Nataki Edwards is HH's 2025 Registered Nurse of the Year
Nataki Edwards calls herself the “Ghost Nurse” because she is unseen and unknown by most patients.
They arrive in Huntsville Hospital’s Post Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU) late at night, groggy from trauma surgery and other emergency procedures. Most will never know the crucial role Nataki played in the scary moments after they were shot or stabbed or injured in a car wreck. 
“Trauma patients don’t really see me because they come out of surgery and stay in PACU for such a brief time – an hour at most,” Nataki says. “Our unit is a pit stop to elsewhere in the hospital.”
Despite working in a part of the hospital visitors rarely see and patients experience only while sedated, Nataki stands out as exceptional – so much so that she was just named HH’s 2025 Registered Nurse of the Year.
“To say I’m surprised doesn’t quite cover how I feel,” says Nataki. “I’m absolutely stunned and also humbled because there are so many other nurses that are more worthy.”
Nataki comes from a family of health care professionals that migrated from the sun-kissed island nation of Trinidad to the chilly Canadian capital of Ottawa. Her father and grandmother were both nurses.
“They didn’t push me to go into nursing,” she said, “but it’s in my DNA.”
Nataki moved to the Rocket City in the late 1990s to attend nursing school at Oakwood University. Along the way, she landed her first nursing job in the Mother Baby Unit at Huntsville Hospital for Women & Children and developed a passion for women’s health.
Now 23 years into her nursing career, Nataki has lovingly cared for thousands of Huntsville Hospital patients in a variety of settings: Mother Baby; Adult Intensive Care; and post-anesthesia care.
Helping patients with sometimes gruesome injuries recover from emergency surgery isn’t for everyone, but Nataki feels it’s her calling. She also assists in the Operating Room.
“It can be very chaotic, but we have an amazing team that works well together and trusts each other,” Nataki says. “It’s just been a beautiful experience, and I don’t see myself ever leaving the PACU.”
Working Friday-Sunday nights at the hospital frees up the rest of the week for Nataki to pursue her other passion: she runs a high-end body piercing salon inside Huntsville’s Platinum Koi Tattoo Studio.
The first person in Alabama certified by the Association of Professional Piercers, Nataki is obsessive about cleanliness and sterility – the hallmarks of any good nurse.
Outside of the hospital and piercing salon, Nataki has a busy home life with a husband (Sam), a teenage son (Jonathan, a rising sophomore at Grissom High School) and a pampered white Boxer (Brian, named for the talking dog in the animated TV sitcom “Family Guy.”)
Winning Nurse of the Year “is the greatest honor I’ve ever received in my career,” she says. “There’s been an army of people over two decades who have shaped me into the nurse I am today.
“This award should really go to them.”
