DALLAS
— For Louise Troh, word of the death of her fiancé, Thomas Eric
Duncan, unfolded Wednesday as everything else has since he was found to
have Ebola — at a distance.
Dallas
County’s chief executive, Clay Jenkins, and the Rev. George Mason of
Wilshire Baptist Church drove to the home where Ms. Troh, 54, has been
under quarantine with her 13-year-old son and two other young men, all
of whom had been living with Mr. Duncan during the time he began to show
symptoms of the Ebola virus. They have been under orders from state
health officials not to leave the premises for 21 days, the maximum
incubation period of the virus.
“We
never sat down,” said Mr. Mason, who is the pastor of the church Ms.
Troh attends. “We did not touch them. We kept about a three-foot
distance from them at all times. This is simply a matter of extreme
caution.”
The
death Wednesday morning of Mr. Duncan, 42, the Liberian man at the
center of a widening public health scare and the first person with a
case of Ebola diagnosed in the United States, heightened anxiety and
fear here. It also renewed questions about whether a delay in receiving
treatment could have played a role in his death and what role it played
in the possibility of his spreading the disease to others.
His
death came on a day when a sergeant with the Dallas County sheriff’s
office who had been in the apartment where Mr. Duncan had been staying
was rushed to the hospital and monitored for possible exposure to Ebola.
Federal
health officials said that they had not confirmed whether the sergeant,
identified as Michael Monnig, had definite contact with Ebola or
definite symptoms of the virus, but that he was being assessed.
Officials said it could take about 48 hours before they were certain of
his condition. He was not one of the 48 people being monitored for the
disease.
While
there were condolences expressed throughout this city over Mr. Duncan’s
death, there were also renewed questions about the handling of Mr.
Duncan’s case by Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, and about
whether Mr. Duncan would still be alive had he been admitted to the
hospital when he first went to its emergency room on Sept. 25.
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