We needed a hero.

And we didn’t just get one, Nassau County Legis. Arnold W. Drucker (D-Plainview) said Tuesday, we got many considering how first responders, hospital staff and front-line health care workers stepped up to emerge as heroes during “the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Which is why Drucker, Plainview community leaders and Nassau Executive Laura Curran on Tuesday renamed a stretch of Old Country Road in front of Plainview Hospital “Heroes Way” at an 11 a.m. ceremony. 

The renamed stretch of road is located in front of the hospital, between Kalda Lane and Central Park Road.

It was done, Drucker said in a statement, as “a lasting tribute” to health care workers at the hospital and the “compassionate care” provided by Central Island Healthcare’s team of professionals, as well as the “selfless service” of firefighters and first responders from the Plainview Fire Department — which is located across the street from the hospital. Social distancing, masks and other protocols were observed during the ceremony.

“Healthcare workers, first responders and essential workers fortified our community and provided the support we all needed to overcome the greatest challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Drucker said in his statement. “They are profoundly deserving of this public tribute to their courageous service, and I am proud to join County Executive Curran and the entire Plainview community as we salute our hometown heroes.”

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee’pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”