We now know that Patrick Sawyer’s employers and the Liberian government knew he had Ebola, yet still allowed to leave Liberia. As a matter of fact, he was cleared to travel by his friend,
who is a deputy minister in Liberia. Sawyer was acutely aware of his
condition when he also boarded the flight to Nigeria for a conference in
Calabar.
According to Liberian newspaper, The New Dawn, which monitored the
CCTV footage recorded at Monrovia’s James Spriggs Payne’s Airport,
Monrovia, Sawyer looked “terribly ill” before he boarded the 20 July
Asky Airline plane to Lagos He reportedly wore a “sad countenance“ and
was obviously in severe pain.
Apparently overtaken by “excruciating pain,” he, at a
point, laid flat on his stomach on the floor in the corridor of the
airport.
According to the paper, Mr. Sawyer sat alone all through the time he
was boarding the flight and avoided bodily contact with other passengers
who were close to him at the boarding gate in Monrovia.
Mr. Sawyer became severely ill on the plane and was taken to First
Consultant Hospital, Obalende, from the Murtala Mohammed Airport in
Lagos. He died there on 24 July.
For some yet unclear reason, Sawyer and his highly placed friends in
the Liberian government were insistent on his visiting Calabar. First,
reports indicate he did not escape from isolation as reported by some
news media. According to those, the officials were more concerned about
ensuring he got to his Calabar conference.
Also the hospital in which he died, First Consultant Hospital had
issued a statement confirming that it had to resist huge pressure from
Liberian government officials who wanted him to be discharged, and
claimed he had a crucial role to play in that talkshop.
