Make Lots of Room in Camp Fooked
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http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york...ients-rushed-bellevue-fever-article-1.1984941
Doctor rushed to Bellevue Hospital with Ebola symptoms went bowling a day earlier: sources
Dr. Craig Spencer, who recently returned from disease-wracked West African country Guinea after working with Doctors Without Borders, hit the lanes in Williamsburg and used Uber taxis to get around, sources said. The shocking revelation that Spencer was roaming around town — after first telling authorities he self-quarantined himself — emerged after the 33-year-old was hauled off to Bellevue Hospital in a protective suit with symptoms of the deadly disease.
BY ROCCO PARASCANDOLA , TINA MOORE , CORKY SIEMASZKO NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Published: Thursday, October 23, 2014, 2:49 PM
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Dr. Craig Spencer was reportedly suffering from nausea and a high fever before being rushed to Bellevue Hospital. Above, he dons protective robs in Belgium, a connector hub between the U.S. and West Africa.
The Harlem doctor who was rushed to a hospital Thursday with suspected Ebola symptoms had gone bowling in Brooklyn the night before.
Craig Spencer, who recently returned from disease-wracked West African country Guinea, hit the lanes in Williamsburg and used Uber taxis to get around, sources said.
The shocking revelation that Spencer was roaming around town — after first telling authorities he self-quarantined himself — emerged after the 33-year-old medic was hauled off to Bellevue Hospital in a protective suit with symptoms of the deadly disease.
Those include nausea and a 103-degree fever, sources said.
Preliminary results of tests done on the doctor are expected overnight, the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said in a statement.
Spencer’s neighbor, John Roston, told The Daily News the doctor lived with a girlfriend. In an online engagement announcement that describes Spencer as a “goofball,” his fiancée is identified as Morgan Dixon.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether Dixon, 30, was also quarantined.
Spencer, who working in Guinea with Doctors Without Borders, returned to New York City 10 days ago via Kennedy Airport, the sources said.
FDNY hazardous materials specialists sealed off Spencer's apartment on W. 147th St. and took the doctor out on a stretcher.
While Spencer was placed in an isolation unit at Bellevue, city health workers began tracking down anybody he might have been in contact with since returning home from Africa.
"The Health Department's team of disease detectives immediately began to actively trace all of the patient's contacts to identify anyone who may be at potential risk," Bellevue said in a statement.
Spencer was at
The Gutter on N. 14th St. and
Brooklyn Bowl on Wythe Ave. on Wednesday, sources said.
When a reporter went by The Gutter on Thursday, it was closed and a promoter said the bar area, where a concert was supposed to be held, wasn't opening due to "unforeseen circumstances."
Brooklyn Bowl, on its Facebook page,
said it had not been contacted by authorities.
"We are aware of the reports that an individual who may possibly be infected with Ebola attended an event in Williamsburg last night,” it read.
Robert Cedano, the super in Spencer’s building, said firefighters took the doctor’s door off its hinges when they took him out of the apartment.
"Oh, lovely," Brooke Christensen, who lives in the building, said after learning her neighbor was taken away for Ebola testing.
"I'm not concerned," she said. "I've had no fluid exchange with my neighbors."
Neighbor John Roston said Spencer is a familiar sight in the neighborhood and often helps residents carry groceries up the stairs.
“He’s always wearing scrubs,” said Roston, 38. “I hope he feels better, I hope it's not Ebola, I hope it's the flu.
“There’s not a bad bone in his body,” he added. “If he makes it through I'll buy him a beer."
Council Member Mark Levine, who represents the neighborhood, said state and federal officials are “responding with the highest possible level of urgency and marshalling every resource at their disposal to respond to this possible case.”
“I want to reiterate that this has not yet been confirmed as an Ebola case but every precaution is being taken as if it were,” Levine said in a statement.
Meanwhile, health care workers handed out flyers in English and Spanish with instructions on what to do is somebody suspects he or she has Ebola.
Dr. Howard Zucker, acting commissioner of the state Health Department, said Spencer is in the right place.
“That facility is prepared and equipped for the isolation, identification and treatment of any such patients,” Zucker said.
Spencer posted a photo of himself wearing protective gear on Facebook on Sept. 18 while in Belgian capital Brussels, a hub for connecting flights to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
"Off to Guinea with Doctors Without Borders," the caption reads. "Please support organizations that are sending support or personnel to West Africa, and help combat one of the worst public health and humanitarian disasters in recent history."
The Ebola scare in Manhattan comes after U.S. Centers for Disease Control head Tom Frieden said he was seeing “signs of progress” in the fight against the disease, which has killed nearly 4,500 people in Africa but just one in the U.S. — a Liberian who was visiting his son in Dallas.
Frieden also called a recent mass training session for health care workers at the Javits Center “very successful” and said the exercise would be repeated next week for health care workers in California.
Frieden spoke a day after the feds imposed new rules requiring that all travelers arriving in the U.S. from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone be monitored for three weeks, which is the incubation period for Ebola.
Under the new rules, nine people in Connecticut — none of whom are showing symptoms — have been placed in quarantine.
