Aid Workers Risk Their Lives To Help Because 'That's Who We Are'

Aid Workers Risk Their Lives To Help Because 'That's Who We Are'
Health workers of the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) and medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) take part in a pre-deployment training for staff heading to Ebola areas on October 29, 2014 at the IFRC headquarters in Geneva. West Africa is the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak which has claimed the lives of nearly 5,000 people. The often deadly virus is spread only through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person showing symptoms such as fever or vomiting. AFP PHOTO / FABRICE COFFRINI (Photo credit should read FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images)
Health workers of the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) and medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) take part in a pre-deployment training for staff heading to Ebola areas on October 29, 2014 at the IFRC headquarters in Geneva. West Africa is the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak which has claimed the lives of nearly 5,000 people. The often deadly virus is spread only through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person showing symptoms such as fever or vomiting. AFP PHOTO / FABRICE COFFRINI (Photo credit should read FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images)

As Dr. Rick Sacra prepared to fly to Liberia to treat patients in the Ebola zone, he prepared for the worst.

He sat down with his wife, Debbie, at their home in Worcester, Mass., for a conversation both somber and direct, showing her a spreadsheet of insurance and family assets. “We talked about the risk that I could get Ebola, and I could die.” Colleagues from SIM, the group that he works with, had suggested he would most likely be safe. One told him, “If you follow the protocols, you won’t get it.”

But Ebola got Dr. Sacra. Airlifted back to the United States, he recovered, but “I am still regaining my strength,” he said. “Still regaining the stamina that I had before the illness.”

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