My Ebola Story And How I Survived –Nurse infected By Patrick Sawyer

Nurse Tochukwu Anunobi was one of the nurses who attended to Liberian-American Ebola index case, Patrick Sawyer, at First Consultants Hospital, Obalende, Lagos. She became infected with EVD but survived. Tochukwu shares her story with New Telegraph Newspaper

The Interview is a long read but it is worth the read 

See Excerpt Of The Interview Below:


Tell me about July 20, the day the late Liberian-American Ebola index case, Patrick Sawyer, was admitted. He was admitted in the evening around 8pm. I was not on duty that day.

He came on his own; you know he was coming for the ECOWAS meeting in Calabar, Cross River State. I think he called some of the ECOWAS staff and was told to stop at Lagos to access the hospital they use here. That was how they brought him to the hospital. I resumed work the next day, being a Monday, July 21.

By then, nobody knew he had Ebola and the usual procedure in the hospital is to do some tests before the commencement of treatment. The test conducted was for Malaria Parasite (MP) and it was positive.



That was the diagnosis I met the day I resumed. It was after doctors had administered drugs to the patient on Monday and Tuesday that they started observing other symptoms like vomiting of blood, diarrhea and high fever. It was one of the doctors, Dr. Ada Igonoh, who suggested that they should carry out an Ebola test. She likes browsing the internet. She said there was an outbreak of EVD in Liberia and the patient came from that country.

That was on Tuesday evening but the result came out the next day, Wednesday, which was the day I nursed him. Even before I attended to him, the result was out. I was given protective gear by officers from the Federal Ministry of Health but the gear was different from those the doctors from World Health Organisation wore when they were treating us.

The gear the Federal Ministry of Health gave us was light and did not cover my hands and feet. It was somewhat short-sleeved from the elbow and then at the knee. The quality was poor and was like paper.

 But the one the WHO doctors wore was an overall of a good quality.

It stretched up to their hands though they wore gloves. They also used clothing that covered their necks and it was only their eyes you see through their goggles. The gear we had did not have all this. We wore gloves and used face masks.

You attended to Patrick Sawyer knowing his EVD status. Were you at any point tempted not to attend to him since you knew his status?

I was not told that he was positive then. It was after nursing the man on Wednesday that I read his folder; but we had already started hearing and reading the news. They did the test and wanted to confirm.  We started using the protective gear that morning.

Tell me about Patrick Sawyer; so many things have been said about him. As the nurse that attended to him, what kind of person was he?

When I entered his room, I noticed that the colour of the eyes was red. And he was a very fat man and fair-complexioned. I also observed tiny reddish rashes on his skin. He was also finding it difficult to breathe since he was vomiting and stooling. He did not have energy.


Did you have a conversation with him?
Yes I did. When I got in, I wanted to give him some IV drugs; the ones he was supposed to take the night before but which he didn’t take. The night nurses could not give him the drugs and they logged on his file that the patient refused the drugs that were supposed to be given to him for 10pm medication.

I greeted him and then proceeded to inform him about what I wanted to do. I then asked him why he refused to take his drugs. He said that I just came in and informed him of what I wanted to do and the names of the drugs I wanted to give him.

He complained that the night nurses came and started doing their duties without explaining what they wanted to do and so he refused the medications. He was asking me questions pertaining to the nature of the disease and I told him that I did not know anything yet.

I went further to explain to him that we had to cover our noses because the disease he had was contagious and we that were taking care of him had to protect ourselves.

I asked him if he was married and he said yes, that he was based in the United States with his wife and kids. He informed me that he actually flew down from the U.S to Liberia but did not tell me the reason why he visited Liberia. He said that he came into Nigeria for a meeting.


I noticed some drugs on his table and at First Consultants, we hold on to patient’s drugs until the time you are to be discharged. I saw some Flagyl tablets with him and asked if he had visited another hospital before coming to us. He replied that he brought them along.

He told me that he loved my professionalism and would make me proud. I did not know what he meant by that.

When he wanted to make calls, he ran out of credit and then asked me to help him buy airtime but he said he had only dollars on him. I told him that I was already dressed in my uniform and could not go out. I then called someone to help him.

He gave me $30 and I called one of the guys to help him change it and buy a recharge card for him. It was when I wanted to scratch the card for him that I removed my gloves which I had been wearing all along. After scratching the silver panel, I forgot to wear my gloves again and collected his phone to help him load the airtime.

It was when I was loading that I remembered that I was not wearing my gloves. I had to drop the phone and put my gloves back on. That was the first contact I had with him. Also, when I was fixing his IV fluid, the blood was pumping from the cannula l. His blood touched me on my gloved hand. Those were the contacts I had with him.

But many reports had it that Sawyer was not a cooperative patient and was removing his IVs. How did that happen?

Of course, he was troublesome and that was why he infected some of the doctors. That IV cannula is the only thing that will give the patient energy.

So the hospital did not want him to die. It was fixed to his vein but he kept removing it and blood was splashing everywhere.

In his room, there was blood everywhere and he vomited anyhow as well. He knew what he had but nobody knew from the onset. Even before he could be given a bath, about five men would have to hold him. It was when his actions became too much that Dr. Ameyo Adadevoh went in to caution him.

 She told him that if he continued being uncooperative, we would stop treating him. Then, he agreed not to remove the IV again.

What kind of doctor was Dr. Adadevoh?
She was one of our senior consultants and was among the pioneers of First Consultants. She was a physician and was in charge of everything to do with medicine.

When it was confirmed that Sawyer had EVD, what precautions did the hospital take? First they brought the protective gears and then some officers from the Ministry of Health came to see the patient.

They also gave us footwear as well as face masks. Immediately you came out from the room, you would remove the gear and wash your hands. We were also made to wear double gloves as well.

Another colleague of yours, Miss Justina Ejelonu, also died.How do you remember her?
She actually started work on Monday; it was her first day at work and she was pregnant. She had not even received any salary.

The matron that wanted to put her through used Patrick Sawyer to teach her since the diagnosis then was malaria. Justina resumed work on Monday, July 21, a day after Sawyer was admitted .
She fed the man because he was too weak to eat and I think she wore gloves.

That means that you had not got to know yourselves as colleagues?
I just met her that day and on the second day which was Tuesday, July 22, she came to work but was not feeling fine. She said she was taking some anti-malaria drugs and was allowed to rest. Then on Wednesday; she was off-duty.

That was the last day that I went to work.
I was to resume on Friday and that was the day I heard that the patient had died.

When he died, can you recall the mood in your work place then?
When I was got to work that Friday and stepped into the hospital premises, I saw many people standing around.

I asked the gateman what happened and he informed me that the Liberian man had died and that all the patients in the ward had been evacuated.


There were reports that Patrick Sawyer tried to leave the hospital. How did this happen?
Yes, it did happen. He had his tablet with him in his room and it was when he was browsing and saw his name and picture online that he ran mad. His pictures were everywhere even on social media.

When he saw that, he was furious and threw the tablet away.

He started saying that Nigerians were liars and all that. He then started making a move to leave the hospital. He desperately wanted to go for a meeting in Calabar but Dr. Adadevoh prevented that.

Did he ever raise his voice in protest against the hospital’s decision?
I am not aware of that. But you know that in the hospital, you may not be there but you have to document whatever happened during your shift so that the next person on duty will be informed.

When you were informed that the Liberian patient had died, what came to your mind?
The news was already everywhere in the media and whenever I tuned to Channels Television, the story was always being talked about.

So after he died, the Ministry of Health officials called all of us that came in contact with him and gave us thermometers and temperature charts to use in checking our temperature. We were told that the symptom was supposed to start from the second day up till 21 days. They gave us a chart to be recording our temperatures for that period. I started having a high temperature on the 19th day. I believe that I broke down then after some of my colleagues started dying; then Justina had died and Mrs. Ukoh, the ward maid, had died as well.

Who was the first person to start showing symptoms? It was the ward maid, Mrs. Ukoh. Patrick Sawyer died on Friday, July 25 and she started developing symptoms on Sunday, July 27.

I was on duty on Sunday when she called the hospital and alerted them to her condition. She asked that the management send an ambulance to come and carry her because she was having sore throat and fever. She said she could not come on her own. The hospital alerted officials of the Ministry of Health and they went to her house and picked her.

I think she died the following day. People that were with her said that immediately she heard that Patrick Sawyer had died, she got into a panic and started sweating. Fear gripped her because she was the person that cleaned up the vomit, blood and all that. When your colleagues started developing symptoms and some died, what was on your mind? I almost collapsed. At a point, I could not eat.

These were people that nursed the same man with me and initially, I was afraid that I would eventually die.

My temperature was normal but within me, I was feeling hot and asked people to feel my temperature. Any time I called my pastor, he would assure me that nothing would happen and I should not fear. I said, ‘fine, but I am human and have seen my colleagues dying.’ It got to a point that I became very lean because I was not eating. Any day I listened to the news, I would break down.
I kept going on until the 19th when I checked my temperature and discovered that it was above 37.2.

That very day, I went to work and was normal but in the evening, I discovered it. I informed my husband. But from the day I was given the thermometer, I started sleeping in the sitting room, away from my husband. I also asked people staying with me to relocate to my brother’s house. I stopped going to the kitchen; my husband was the one that would cook and bring to me. I also asked him to be using gloves and separate buckets, utensils and others. We took the precaution so that if anything happened, it would affect only me. I stopped using the toilet and got an improvised putty bucket for myself.

You made that decision to sacrifice yourself and not infect other members of your family.
Tell me how hard it was for you to have made that decision and kept to it? That was the only thing I could do. I never wanted the chances that if I died, another person would die as well. It was an easy decision to make and I made sure that my husband adhered to it. If it was possible for me to have rented another apartment or lodged in a hotel, I would have done it. If I had kids, I would have sent them away from me because I know there is no how they would not be all over me.
That period, I stopped going to the kitchen.


So what steps did you take after you discovered the high temperature?
I first of all called the doctor assigned to me and he simply told me that it remained only two days for me to be free. He said that since I had not exhibited any symptoms, I could not have contracted EVD. I told him that I was having fever.
My husband called an official of the ministry of health and informed her of the development. She then alerted them at Yaba and they came from the Ministry of Health to take me to the Ebola centre. They also disinfected the house.

When they took you from your house to Yaba, how was the journey like to you since it was a situation where you may have returned or not?
When they came in alone, it was so embarrassing.

They came with a big ambulance and were suited in their gear and goggles. People living in my street came out and were staring at me. I think while they were trying to locate my apartment, they asked questions about someone that had Ebola and that made almost everybody know. When I came out, I saw the crowd, the big ambulance and the officials dressed up like they were; I was ashamed. From that day, the stigmatization against my husband and other tenants in the house where I live started.

They refused to sell things to my husband and other tenants. But I was confident when I got to Yaba. I entered there with my Bible, some money and my phone. When I got there, I was placed inside the ‘Suspect Area’. If you then test positive to Ebola, you will be moved to the Quarantine Area.

Can you describe the facility?
The place was lonely at night and very scary. During the day, you will not get the chill but at night, it is another thing.

When I was at the ‘Suspect area’, I was the only person in the hall. During the day, you would see people walking around but at night, they would go home and you would be alone. It was very difficult to sleep. I had my phone and would call my husband at night to keep me company. Being there was scary.

The day I was brought in, I was given a bed and nothing actually happened. The next day, I woke up in the morning thinking they would come and take my sample but they did not come until around 10am.

They gave me malaria tablets and I asked them when they would come to take my sample. They assured me that they would come. They later came in the afternoon and took my sample. In the night, I requested for the result and was told it was not yet out. That was on Friday. On Saturday, I requested for the result and they said they were still on it. The same thing occurred the next day. All this while, I was only given antimalaria drugs, food and water.

What kind of food were you being served?
The people taking care of us would ask what we felt like eating. But in the morning, they usually served tea or pap.

So how did you receive the test result?
It was on Monday when my husband visited. A lady came and asked him to leave but I said it was okay. She then told me that it had been confirmed and that I tested positive to Ebola.

So your husband was visiting you while you were there?
Yes, he was coming but there is a window with a distance where we could stay and talk. You can come but not get inside. Anything he had for me, he would throw it over. When they gave me the news, I laughed and told my husband that it was okay. I was confident because one of my colleagues, Dr. Ada Igonoh, was discharged on Saturday while I was still at the ‘Suspect Area’.
So I said to myself and held on to that belief that since Ada came here and was discharged, I would also survive.

Did you meet her?
No, she was the first person that was admitted. And before they discharge you, your blood must test negative to Ebola. So she was being discharged that day. When she was going, I saw her.

When you were moved to the quarantine centre, it was either you came out alive or dead. What was the experience like?
When I was going there, I was not scared because I had already seen Ada go home. I started being positive that I would survive and did not really dwell on what was around me at that time. I believed that I would not die.

It was when I entered the quarantine centre that I saw my colleagues. They were three doctors, a nurse and a patient who was said to be a staff of NNPC. She was treated at our hospital but also contracted Ebola. Her baby was okay. She was delivered through a Caesarean Section. The nurse was the one who travelled to Enugu and she told me about her condition when she was admitted. She said she was having memory loss. I was encouraged by that too because when I was admitted there, I was fully conscious.

She also told me that she was weak and had to be taken to the ambulance. But I had walked to the ambulance on my own. So these positive thoughts kept me believing that I would survive. It is funny now when I remember that moment because when I came in, the nurse made a light joke, asking me what I was doing there.

I replied that they told me to come and join them and we all laughed. One of the male doctors was not looking alright to me. When I greeted him, his response was somehow. I asked the others and was told that he had been behaving that way for some time. They were saying that maybe the Ebola had affected his brain.

Did you have access to newspapers or books?
Yes, they were bringing books for us to read. What kind of books? Novels and newspapers, anything that you wanted to read so you wouldn’t feel lonely. I went there with my Bible and my hymn book; so I meditated on them. The day I was admitted to the quarantine centre was the day two doctors and the nurse who went to Enugu were discharged. Their discharge also strengthened me the more and before they left, the nurse advised me to take whatever they gave me, including the food and the ORS water.

Initially, I was not eating and packed all the food for them to come and take them away. She told me that if I wanted to come out of this place alive, I should obey whatever instruction I was given.
She said that Dr. Ada told her that and that at times, she had to force herself to eat the food and drink the ORS. After they were discharged, I was left with the other doctor.

Was Dr. Adadevoh not in the quarantine centre with you?
Yes. But I heard that initially she was being treated in another room and was later moved into the quarantine centre.

Describe her condition when she was brought in.
When I came in, she was in a coma and was under an oxygen mask. The quarantine centre is a hall with 14 beds; seven were put at one end and the other at the other for the male and female sections. A screen was used to demarcate the sections. So it was only I and Dr. Adadevoh that were in the female section. S
he was at the extreme end and I was in the centre. At night, I could hear her breathing and her oxygen mask was making some kind of noise.

How long were you there before she gave up?
I entered on Monday and she died on Tuesday evening. In fact, on Monday night, I was looking at her and praying for her not to die. The next day, around 5pm, I saw them removing everything – the catheter, the oxygen and others. I knew that she was gone. After they finished, one of the WHO doctors came to me and said they were sorry, that Adadevoh could not make it. I was scared because it was almost night and I was wondering how I was going to sleep that night.

You were still the only one there?
I was the only one now alive in the female section of the ward. They used a white cloth to cover her from head to toe. After that, they left.

They left her corpse there?
Yes, they left and came back around 9pm to finally remove the corpse. I was scared and had to move to the male section of the ward. Even the doctor was scared also and shifted towards me.
We now had our beds closer. Her corpse was still there and we were looking at our boss lying down there dead. It was scary and it was night.

When they later came for her, I covered my ears not to hear what they were doing. They first of all decontaminated the body, the bed and sheets with Chlorine water. They later took her away. At the back of the centre, there was a pit dug there and that is where they usually burn anything that comes out of the ward. That place is very quiet at night and is really a dead zone.

They would be waiting for you to either die or survive. If you die, they do to you what they do to the dead and if you survive, you leave the place. That night and every other night, I could not sleep.
What then did you do at night? I just closed my eyes and still would not sleep. I was very scared.

What was going on in your mind? Were you thinking about your husband, family and loved ones?
I tried to but I was seeing blood.
Whenever I closed my eyes, I would be seeing red and be remembering the faces of my colleagues that had died. That scared me the more. I used to hear noises outside the building. That place has some bush behind and you would hear the birds singing in the night. That place is not good for somebody to stay in.

Were you not praying since you went there with your Bible and hymn book?
I was praying inside my heart. I usually closed my eyes since I could not sleep and pray. I would get up and read my Bible in the night since that was the only book I went there with. There was a day that the other doctor told me that in the morning that I was not going to meet him alive.
I told him not to say that since I would not be able to stay there on my own. He said that in the night he always felt like someone was pressing him down with a pillow. It was on Saturday night that I experienced it. When I told him about my experience, he was like that was what he had been telling me.

How was the security in that place? I don’t know about the security in the facility but at night, we were left on our own. The doctors would leave while the other people would go home.
If there was any adequate security, I am not aware of it. The only thing I know is that every night, we were on our own.

Did you try to walk around?
That day, I told the officials that if they did not discharge me, I would run away. But how would I have fled? They then asked me if I had any favourite pastor that I may want to hear his or her messages.
They later said they would bring some messages to me and some drugs to make me sleep. The messages were church services which would make you have the feeling of being in a service along with the crowd.
The place was like the mortuary of a hospital, very scary and lonely. How long were you there? I was there for 11 days.

All the while, were they testing your sample?
I moved into the facility on Thursday and later transferred to the quarantine section on Monday. It was the following Monday that they came and took my sample and told me that it was negative. But they could not bathe and discharge me since it was night.
On Tuesday morning, they came to bathe me in order to decontaminate me. It was only my wedding ring that I came out with; every other thing I went in with, my phones, my clothes, even some money I had were burnt.

When the result came back negative, what was the first thing you did?
I started praising God. I then called my husband to give him the news.
I was already sleeping when one of the WHO doctors came and congratulated me, saying that my blood tested negative. I was very happy. She broke the news to me through the barrier because she was not wearing her gear. I came in and broke the news to the wife of one of our doctors who died of Ebola.
The wife was brought in later as she tested positive as well.

What about the other doctor that was in quarantine with you?
He was discharged on the day my result came in late. They had been testing him all along. He stayed there for almost three weeks. He was being told he had traces of Ebola before he eventually tested negative.
While he was going on that Monday, he told me that my sample would come out negative. It was that day that my sample was taken.

When you called your husband, what did you tell him precisely?
I had already told him that he should go and buy new clothes for me as I knew I would be discharged. When I called him, I was happy and told him that I tested negative; and he was happy.
The next day, my husband bought new clothes, shoes and undies for me. They bathed me with chlorine water and brought a new towel. Then after cleaning myself, they gave me the new clothes to wear. I handed my wedding ring to them and they disinfected it. When I was coming out, they sprayed something on every path I stepped on until I left the contaminated area.
When you moved out, what did you do? I ran to my husband and hugged him very tight. I was shedding tears but I was thankful that I survived.

When you were taken from your house to the centre, there was a crowd watching. When you came home, how was the reception?
We came home in the morning and we came in quietly. It was later that some of our neighbours started visiting to thank God with me. Some came while others were still scared.

What relationship do you still have with First Consultants? I am still working there but I have not resumed yet. We were advised to be taking our medications for two weeks. I don’t even have a uniform now because everything I had was disposed of. If I resume now, I will need to get everything new. How eager are you to return to work?

Yes, I am very eager to start working.
It is a profession I chose and I will keep doing my job.

Will you attend to an Ebola patient if you come across one?
I will require the safety gear that the WHO doctors had on when they were treating us. If not, I will not. If the correct gear was given to us that first day, the casualty rate would have been lower. If I am given the gear that the Ministry of Health gave us, I will reject it because that was what we wore and ended up getting infected.

How did your family receive the news?
Honestly, up till now I have not informed my parents. When the whole thing was happening, my husband informed my brother. I told my younger sister who was staying with me not to tell anybody. One of my brothers who lives in Onitsha came to Lagos to purchase a car. He made arrangements to put up in my place but I told him I was posted for training. We had not seen in a long while.
He called me while I was at Yaba, describing the car he bought but never knew what was happening. When I was discharged, I called him and told him and he was annoyed because he said he would have visited me there. I begged him not to inform my parents yet because they would want to see me physically in order to believe him. I will make out time and travel home to inform them myself.
In this whole experience, what will you say made you come out of this alive? I must be honest with you. At the initial stage, I never thought I would come out of this alive.

I asked my husband and the church to pray for me. There were prayers going on for me. At a point, I wanted to die because I was too weak to do anything. But I was asking God to give me one more chance because I have parents and did not want my parents to bury me; instead it should be me doing that.

I believed God gave me a second chance.

How do you remember your colleagues who could not make it?


It is still painful, I must say. Anytime I remember them, I shed tears, especially for Dr. Adadevoh. On the day she died, some of the officials there cried.

While she was in a coma, they were praying for her. I am praying to God to grant them eternal rest because while they were trying to help a fellow human being, they lost their lives.
What sacrifice is greater than that?

President Goodluck Jonathan called Patrick Sawyer a ‘crazy man’ and Nigerians have rained all manner of abuses on him. Being someone that nursed him and observed him closely, did he deserve the names Nigerians are calling him?
He deserved it because he knew what he had and kept it to himself. We later learnt from the Federal Ministry of Health when they contacted their Liberian counterparts that the man flew into Liberia for the burial of his sister, who died of Ebola causes.

They kept him in surveillance and he escaped. We also learnt from sources that when they played the footage when he was at the airport in Liberia, he was avoiding contact with people.

But on arriving in Nigeria, he left himself to be contacted anyhow. He knew what he had. When Dr. Adadevoh asked him questions concerning his contact with anybody with Ebola, he said he had none. If he had been truthful, they could have managed him and who knows, he could have been alive today. But he lied and put others in danger.

That was the reason he was urinating everywhere and vomiting everywhere. He was also changing beds anyhow. Thank God there was no other patient admitted in the same ward as it was a two-bed ward. He would sleep on one bed one minute and the next, he would be on the other. And he also scattered the bed sheets.

There were times he would purposely remove his clothes and be naked. While I was nursing him, I asked him how many times he stooled that day and he told me to go to the toilet and look at the faeces. He kept telling me to go into the toilet and check it. I had to enter the toilet because he kept the tissue there instead of leaving it on the bedside cupboard.
And when changing IV, you need tissue to prevent the blood from coming out. I did the first one and noticed blood coming out, and I had no choice than to enter the bathroom and get the tissue.


The man was just a mad man and knew what he had; he wanted to infect people.