Violent shaking and slow suffocation: American doctor who survived Ebola tells of traumatic fight with deadly disease
- Dr Kent Brantly caught Ebola in July while working in Liberia
- In August, he and a missionary worker were flown to Emory University Hospital where they were treated with an experimental serum
- Both survived the disease and have since been discharged from the hospital
- Dr Brantly has now spoken out about his battle with Ebola in an interview with NBC
The American doctor who made a miraculous recovery from a battle with Ebola has spoken out in his first sit-down interview while recovering at home with his wife and three children.
Dr Kent Brantly was treating Ebola patients in Liberia at the end of July, during what is currently the largest outbreak of the disease ever, when he first started showing signs of the deadly disease.
The 33-year-old and another infected missionary worker were transported out of the country in early August for treatment at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, where both were able to beat the disease with the help of an experimental new serum called ZMapp.
Dr Brantly sat down with NBC's Matt Lauer this week to discuss the life-threatening experience that propelled him into the national spotlight, in an interview taped in Asheville, North Carolina where he is living in seclusion with his family.
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The physician says he first started feeling symptoms of the disease at the end of July, when he came down with a low fever that made him feel 'a little off - a little warm, a little under the weather'.
At first, he hoped it was malaria or dengue fever, but the results kept coming back negative until he was eventually tested for Ebola. The positive test means death for more than 90 per cent who catch the disease, but Dr Brantly says he never lost faith even when doctors started to fear he wouldn't make it through the night.
The disease quickly took hold in Liberia, when he started struggling to breathe and his body was overcome with shaking and violent shivers.
'And I said to the nurse who was taking care of me, "I'm sick. I have no reserve. And I don't know how long I can keep this up." And I said, "I don't know how you're going to breathe for me when I quit breathing."
'Cause that was the reality. I thought, "I-- I'm not gonna be able to continue breathing this way." And they had no way to breathe for me if I had to quit breathing,' Dr Brantly recalled.
Hope finally arrived early last month, when Dr Brantly and fellow missionary worker Nancy Writebol, 59, were flown out of Liberia for treatment at Emory.
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The two Americans were the first to receive ZMapp which helped them fight off the disease.
Within just a few weeks, both were discharged from the hospital after testing negative for Ebola in their blood.
Dr Brantly's mind is still very much on the outbreak after news broke Wednesday that yet another American doctor has caught Ebola. Dr Brantly worked with the latest victim at the same hospital in Liberia, and told Lauer that he spent most of the morning praying for his friend. The doctor has not yet been named publicly.
Now that he is Ebola-free, Dr Brantly looks back and says he was most lucky his wife and children weren't in the country when he started showing symptoms. His family left the country a few days before to attend a wedding in Texas.
'I was so thankful that Amber and the kids were not there. Yeah, I wanted to be close to them. But that gave me great relief, knowing they were gone three days before I had any symptoms,' he said.
'That would have been an overwhelming mental burden, if I had woken up sick next to my wife with one of my kids snuggled up next to me.'
In the interview, Dr Brantly looked thin and pale but appeared to be healthy and energized.
'Right now I still have a lot of recovering to do,' he said. 'I know I look well but I am still pretty weak.'
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