LF: '60 Minutes' Just Broke New Details On The Dallas Ebola Case. Here's What They Revealed.

60 Minutes on Sunday told the story of a hospital tackling Ebola. A story of brave nurses and determined administrators. A story of heroes, frankly.

It was the story of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas — the hospital that treated the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the United States. A hospital that’s been widely criticized, since Texas Health nurses Nina Pham and Amber Vinson also got sick with Ebola.

You may think you know the details of what happened in Dallas. But 60 Minutes asks you to think again.

60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley sat down with four of the nurses who treated Thomas Duncan, the initial Ebola patient.

1. Whether intentionally or not, Duncan misled authorities about his exposure to Ebola.

When Duncan first presented to the hospital on September 25, he didn’t specify that he’d come from Liberia or even West Africa — the center of the Ebola outbreak.

Duncan only said he’d returned from “Africa,” which could’ve meant one of dozens of nations, most of them far from the Ebola outbreak. Perhaps the nurses could’ve pressed him further. But with Duncan’s symptoms not that severe yet, and with no real reason to think he had Ebola, they sent him home.

After Duncan was re-admitted to the hospital three days later, significantly sicker, the hospital suspected Ebola might be the cause. But even then, Duncan wasn’t wholly honest. He said he hadn’t been exposed to anyone who was sick from Ebola, even though later reports revealed that Duncan had bravely helped carry an Ebola-infected woman to a local hospital in Liberia.

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2. The hospital was unprepared, partly because the nation wasn’t ready.

Public health officials have said this repeatedly: Nearly any hospital would’ve faced challenges if an Ebola patient unexpectedly walked through their doors. Texas Health was reportedly in the middle of Ebola training when Duncan showed up.

(“There had to be a first hospital, and unfortunately for Texas Presbyterian, it was them,” said Dr. Sean P. Elliott, medical director of infection prevention at the University of Arizona Health Network, told the New York Times.)

One enormous challenge, the nurses told 60 Minutes, was that protections to treat Ebola patients were initially unclear. For instance, when the nurses first treated Duncan on September 28, they were wearing gowns, masks, gloves, and face shields.

That’s seemingly plenty of protection…but it still left their necks exposed. And that could be a fatal mistake when treating an Ebola patient. It’s probably the reason why nurses Pham and Vinson got sick.

Also See: Ebola’s Contagious, But Also Hard To Catch. Confused? Here’s How To Understand.

This lack of sufficient protection has been widely reported, and blamed on the hospital. But the nurses say they looked up protocols from the CDC, and as of late September, that’s what the CDC recommended.

Texas Health nurse wearing better protective gear to receive Ebola patients.

Texas Health nurse wearing better protective gear to receive potential Ebola patients, in early October. Photo via AP.

3. The Ebola patient presented unprecedented challenges.

After the hospital confirmed that Duncan had Ebola, they had to make crucial, rapid decisions. First, they emptied the entire 24-bed medical intensive care unit to focus just on Duncan.

They also told staff that they had an Ebola patient, and they gave them the option to opt out. As a result, every staff member involved in Duncan’s care ended up being a volunteer — from doctors to nurses to housekeepers.

Still, treating Duncan was unlike anything the care team had done before. Nurses worked two at a time, for two-hour shifts, wearing full-body protections that left them soaked in sweat under the suit.

Also See: Every Ebola Patient Taken To An Elite U.S. Unit Has Survived

“It was the worst day of my life,” Mulligan told 60 Minutes. “This man that we cared for, that fought just as hard with us, lost his fight. And his family couldn’t be there.”

“I was the last one to leave the room. And I held him in my arms. He was alone.”