Thread: Ebola

About 10 years ago when I was still on the job, an employee of a popular magazine company called and reported a suspicious package had arrived & they wanted the police to respond. The person who received the call was new & I was sent to the complaintant, my questions as to the nature of the suspicious package, while in route, went unanswered.

I arrived & went to the 3rd floor of the building, where a lady approached me with an open postal package, I stopped her a few feet away & asked what's inside. She tilted the box to show me it contained white powder & a note that read, "This is Anthrax and all you B&#$*(^%'s are going to die." The lady had already showed the contents to the entire floor. I sealed the entry & exit points of the 3rd floor & waited for a Hazmat Unit to arrive. We were herded onto a recycled school bus, taken to a large hospital parking lot, made to exit the bus & strip of everything, put all belongings into large bags,,, walked naked in a line to be hosed & scrubbed by people in chemical suits,, then herded naked into a large room, where we were handed hospital gowns. We stayed in the room for several hours.

The powder turned out to be harmless,,,, all my equipment & clothes were destroyed anyway, my gun sonic cleaned.

I didn't hate the ass&ole who sent the package, I was pi$$ed at the system that failed me & my overall lack of training in this area. I had been trained to handle robbers, killers & lost children,,, not death in a box. Re-Training on Bio-hazards started immediately.

The only upside was that the magazine was working a story on the South Beach modeling industry. There were at least 15 models with me,,, I only wished that I had been keeping up with my workouts & had some of my hair left. I arrived home in a hospital gown & not a single phone number.

I really try not to be paranoid about this stuff but the powers that be seem to really be dropping the ball on this one.

I told my wife you will be able to pick out the straight razor guys in the apocalyptic world b/c they will still have nice clean shaven faces long after everyone else has ran out of blades.

Remember guys....luck favors the prepared.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Unless we are talking of yet another, the flight was to Cleveland. She was asymptomatic until she returned home. The current outbreak in West Africa has been ongoing since March. In countries with what the Washington Post described as "broken health care" infrastructure. IIRC there have been approximately 7,000 reported cases and half have died ...... in an area inhabited by millions of people.

So don't get me wrong, it scares me too, but I don't think we are in for a situation like the bubonic plague of the middle ages. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/he...-hysteria.html

We shall see what we see jim

I'm sure that this will somehow be linked to Bush and/or global warming. It is election time after all.

Originally Posted by kelbro

I'm sure that this will somehow be linked to Bush and/or global warming. It is election time after all.

Well I read that it originally came from people eating 'Bush meat' ........ and I didn't even know they had a ranch ........

I work in a hospital and the other day I got a call about a loose toilet seat in the emergency department. As I bent over to tighten it the chest of my uniform touched the seat. Who knows whos sweaty rear touched it???? I am glad that feces etc. is not considered hazardous waste!

Originally Posted by Hirlau

About 10 years ago when I was still on the job, an employee of a popular magazine company called and reported a suspicious package had arrived & they wanted the police to respond. The person who received the call was new & I was sent to the complaintant, my questions as to the nature of the suspicious package, while in route, went unanswered.

I arrived & went to the 3rd floor of the building, where a lady approached me with an open postal package, I stopped her a few feet away & asked what's inside. She tilted the box to show me it contained white powder & a note that read, "This is Anthrax and all you B&#$*(^%'s are going to die." The lady had already showed the contents to the entire floor. I sealed the entry & exit points of the 3rd floor & waited for a Hazmat Unit to arrive. We were herded onto a recycled school bus, taken to a large hospital parking lot, made to exit the bus & strip of everything, put all belongings into large bags,,, walked naked in a line to be hosed & scrubbed by people in chemical suits,, then herded naked into a large room, where we were handed hospital gowns. We stayed in the room for several hours.

The powder turned out to be harmless,,,, all my equipment & clothes were destroyed anyway, my gun sonic cleaned.

I didn't hate the ass&ole who sent the package, I was pi$$ed at the system that failed me & my overall lack of training in this area. I had been trained to handle robbers, killers & lost children,,, not death in a box. Re-Training on Bio-hazards started immediately.

The only upside was that the magazine was working a story on the South Beach modeling industry. There were at least 15 models with me,,, I only wished that I had been keeping up with my workouts & had some of my hair left. I arrived home in a hospital gown & not a single phone number.

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Now if only you can get them to make a movie out of that great story.

""You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." ~Rham Emanuel.

What about all the unscreened immigrants illegally crossing the border? Why are the doctors and nurses near the border told to stay quiet about diseases encountered in the illegal immigrant population or go to jail?

Heard anything about Benghazi in the news lately? I can think of several other issues left simmering in the back ground.

Why would the rest of the world be prepared to deal with Ebola to any great extent on their own turf? Since it's discovery in 1976 it has only broken out in Africa and the outbreaks were small and of a short duration. Just did not seem pressing enough I guess.

Why is there not any sort of effective vaccine to fight this deadly disease stock piled and ready to go? My guess is that it was a low priority because it only occurred in Africa and although deadly did not kill large numbers of people so there really was no profit in it especially as the people effected by it likely could not afford to buy the vaccine even if there was one. Seems to be a rush on it now though.

The rest of the world is just unprepared to deal with such a large outbreak of Ebola the likes of which has not been seen before. Ever wonder if Ebola has mutated in order for it to spread quicker than it has been known to in the past? Can of worms for sure.

Bob

What bothers me the most was the interview Tuesday with Dr. Thomas Frieden, the head of CDC. He had no good answers & expressed concern how flight restrictions might effect the economy of the nations that are ground zero for this problem. He should only be concerned about fighting the virus itsself, not the politics invovled.

I don't think that Mr. Ebola gives a damn whether you are Democrat, Republican, Liberian, American, English or a pygmy from New Guinea. This Ebola problem just demonstrated how little we (Humans) control mother nature. I keep hearing the "experts" brag about our (American) medical system being such a high level about the systems in the ground zero countries,, Really ????. Didn't Dallas have to ship a patient out to another hostpital? ,,, and there are less than 3 cases there,,,,,, if we had only a hundred active cases, it appears we have no facilities to treat them all.

This can be blamed on administrations that go back decades. The papers like to note that the Flu kills 30,000 a year in America, so what's the big scare,,, Really???? Unless your one of the 30,000, I guess its not a problem.