http://nypost.com/2014/10/04/sick-passenger-investigated-for-ebola-at-newark-airport/
Sick passenger investigated for Ebola at Newark airport
By Philip Messing, Jennifer Bain and Andrea Hay
October 4, 2014 | 2:25pm
In this photo exclusive to The Post, a man is removed from an ambulance at University Hospital in Newark.
Photo: Robert Miller
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials scrambled to meet a United Airlines flight from Brussels at Newark Airport on Saturday afternoon, after a passenger believed to be from Liberia exhibited signs of the deadly Ebola virus.
The queasy passenger — who a law enforcement source said had been vomiting — and his daughter, who appeared to be about 10 years old, were fitted with surgical masks and escorted from United Airlines Flight 998 by CDC personnel wearing white HazMat uniforms.
The father and daughter, whose names were not released, were rushed to quarantine at University Hospital in Newark, the law enforcement source said.
The father was outfitted from neck to toe in his own HazMat uniform, his face still masked, as he was wheeled into the hospital’s trauma center.
At least some of the remaining 261 people on board were then cleared to go through customs, the source said.
All told, the passengers of United Airlines flight 998 were held inside the jet at Terminal B’s Gate 53 for about two hours after the Boeing 777-200 twin engine jet landed just after 12 pm.
“Everyone off, no restrictions, pax plus 1 taken off by CDC in hazmats,” passenger Paul Chard, 50, of Florida, told The Post via Twitter just after 2 p.m., using “pax” to mean passenger.
“80 minutes to get CDC on plane, no chances taken,” he added.
It is unclear how many Liberians had been on the plane. Brussels airlines had a Friday night flight out of Monrovia, Liberia’s capital; that flight connected to United Airlines, according to online records.
“The crew reported (during the flight) that a person was vomiting, and that Liberians were aboard the plane,” a law enforcement source told The Post.
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The person throwing up is believed to be Liberian,” the source said.
The jet had just completed a seven-hour flight across the Atlantic, and as it sat at Gate 53, Terminal B, the two-hour wait seemed to be an eternity to family members at the airport.
“It’s a concern not only for me but for every one of us,” Liberian Jah Zauyan, 44, said as he waited for three friends, who are also Liberian, to deplane.
“We don’t want this virus to spread … You hope it’s nothing. We don’t know how long they will keep them or where they will bring them. This is scary for the sick one,” Zauyan added.
“Someone comes to a strange land and they have to grab them and take them somewhere.”
Better here than in Africa, noted Liberian native
Joshua Brown, as he waited for friends at Gate 53. By 4 p.m., he was still waiting — and indication that passengers whose flights had originated in Liberia were being held longer.
“I’m not worried for them,” Brown told The Post of his friends. ‘Because they are coming from Africa, and America is a better place to be” if you have Ebola, he noted.
“All the people brought here are cured from Ebola, but there they die. America is a great country.”
