As the University of Nebraska Medical Center takes in Americans who were on board the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship for quarantine, an Ebola survivor from Massachusetts is remembering the “lonely” weeks spent at the hospital that he says is fully prepared to care for those patients.
“If there’s any place that you want these people to be, it’s at a facility like the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit,” Dr. Rick Sacra, of Holden, told WBZ-TV. “They’re not just being released somewhere to wander around town … they’ve been brought to the best kind of facility and every precaution will be taken.”
In 2014, Sacra was working as a missionary doctor delivering babies at a hospital in Liberia when he contracted the often deadly Ebola virus. He was flown from West Africa to Omaha, where he spent three weeks in the facility that’s specialized to treat people exposed to infectious diseases.
What’s it like inside the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit?
“It’s a lonely feeling being in that kind of a treatment facility where the people who come and treat you have to put on gowns and goggles and masks,” Sacra recalled. “There’s a lot of anxiety in there. You just pray and hope for the best.”…