The search for Tina Adovasio, a missing Westchester nurse, has ended,
sadly, with the discovery of her body last week in Yorktown woods.
Adovasio?s body was found off the Taconic Parkway near Mohansic Golf
Course after her disappearance from her Bronx home the previous week.
The chief suspect in the case is Adovasio?s husband, Edwin Coello, who
reported her missing to the police after the couple argued in their
home.
Adovasio was a popular maternity nurse at Sound Shore Medical Center in
New Rochelle, and had worked there from over seven years. Some of her
colleagues assisted the search for, and many are now grieving.
Director of Nursing Margaret Monahan said, ?Anything superlative you
could come up with would apply to Tina. She was an extraordinarily
gifted nurse. She worked in the maternity unit, predominantly in the
labor and delivery area, which can be high stress area where you can
have a high risk population, you always have the mom?s and baby?s life
in your hands. Tina just brought a sense of extreme competence and calm
to the area.?
?This was above and beyond a job for her ? it was a calling,??she said.
?I consider her one of the stars on my unit,??said Beth Gallagher, who
supervised Adovasio as a nursing care coordinator. ?If I was able to
clone a nurse, Tina is one who I would put through a cloning machine.
She just radiated such compassion. She was intelligent in her practice.
She just gave. She would go in the room and talk to patients, and the
patients would be animated and she would be sharing.?She was that way
with her coworkers too. There was something unique to every day she
worked here.?
Fellow nurse Stella De Freitas announced that the hospital had held a
prayer service Wednesday afternoon that was "very well attended by the
nurses, doctors, administration, and all who knew and loved this
beautiful woman, colleague, mother, friend."
"Even though in our hearts we knew she was no longer with us, it was
very comforting to be together and just unify our hearts with her
heart," De Freitas wrote.
Monahan said the hospital is looking into some way to honor Adovasio,
such as through a donation to the women?s health program. The hospital
also plans to do something for her children.
Adovasio has a 5-year-old daughter with Coello, and she has three older
children from a previous marriage. Her family will be looking after the
four children, according to her first cousin Joseph Rapisarda.
Adovasio?s mother lives in Holmes, in Dutchess County.
Tina Adovasio "was amazing, a very loving mother, willing to help
anybody,? Rapisarda said.