Gene Johnson’s Ebola experiment was simple. He would infect a few monkeys with the virus, and then he would treat them with drugs in the hope that they would get better. That way, he might discover a drug that would flight Ebola virus or possibly cure it.
Monkeys are nearly identical to human beings in a biological sense, which is why they are used in medical experiments. Humans and monkeys are both primates, and Ebola feeds on primates in same way that a predator consumes certain kinds of flesh. Ebola can’t tell the difference between a human being and a monkey. The virus jumps easily back and forth between them.
Nancy Jaax volunteered to work as the pathologist on Johnson’s Ebola project. It was Level 4 work, which she was qualified to do, because she didn’t need to be vaccinated. She was eager to prove herself and eager to continue working with lethal viruses. However, some people around the Institute were skeptical of her ability to work in a space suit in Level 4. She was a “married female”—she might panic. They claimed that her hands looked nervous or clumsy, not good for work with Level 4 hot agents.
People felt that she might cut herself or stick herself with a contaminated needle—or stick someone else. Her hands became a safety issue.
Her immediate superior was Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Johnson (he is not related to Gene Johnson, the civilian who was the head of the Ebola project). Tony Johnson is a soft-spoken man and a cool customer. Now he had to decide whether to allow her to go into Biosafety Level 4. Wanting to be sure he understood the situation, he sent word around the Institute:
Who knows Nancy Jaax? Who can comment on her strengths and weakness? Major Jerry Jaax, Nancy’s husband, showed up in Lieutenant Colonel Johnson’s office. Jerry was against the idea of his wife putting on a space suit. He argued strongly against it. He said that there had been “family discussions” about Nancy working with Ebola virus. “Family discussion” Jerry had said to Nancy, “You’re the only wife I’ve got.” He did not wear a biological space suit himself at work, and he did not want his wife to wear one either. His biggest concern was that she would be handling Ebola. He could not stand the idea that his wife, the woman he loved, the mother of their children, and would hold in her hands a monstrous life form that is lethal and incurable.
Lieutenant Colonel Tony Johnson listened to what Major Jerry Jaax had to say, and listened to what other people had t say, and then he felt he should speak with Nancy himself, and so he called her into his office. He could see that she was tense. He watched her hands as she talked. They looked fine to him, not clumsy, and not too quick, either. He decided that the rumors he had been hearing about her hands were unfounded. She said to him, “I don’t want any special favors.” Well, she was not going to get any special favors. “I’m going to put you in the Ebola program,” he said. He told her that he would allow her to put on a space suit and go int the Ebola area, and that he would accompany her on the first few trips, to teach her how to do it and to observe her hands at work. He would watch her like a hawk. He believed that she was ready for total immersion in a hot zone.
As he spoke, she broke down an cried in front of him—“had a few tears,” as he would later recall. They were tears of happiness. At that moment, to hold Ebola virus in her hands was what she wanted more than anything else in the world.
1300 Hours
Nancy spent the morning doing paperwork in her office. After lunch, she removed her diamond engagement ring and her wedding band and locked them in her desk drawer. She dropped by Tony Johnson’s office and asked him if he was ready to go in. They went downstairs and along a corridor to the Ebola suite. There was only one locker room leading into it. Tony Johnson insisted that Nancy Jaax go in first, to get changed. He would follow.
The room was small and contained a few lockers along one wall, some shelves, and a mirror over a sink. She undressed, removing all of her clothing, including her underwear, and put everything in her locker. She left the Band-Aid stuck to her hand. From a shelf, she took up a sterile surgical scrub suit—green pants and a green shirt, the clothing that a surgeon wears in an operating room—and she dragged on the pants and tied the drawstring at the waist, and snapped the shirt’s snaps. You were not allowed to wear anything under the scrub suit, no underwear. She pulled a cloth surgical cap over her head and tucked her hair up into the cap while looking in the mirror. She did not appear nervous, but she was starting to feel a little bit nervous. This was only her second trip into a hot area.
Standing in her bare feet, she turned away from the mirror and faced a door leading into Level 2. A deep blue light streamed through a window in the door—ultraviolet light. Viruses fall apart under
ultraviolet light, which smashes their genetic material and makes them unable to replicate.
As she opened the door and entered Level 2, she felt the door stick against her pull, sucked in by a difference of air pressure, and a gentle drag of air whispered around her shoulders and traveled inward, toward the hot zone. This was negative air pressure, designed to keep hot agents from drifting outward. The door closed behind her, and she was in Level 2. The blue light bathed her face. She walked through a water-shower stall that contained an ultraviolet light, a bar of soap, and some ordinary shampoo. The shower stall led into a bathroom, where there was a shelf that held some clean white socks. She put on a pair of socks and pushed through another door, into Level 3.
This was a room known as the staging area. It contained a desk with a telephone and a sink. A cylindrical waxed cardboard box sat on the floor beside the desk. It was a biohazard container known as a “hatbox,” or “ice-cream container.” A hatbox is blazed with biohazard symbols, which are red, spiky three-petaled flowers, and it is used for storing and transporting infectious waste. This hatbox was empty. It was only a makeshift chair.
She found a box of latex rubber surgical gloves and a plastic shaker full of baby powder. She shook baby powder onto her hands and pulled on the gloves. Then she found a roll of sticky tape, and she tore off several strips of tape and hung them in a row on the edge of the desk.
Then she taped herself. Taking up one strip at a time, she taped the cuffs of her gloves to the sleeves of her scrub shirt, running the tape around the cuff to make a seal. She then tapped her socks to her trousers. Now she wore one layer of protection between herself and the replicative Other.
Lieutenant Colonel Johnson came in through Level 2 wearing a surgical scrub suit. He put on rubber gloves and began taping them to his sleeves, and he taped his socks to his pants.
Nancy turned to the right, into an antechamber, and found her space suit hanging on a rack. It was Chemturion biological space suit, and it was marked in letters across the chest: JAAX. A Chemturion is also known as a blue suit that meets government specifications for work with airborne hot agents.
She opened up the space suit and laid it down on the concrete floor and stepped into it, feet first. She pulled it up to her armpits and slid her arms into the sleeves until her fingers entered the gloves. The suit had brown rubber gloves that were attached by gaskets at the cuffs. These were the space suit’s main gloves, and they were made of heavy rubber. They were the most important barrier between her and Ebola.
The hands were the weak point, the most vulnerable part of the suit, because of what they handled. They handled needles, knives, and sharp pieces of bone. You are responsible for maintaining you space unit in the same way that a paratrooper is responsible for packing and maintaining his own parachute. Perhaps Nancy was in a bit of a hurry and did not inspect her space suit as closely as she should have.