she said, “Even if we can get five more during the day, that’s five more people who are gonna be more comfortable tomorrow because of something we were able to do and that’s pretty incredible.”

She added, “We’re just happy to be able to help, it’s the best feeling in the world.”

Anyone interested in supporting ear guard production the can make a donation at https://www.gofundme.com/f/ear-guards-for-our-medical-staff.

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