Images emerged of officials loading the second Dallas nurse diagnosed with Ebola onto a plane headed for Atlanta where she is set to receive treatment at Emory University Hospital — and Americans quickly noticed something very strange about the scene.
Among several workers wearing hazmat suits on the runway of Dallas Love Field is a man wearing plain clothes and no apparent protective gear.
NBC DFW explains what occurred on the runway:
The unidentified man stood very near another hazmat-suited worker and then took what appeared to be a container from one of the suited workers. He placed it on the steps to the jet and walked out of view.
He then reappeared as one of the PPE-suited workers came off the plane with red hazmat bags. He took what appeared to be a not-yet-used red bag from the worker in protective gear, then handed it to the workers as they bagged up items from the ambulance ride.
Then he conversed with two workers wearing respirators while the red hazmat bags were loaded onto the plane. He then grabbed the container from the stairs and got on the plane which departed Love Field en route to Atlanta.
The news station had not determined why the man wasn’t required to wear protective gear, though it was speculated that he may have been a member of the flight crew in charge of flying Vinson to Atlanta.
Airline Offers Explanation for Unprotected Man Seen During Ebola Patient Transport
The man observing Wednesday’s transport of the Dallas nurse without a hazmat suit on was a “protocol supervisor” who wasn’t wearing protective gear for a “higher level of safety,” an airline representative said.
“Our medical professionals in the biohazard suits have limited vision and mobility and it is the protocol supervisor’s job to watch each person carefully and give them verbal directions to ensure no close-contact protocols are violated,” a Phoenix Air representative told ABC News. “There is absolutely no problem with this and in fact ensures an even higher level of safety for all involved.”
The patient, 29-year-old Amber Vinson, was being flown to Emory Hospital for treatment after becoming the second Dallas health worker to test positive for Ebola virus after caring for Thomas Eric Duncan.
An official said Thursday that Nina Pham, the first nurse diagnosed with Ebola after treating Duncan, would be moved to a National Institutes of Health facility just outside of Washington, D.C., for treatment.
ABC News reports that the man is a supervisor for Phoenix Air, the company that flew Miss Vinson from Dallas to Atlanta.
When the plane landed in Atlanta, the man had still not donned any protective clothing and was seen openly interacting with Vinson and the other medical professionals caring for the nurse.
Members of the public watching were struck with disbelief at the man’s decision to throw caution to the wind.
‘He needs to be put on watch the second the plane lands so he does not infect anyone in Atlanta. This needs to be contained and I for one will be ticked of I hear a report next week that he is the next victim!’ Dean Pitts wrote on NBC Dallas’ website.
A CDC spokesman told KTVT that they didn’t think anything was wrong with the interaction since he ‘kept a safe distance’.
Miss Vinson’s flight landed in Atlanta around 7:45pm Eastern Time.
Social media was as equally impressed as they were dumbfounded by the man who has quickly become known as ‘clipboard man’ online.
The mystery man on the tarmac is just the latest questionable practice highlighted in the CDC’s handling of the Ebola outbreak in America, which started when Liberian patient Thomas Eric Duncan was initially turned away from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital last month after reporting a high fever.
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