‘He Could Have Brought Ebola Here’: Minnesota Widow on Her Husband

[geardaddy]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/30/minnesota-widow-on-her-husband-he-could-have-brought-ebola-here.html
Patrick Sawyer was supposed to be at his kids’ birthday party in a few weeks—but he died of the virus before he could board a flight to Minneapolis. His wife on the epidemic’s toll.
Nigeria felt a chill from the hot zone when a 40-year-old man collapsed and died from the dread Ebola virus after flying there from Liberia.
That hot zone chill now reaches America, with word that the same man was scheduled to fly to Minneapolis in time for an August 16 party celebrating the birthdays of two of his three young daughters.
Patrick Sawyer was a naturalized U.S. citizen who worked for the Finance Ministry of his native Liberia and returned home to his wife and children in Coon Rapids, Minnesota, whenever he could. He almost certainly would have boarded that flight to Minneapolis had he remained at least outwardly healthy enough not to exhibit symptoms.
One nightmare scenario would have been for him to go ahead with the birthday party for his daughters even though he was feeling a little flu-ish and maybe dish out cake and ice cream to his little girls before anybody imagined he might be carrying the deadly virus from distant West Africa.
“He could have brought Ebola here,” his wife, Decontee Sawyer, told The Daily Beast on Tuesday.
Patrick had been tending to a sick sister named Princess in Liberia and had not learned the exact nature of her illness until after she died.
“He knew she was sick and he kept caring for her, but he didn’t know it was Ebola,” Decontee said. “It could have been malaria.”
He was still grieving when he texted his wife on July 18, but he gave no indication that he was feeling ill. Decontee would wonder if witnessing his sister’s terrible death had left him unable to accept that he could suffer the same fate as a result of trying to aid her.
“I think he might have been in a state of denial,” Decontee suggested.
Patrick fell manifestly ill on July 20 during the 6-hour, 40-minute journey via two flights on ASKY Airlines, from Monrovia to Lomé in Togo and on to Lagos, where he was scheduled to attend an economic development conference. He collapsed at the Lagos airport and was placed in isolation at First Consultants Hospital in Obalende, a high-density neighborhood in the teeming city.
- See more at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/30/minnesota-widow-on-her-husband-he-could-have-brought-ebola-here.html#sthash.uFdvRjot.dpuf

[LittleBlue]

1. This region of Africa should be isolated. Why would we allow anyone to return from there?

It's absolutely insane that anyone can get on a flight to the US from that region.

[In_The_Wind]

2. May he rest in peace. I'm sorry for his family's loss.

[morningfog]

3. Sawyer did everything wrong and has potentially placed millions of people at risk.

[SummerSnow]

4. scary stuff.