A report detailing the final hours of Liberian Patrick Sawyer, the man who brought Ebola virus into Lagos from Liberia has surfaced. Sawyer was the first documented case of Ebola in Nigeria after he arrived in Lagos from Monrovia (capital of Liberia) on 20th of July 2014. He collapsed at the Murtala Mohammed Airport after displaying symptoms of the disease and was taken to First Consultants Hospital Obalende, Ikoyi.
According to the report when Mr. Sawyer was told he had Ebola he flew into a rage, pulled down his pants and proceeded to urinate on the medical personnel treating him at First Consultants Hospital in Obalende.
Sawyer repeatedly denied he had come into contact with anyone that had Ebola despite the fact his sister had died from the disease in Monrovia and he had been seen with blood on his clothing after his sister’s death!
Read excerpts of the Front Page Africa below:
Barely 24 hours before his death, Patrick Sawyer had a rather strange – and in the words of medical and diplomatic sources here, “Indiscipline” encounter with nurses and health workers at First Consultants Hospital in Obalende, Ikoyi.
Looking to get to the bottom of Sawyer’s strange ailment hospital officials say, he was tested for both malaria and HIV AIDS. However, when both tests came back negative, he was then asked whether he had made contact with any person with the Ebola Virus, to which Sawyer denied.
Sawyer’s sister, Princess had died of the deadly virus on Monday, July 7, 2014 at the Catholic Hospital in Monrovia. On Friday, July 25, 2014, 18 days later, Sawyer died in Lagos.
Authorities at the First Consultants Hospital in Obalende decided that despite Sawyer’s denial, they would test him for Ebola, due to the fact that he had just arrived from Liberia, where there has been an outbreak of the disease with more than 100 deaths.
Upon being told he had Ebola, Mr. Sawyer went into a rage, denying and objecting to the opinion of the medical experts. “He was so adamant and difficult that he took the tubes from his body and took off his pants and urinated on the health workers, forcing them to flee.”
Sawyer exhibited similar indiscipline behavior during his sister’s stay at the Catholic Hospital in Monrovia where she was taken because he noticed she was bleeding profusely and was later found to be a victim of Ebola. Sawyer was seen with blood on his clothing after his sister’s death and had earlier demanded that she be placed in a private room.
President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf cited indiscipline and disrespect as a key reason why Sawyer contracted the Ebola virus. She said his failure to heed medical advice put the lives of other residents across the nation’s border at risk.
First Consultants would later report that it resisted immense pressure to let out Sawyer from its hospital against the insistence from some higher-ups and conference organizers that he had a key role to play at the ECOWAS convention in Calabar, the Cross River State capital.
First Consultants said that it then went further to reach senior officials in the Office of the Secretary of Health of the USA who assisted it with contacts at the Centre for Disease Control and W.H.O Regional Laboratory Centre in Senegal. According to the hospital, the initial results from LUTH laboratory showed a signal of possible Ebola virus, but required confirmation.
The First Consultants statement noted that it was able to obtain confirmation of Ebola virus disease, (Zaire strain) after working with the state, federal and international agencies. Sawyer was pronounced dead at 6:50 AM Nigeria time, on July 25 and all agencies were properly notified.
Once the case was officially confirmed, the hospital was temporarily shut down and in-house patients immediately evacuated. Sawyer’s body was subsequently cremated under W.H.O guidelines and witnessed by all appropriate agencies, according to the hospital statement. “In keeping with W.H.O guidelines, the hospital is shut down briefly as full decontamination exercise is currently in progress. The re-opening of the hospital will also be in accordance with its guidelines”, the hospital said.
In total, Sawyer reportedly came in direct contact with 59 persons, 44 of whom were at the hospital he was taken to when he fell ill, according to the Lagos State government.
His ashes have been returned to Liberia.
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