Ebola patient reflects on treatment journey
Ten years ago, Rick Sacra got the all-clear. He was no longer infected with the Ebola virus.
On Thursday, he received a warm welcome back to Omaha.
"You all really were the hands of Jesus and an answer ... to prayer," Sacra told the crowd full of his former caretakers.
On Thursday, the doctor who caught Ebola while caring for patients during mission work in Liberia returned to Omaha, Nebraska, for only the second time since that day.
"At first, I was like, 'Nebraska?' I'm from Massachusetts. I was like, 'Why am I going away to Nebraska?' I don't know anything about that," Sacra said. "But then, once I got here and saw the amazing preparations, I mean, I hadn't heard about this unit before."
Before he arrived as the unit's first patient, not many had heard about the unit.
"Prior to that day, for nine years, we begged, and I mean begged anyone to notice us," said Shelly Schwedhelm, the associate director for clinical operations and emergency management at UNMC's Global Center for Health Security.
But now the doctor who led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's clinical Ebola response team says there's lasting impact from the hospital's work caring for three Ebola patients.
"This really contributed to optimizing supportive care of patients with Ebola everywhere," said Tim Uyeki, who now is the CDC's chief medical officer for the Influenza Division.
Sacra remembers his three weeks in Omaha well, and not just because of the virus that made him extremely ill.
"They just went above and beyond," Sacra said of the unit's care team. "Somebody had her mom fix Runzas for me. They made me an honorary Huskers fan so I could wear my T-shirt while I watched the game."
After making peace with death a decade ago, he's around to say, "Thank you."
"You gave me my life back," Sacra said.
