12:59 pm IST
Sep 4, 2014
Late last year, Indian missionary Augustine Aiyadurai set out for a
remote African town near Liberia’s border with Guinea to help out at a
Lutheran hospital.
He wanted to assist the sick and suffering. He didn’t expect to end up in the middle of one of the deadliest-ever outbreaks of Ebola.
But several months after Mr. Aiyadurai arrived, the deadly virus began to ravage West Africa. He emailed a friend saying he and other foreign staff were struggling to decide whether to leave.
“In the Lord’s prayer we say ‘Give us this day our daily Bread,’” he wrote. “I now pray ‘Give us this day the decision we need to take.’”
As others were evacuated, Mr. Aiyadurai, who worked as an administrator at a hospital in his home state of Tamil Nadu, stayed behind, hoping he could help.
In late July, Mr. Aiyadurai came down with what seemed to be malaria, his family and co-workers said. As his condition worsened, his family said, he was unable to get help at better-equipped city hospitals overwhelmed with Ebola patients. He died on Aug. 2.....
As the Ebola virus and news about the deaths it was causing started spreading, Mr. Aiyadurai’s family pressed him to come home. Mr. Aiyadurai was reluctant.
“If I leave,” his wife, Ms. Augustine, recalled him saying, “the others here will be frightened. I can’t leave them now.”
He eventually started looking for ways to get home but by the time an exit was available, he was too sick to travel, his family said.
After he became sick in July, Mr. Aiyadurai, got tested for both Ebola and malaria. While the tests showed he didn’t have Ebola and was most likely suffering from malaria, he was in such bad shape that he needed to get to a bigger hospital, said his son.
He traveled for hours—a bumpy trip over a mud road—to get better care in Monrovia, but he was turned away by hospitals that could only handle Ebola patients, said his family and friends who spoke to him on the phone while he was trying to get help. His family said he was sent back to Zorzor, where he died a few days later in the hospital where he was working.
His family was unable to have his body returned to India, but they hope to someday be able to afford a visit to his gravesite.
“We know he is buried somewhere close to the hospital, where the other missionaries are buried,” his son, Dr. Augustine said. http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2014/09/04/indian-missionary-becomes-indirect-victim-of-ebola/
Sep 4, 2014
- Indian missionary Augustine Aiyadurai.
- Courtesy of Thomas Augustine
He wanted to assist the sick and suffering. He didn’t expect to end up in the middle of one of the deadliest-ever outbreaks of Ebola.
But several months after Mr. Aiyadurai arrived, the deadly virus began to ravage West Africa. He emailed a friend saying he and other foreign staff were struggling to decide whether to leave.
“In the Lord’s prayer we say ‘Give us this day our daily Bread,’” he wrote. “I now pray ‘Give us this day the decision we need to take.’”
As others were evacuated, Mr. Aiyadurai, who worked as an administrator at a hospital in his home state of Tamil Nadu, stayed behind, hoping he could help.
In late July, Mr. Aiyadurai came down with what seemed to be malaria, his family and co-workers said. As his condition worsened, his family said, he was unable to get help at better-equipped city hospitals overwhelmed with Ebola patients. He died on Aug. 2.....
As the Ebola virus and news about the deaths it was causing started spreading, Mr. Aiyadurai’s family pressed him to come home. Mr. Aiyadurai was reluctant.
“If I leave,” his wife, Ms. Augustine, recalled him saying, “the others here will be frightened. I can’t leave them now.”
He eventually started looking for ways to get home but by the time an exit was available, he was too sick to travel, his family said.
After he became sick in July, Mr. Aiyadurai, got tested for both Ebola and malaria. While the tests showed he didn’t have Ebola and was most likely suffering from malaria, he was in such bad shape that he needed to get to a bigger hospital, said his son.
He traveled for hours—a bumpy trip over a mud road—to get better care in Monrovia, but he was turned away by hospitals that could only handle Ebola patients, said his family and friends who spoke to him on the phone while he was trying to get help. His family said he was sent back to Zorzor, where he died a few days later in the hospital where he was working.
His family was unable to have his body returned to India, but they hope to someday be able to afford a visit to his gravesite.
“We know he is buried somewhere close to the hospital, where the other missionaries are buried,” his son, Dr. Augustine said. http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2014/09/04/indian-missionary-becomes-indirect-victim-of-ebola/
