\u201cIt seemed like a manageable event, frankly. I spoke with the state\u2019s top health official, Dr. David Lakey, spoke to some people at the White House, and it seemed like a pretty manageable event. I had no idea that I would be in charge of a major response.”<\/p>\n
![\"Dr.](\"http:\/\/stories.kera.org\/surviving-ebola\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2015\/09\/DavidLakey-300x255.jpg\")
Dr. David Lakey was the commissioner at the Texas Department of State Health Services in 2014 He left the job for a post at UT Tyler.
Photo: Krystina Martinez, KERA News<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2026On organizing the response effort:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThe next day\u2026Dr. Lakey, [U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director] Thomas Frieden and I had a telephone conference and they asked me to be in charge. I remember, frankly being a little shocked by that, saying \u2018well, I\u2019m the only one on this call who\u2019s not a doctor.\u2019 The night that I was told that I was in charge, we literally created the incident command structure for Ebola on a whiteboard<\/p>\n because there wasn\u2019t one in the United States. That\u2019s now used throughout teaching people about Ebola.<\/p>\n shocked by that, saying \u2018well, I\u2019m the only one on this call who\u2019s not a doctor.\u2019 The night that I was told that I was in charge, we literally created the incident command structure for Ebola on a whiteboard because there wasn\u2019t one in the United States. That\u2019s now used throughout teaching people about Ebola.”<\/p>\n \u2026On why he entered the apartment Thomas Eric Duncan stayed without protective gear:<\/strong><\/p>\n “Science clearly told us that Louise Troh and the three young men were contacts of Mr. Duncan and they didn\u2019t exhibit symptoms yet, therefore they could not transmit the disease. Had I gone there in a spacesuit, it would\u2019ve sent a terrible message to Louise and the children, and ultimately to the public that we were telling [they\u2019re] not at risk unless they were around someone who had Ebola.<\/p>\n Nina Pham was the first Dallas nurse infected with Ebola. She was transferred to the National Institutes of Health in Maryland. Photo: Facebook<\/p><\/div>\n “In a crisis situation as a leader, you may only have 30 seconds or a minute to make an important decision or sometimes, you might have 15 minutes. You\u2019ve got to rely on the experts, you\u2019ve got to rely on the scientists for science, the first responders for their expertise, and be guided by that.”<\/p>\n …On the hardest thing about those six weeks:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cYou get to know all the people, so you pray for them, but you also worry about Amber and Nina and their two families. Louise and the three young men. Not knowing who was going to come down sick next. Feeling an incredible sense of responsibility to the young Parkland nurses who were staffing the Methodist facility up in Richardson if the worst happened, knowing that we might lose some of them. Knowing that I was in charge during that. There was a burden to that, but you really don\u2019t have a lot of time to reflect on that, you just keep moving forward.”<\/p>\n \u2026On the personal lessons learned:<\/strong><\/p>\n “The two biggest lessons where: others the way you want to be treated and follow the science. That first part can be difficult, because we have to not only treat others the way we want to be treated, but we as leaders have to understand the view of the world from their eyes. So from the eyes of a charge nurse at Presbyterian who\u2019s been told she can\u2019t work and has to have her temperature taken twice a day, from the eyes of an immigrant community afraid of their neighbors trapped in an apartment, from the eyes of Louise Troh or Nina Pham, it\u2019s hard to find the empathy to do that.\u00a0 When you\u2019re unable to do that is when you make mistakes. When you\u2019re able to do that and at the same time, follow the science, is when you do some of your best work.”<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/stories.kera.org\/surviving-ebola\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2015\/08\/Nina_Pham-300x284.jpg\")