State health officials said a Dallas County Sheriff's deputy does not have Ebola and is back home one day after being taken in an ambulance from a CareNow clinic to a hospital feeling ill.
The Texas Department of State Health Services said Thursday it had completed testing of the specimen from Sr. Sgt. Michael Monnig and that the result of the test was negative for Ebola.
Monnig’s wife, Lisa, told NBC 5 Thursday that she believed the Ebola test results would be negative from the beginning.
Monnig said Dallas County health leaders told her husband to see his primary care physician or go to an urgent care clinic. Monnig says her husband’s primary care doctor was booked, and he went to CareNow in Frisco.
“He didn’t have a fever at the time. He had stomach pain and he felt like he had been hit by a truck,” Monnig said. “Once he got to the urgent care, that’s when they did show him as registering a fever and that’s why they had to do what they did.”
Lisa Monnig said she doesn't think anyone overreacted.
"He did exactly what he was directed to do by Dallas County health officials," she said.
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Officials with the Dallas hospital that treated the sheriff's deputy, who went into the apartment where Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan was staying, said the deputy showed no signs that he's also infected. The hospital said Monnig did not have a fever, vomiting or diarrhea.
Monnig was discharged from the hospital and back at home with this family Sgt. Chris Dyer with the Dallas County Sheriff's Association said Thursday.
Monnig was one of the deputies who went inside the Dallas apartment where Thomas Eric Duncan was staying. Monnig did not have contact with Duncan, but did see some of Duncan's family members now in isolation. Duncan died Wednesday.
"The risk is extremely low because this individual didn't have contact with the Ebola patient, but we want to err on the side of caution," Texas Department of State Health Services Commissioner Dr. David Lakey said in a statement earlier Thursday. "We understand there's a lot of anxiety in the community, and we hope getting test results back will help calm those fears."
Officials say none of Duncan's relatives have shown any signs that they are infected.
NBC 5's Jocelyn Lockwood contributed to this story.
