WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — Known to many as "Huggin Hazel," Hazel Colson has devoted her life to nursing for over seven decades, and she doesn't plan on stopping anytime soon.
She believes God gave her the gift of caring for others.
"What my life is is helping others, and helping others is what I do. It's not who I am, it's whose I am," Colson said.
It started back in 1931 when she was just 4 years old after a wagon wheel injured one of her daddy's mules.
"I picked up two sticks and got up one of mama's rags and I tied these two sticks together around Spotlight's back left leg. That was my first nursing," Colson said.
When she was 18, she enrolled in the cadet nursing program during World War II.
The Army paid for her 5 years of nursing school, and she's been working in Central Georgia ever since.
"It's not just a job for me, it is my life. What I mean? I know that God gave me this and therefore, it is not work. That doesn't mean that I do not get tired, but it's a joy," Colson said.
At 92 years old, retirement isn't in her plans.
"What do you do when you retire? And so I'm just going to do this the rest of my life, it's part of my life you know. If I cannot go to them, someone will bring them to me," Colson said.
Perry Hospital is hosting a ribbon cutting ceremony for the renaming of their In-Patient Care Unit in Hazel Colson's honor on Wednesday at 12 p.m.