John Redd and Daniel Martin

Dan and John talk about why they wanted to join the Ebola response at the CDC. Dan explains that they were both deployed to Sierra Leone in the fall of 2014.

John remembers the initial events of October 21, 2014, the most stressful day of his life: both an 18-month-old child in their pediatric ward and a nurse who cared for him both died of Ebola. Then lab results revealed that one of their District Surveillance Officers (DSOs) might have been infected as well.

Dan explains that where they worked, there were no hospitals; the closest lab was a four hours' drive away; and the closest Ebola Treatment Unit was a nine hours' drive away. He talks through the procedure for getting samples of the DSO's blood to the lab for testing.

John explains that the driver of the blood samples got into a car accident, leaving Dan responsible for driving new samples to the lab.

Dan describes the procedure that was meant to ensure safe transport of the blood sample. John and Dan talk about when they realized they had made a mistake and needed to start the process over.

Dan talks about his journey to and from the lab. He remembers when they got the call saying that the test was negative.

John on not being able to talk about certain memories from deployment; he mentions seeing ambulances bringing bodies to the cemeteries.

John describes their house-to-house strategy. Dan says that before this epidemic, people believed that contracting Ebola was basically a death sentence. Now the fatality rate is something like 40-50% (as opposed to 85-90%) because of early intervention.