rica to treatment centers in the U.S. and Europe. Only
two patients died, neither of them aboard the plane.
The television stations, having been allowed to poke
around inside the ABCS, dropped several degrees
of melodrama. Brantly, who was the first human to
receive a dose of Ebola-fighting antibodies known
as ZMapp, recovered. Nancy Writebol, who was the
second human to receive the antibodies, recovered as
well. With a few hitches, including one time Dent was
recognized by a barista in a chain coffee shop, who
shouted “You’re the Ebola guy!” in horror and backed
away, the hysteria gradually ebbed.
And then, mercifully, the outbreak in West Africa
ended. The leftover ABCS units were moved back into
a storeroom. Actual rolls of hay established them-
selves at the far edge of the lawn abutting the Carters-
ville office. Now that they had passed through the eye
of the needle, Phoenix Air’s medical staff were given
other delicate work for the U.S. Department of State,
such as evacuating dignitaries and bringing home
the imprisoned and allegedly tortured American
student Otto Warmbier from North Korea. But you
could tell they missed the drama of the Ebola years.
Sometimes, the doctors had cried when the Phoenix
Air folks, with the big American flag patches on the
shoulders of their flight gear, disembarked from the
plane to bring them home. They had been the angels
who came out of the sky to save the saviors. Who
wouldn’t miss that?December 2 6, 2018
Democratic Republic of the CongoThe doctors were winning: There were new tools for
fighting the Ebola outbreak in the Congo that hadn’t
existed four years earlier. In particular, an experi-
mental vaccine that had been developed at Emory
and tested on several Phoenix Air doctors was prov-
ing effective at combating the disease in Africa. Soon
after his exposure, Dr. LaRochelle received the latest
treatment.
Normally, LaRochelle would have completed his
isolation in-country, either in Nyankunde or at a
hospital in Beni, a town about 100 miles south, near
Virunga National Park, which had all the latest ex-
perimental medicines. But the Congo’s eastern prov-
inces are notoriously unstable, beset by warlords,
loosely formed terrorist organizations, and geno-@PopularMechanics _ July/August 2019 89