When she was 19, Nancy Barth Miller watched as her mother almost died after a car accident, spending two harrowing weeks in intensive care at Staten Island’s Richmond Memorial Hospital.

“Everybody thinks doctors take care of patients,” Miller said on May 3 at the Federation of Nurses/UFT Nurse Recognition Day celebration. “But it’s really the nurses.”

She decided then to become a nurse, a job she’s held for 35 years at the hospital where her mom was nursed back to health, now Staten Island University Hospital South.

Miller was honored as Hospital Nurse of the Year at the Federation of Nurses/UFT’s third annual awards dinner at UFT headquarters in Manhattan. Her mom, Lois, now 87, was there to celebrate, along with 250 other nurses, their family and friends, and UFT officers including President Michael Mulgrew.

“There is nothing compassionate about health care but the nurses,” said Anne Goldman, the UFT vice president for non-DOE members. “And what courage you have.”

Miller was instrumental in bringing UFT representation to Staten Island University Hospital South more than 20 years ago, and is now the chapter leader. She leads in so many ways, Goldman said. “She has management’s respect.”

Alicia Schwartz, a care coordinator for the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, was feted as Homecare Nurse of the Year. The honor couldn’t have come at a better time for her. The 30-year veteran has been away from fieldwork for about a year. She misses seeing patients and considered giving up, calling her desk job “heartbreaking for a nurse.”

Even on the phone, Schwartz “engages the patients; she laughs with them,” said VNS co-worker Charlesetta O’Neal, part of a large VNS contingent supporting their grievance rep, who is also Manhattan coordinator, chapter secretary and a delegate. “She’s still being a nurse on the phone. She doesn’t have to see patients face to face to advocate for them.”

Goldman worked alongside Retiree Nurse of the Year Jihad Hamad at NYU Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn and called her “a woman of integrity, with great honor, a great regard for nursing and a great love for people.” Hamad was unable to attend, but five of her six children represented her. “We really only know her as a nurse,’’ said daughters Nevine and Sherin Hamad. “Nursing was her passion.”

The Trailblazer Award went to Jennifer Armenia and Svetlana Polyakova, both of NYU Lutheran.

Armenia works in the emergency room. NYU Lutheran Chapter Leader and UFT Special Representative Howard Sandau described her grace under pressure during an emergency that drew dozens of responders to a baby’s aid. “She came flying in like there was an S on her chest and took charge,” he said. “She knew exactly what to do.”

Nursing is a second career for Russian-born Polyakova, who arrived late at the event because her patients come first. A nurse for 14 years, she’s studying to be a nurse practitioner. “It’s like I had a premonition I should be a nurse,” she said.

When her mother was diagnosed with late-stage cancer, Polyakova returned to Russia to do what she does best: dispensing medication, changing IVs and making her mom’s final days comfortable.

“I’m sure she is very proud of me right now,” Polyakova said of her mother.

See more photos in the gallery »