April Sexton

**April Sexton** is a former Emergency Department nurse at the Gaffney Chicago Medical Center. She was portrayed by Yaya DaCosta.

## Biography

April is the oldest child and only daughter of Brazilian immigrants Alfonso and Marcia Sexton. She has a younger brother named Noah, whom her parents always asserted should be the doctor, which led April to help him through medical school at the expense of her own career. She was raised Catholic and grew up admiring St. Francis. She is a childhood friend of Kelly Severide, with whom she later developed a romantic relationship.

    April left the emergency department at the end of Season 6 to pursue further education to become a Nurse Practitioner. In Season 8, she returns to Chicago and rekindles her relationship with Ethan Choi, and they eventually get married. Ethan decides to leave *Gaffney* and together, they start their community medical outreach program DOCS on Wheels.

## Season One

### Derailed

April assists in treating an influx of victims of an elevated train derailment. While assisting Connor Rhodes with stitching himself up after the crash, she welcomes him back to Chicago.

### Timing

April is hit by an agitated and inebriated sports fan, knocking her into a wall. While she sustains no injuries from the fall, the X-ray reveals a lump in her lungs. Tate Jenkins proposes to her.

## Season Two

### Lose Yourself

April goes in for a routine pregnancy scan, only to find out that her child doesn't have a heartbeat. She's advised to have a D&C, but instead returns to work and later books her appointment. Maggie only finds out about the appointment when another nurse is booking her appointment for her.

## Season Three

### Speak Your Truth

April and Ethan are officially a couple, but she wants to keep their romance on the down-low, especially since Doris is already complaining about favoritism on Ethan's part.

## Season Five

### Never Going Back to Normal

April and Ethan get a pregnancy test, which turns out to be negative. They treat a young boy with loss of vision due to a brain abnormality brought on by hypothyroidism. Watching the parents' love for their child, they discuss some day having a child of their own.

### We're Lost in the Dark

April, Ethan and medical student Steve treat a paramedic extracted from a crashed ambulance. When the power goes out she offers to help Steve in the hybrid OR, but Ethan calls her away with him. They are eventually able to stabilize the patient, and throughout the ordeal April lends Steve her emotional support.

As he and April are leaving for the night, they run into Steve in the lobby. He announces that he is not coming back due to the stress of his first day in the ED, and the prospect of having to do this work for the rest of his life. Ethan wonders whether he was too focused on his patients' needs and not enough on Steve's needs, but April replies that it is normal to forget to take care of each other in stressful situations. Ethan counters that it is not normal, and that April is able to do so all the time, complimenting her mindfulness and awareness and saying she will make the "best mom ever." They express their love for each other and kiss.

### In the Valley of the Shadows

April and Crockett treat a newborn baby who is brought in by her mother, who is covered in blood. April is continually annoyed by Crockett's cavalier attitude, and decides to go over his head and call DCFS because she suspects there is more going on. She is vindicated when it is discovered that the baby does not belong to the woman who brought her in, but that the woman forcibly cut the baby out of another woman's stomach. After the mother is stabilized, an ICU nurse confides in April that Crockett found out the woman did not deliver the baby by illegally drawing her blood after giving her Ativan to put her to sleep, praising Crockett as a "badass."

At the end of the episode, April agrees to start training under Maggie as her new second in command, as Maggie is struggling due to the effects of her chemotherapy.

### Infection: Part II

April and the rest of the ED staff deal with the influx of patients infected with the flesh-eating bacteria. She works closely with Crockett, comforting him after they lose multiple patients on the operating table.

### Got a Friend in Me

April is suspicious about Maggie's recent absences and unfriendly behavior. At the end of the episode, Maggie decides to reveal her condition to April, Doris and Monique, much to their shock.

## Season Six

### When Did We Begin to Change

April has been treating COVID-19 patients for 3 straight weeks, much to Ethan's dismay. She and Ethan clash with Dr. Lanik over whether to allocate the last ECMO machine to a patient dying of COVID-19. She comforts the patient's wife before and after the patient passes away.

### Those Things Hidden in Plain Sight

April continues to treat COVID-19 patients, clashing with a resident who refuses to intubate a patient who is having trouble breathing. She argues with Ethan about letting the patient's mother visit, which is against protocol. When Ethan finally comes around, April is dismayed to discover that it is too late as the mother is brought in in critical condition, also having caught the virus.

### Do You Know the Way Home?

April is displeased when Ethan is forced to move her from the COVID-19 ward back to the ED. Ethan, April and Dr. Charles treat a patient named Lisa who is afraid of needles, and they become suspicious when she becomes increasingly anxious to leave, can't present a consistent story, and appears unfamiliar with modern technology. They eventually figure out that Lisa is actually a woman named Kelly Bissett who disappeared as a child.

## Memorable quotes

(to Ethan): *"You look so good in a suit, I can't wait to tear it off later."*

## Notes and Trivia

* She speaks Brazilian Portuguese fluently, and speaks Spanish, likely also fluently.
* Her family's original name was Suaçuna, but her parents changed it to Sexton for ease of pronunciation. Her family is Catholic, and a *sexton* also happens to be a position within the Catholic Church.
* She is allergic to Nucleoside Diphosphate Kinase A.
* Her fifth-grade teacher's name was Mrs. Nagel.
* Her first pet's name was Bubbles.
* She is the second character in One Chicago to have an involuntary abortion, the other is Gabriela Dawson

## Gallery

*For a full gallery of April Sexton, see April Sexton/Gallery.*

## Appearances

### Chicago Fire

* S3E17 Forgive You Anything
* S3E18 Forgiving, Relentless, Unconditional
* S3E19 I Am the Apocalypse
* S3E20 You Know Where to Find Me
* S4E2 A Taste of Panama City
* S4E5 Regarding This Wedding
* S4E10 The Beating Heart
* S4E18 On the Warpath
* S5E15 Deathtrap
* S6E14 Looking for a Lifeline
* S8E4 Infection, Part I
* S9E8 Escape Route

### Chicago PD

* S4E14 Seven Indictments
* S5E2 The Thing About Heroes
* S7E4 Infection, Part III