The Dallas Fire-Rescue crew who handled the nation’s first confirmed Ebola patient have tested negative for the virus but will be monitored at home for the next 21 days.
The ambulance that took the patient to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital has been quarantined, although department officials on Wednesday did not elaborate on what that meant or say when it was taken out of service.
Texas Health Resources System spokesman Wendell Watson said he believes Dallas Fire-Rescue took proper precautions. He said the three paramedics apparently had questioned the man and knew he possibly was stricken with Ebola when they took him to the hospital Sunday. The paramedics are from Station 37 on Greenville Avenue in northeast Dallas.
Meanwhile, other North Texas emergency medical services agencies say their crews are more than ready for the virus.
Ambulances are decontaminated after calls before they go back into use anyway, said CareFlite president Jim Swartz. He said it wouldn’t make sense to take an ambulance out of service right away unless they immediately knew they were dealing with Ebola.
But identifying rare illnesses is a job for a doctor, not a paramedic, he said.
“We treat symptoms in EMS,” he said. “We don’t diagnose.”
Swartz and other North Texas EMS officials said they have good communication with the hospitals and will isolate paramedics if any are exposed to an Ebola patient.
Lewisville Fire Department EMS Division Chief Ricky Reeves said he doesn’t know whether he’d isolate an ambulance.
“We practice universal precaution measures all the time,” he said. “We practice all that we do because we have to go to home to our families.”
Local officials said they have been preparing for the virus to arrive in the U.S. since August.
MedStar, which handles emergency medical responses in Fort Worth and other Tarrant County cities, is even more vigilant now that the Liberian man tested positive for Ebola in Dallas, said spokesman Matt Zavadsky. Other than that, not much will change, he said.
“We take universal precautions on every call we respond to now, and we have for 30 years,” he said. It’s “really not a huge issue because, quite frankly, we worry more about the flu, hepatitis, HIV, all these things that are much more prevalent in our community than Ebola.”
Federal officials have suggested that the agencies ask more questions of some callers, such as whether they have traveled to another country recently. Zavadsky said MedStar is doing so. Plano Fire-Rescue followed suit Tuesday afternoon, Chief Brian Crawford said.
Crawford said his first responders are now equipped with more protective gear, such as eye shields, should they need it.
“We are risk managers,” he said. “We always have to prepare for the worst-case scenario. We are as prepared as we can be.”
Staff writer Dianna Hunt contributed to this report.
