Surviving Ebola: Brave American Missionary Says It Feels Like Being Eaten Alive

INSIDE EDITION spoke to Ebola survivor Nancy Writebol about her battle with the disease and her advice for those currently affected by it.

An ambulance rushed a passenger who had landed at Newark International Airport in New Jersey to the hospital, yet another suspected Ebola patient arriving in America.

Governor Chris Christie appealed for calm, saying, “The chances of a large scale outbreak in the United States of this disease is very, very, very small.”
 
The passenger developed a fever on the flight. He traveled from Liberia to Brussels, then, on to Newark on United Airlines flight 998.   

Meanwhile, Nancy Writebol, the brave 59-year-old missionary who survived Ebola is speaking out.

She told INSIDE EDITION, “It's no small miracle, I would say, it's a big miracle.”

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She was working with Ebola patients in Liberia in August when she fell ill along with Dr. Kent Brantly.

She said, “I had seen 40 patients and I had seen one survivor. I knew what the result of having Ebola was. I knew the chances of survival for me were very, very small.”

She and her husband, David, even discussed funeral plans.

“There wasn't panic, there wasn't hysteria, there wasn't fear. But, we knew what could happen,” he said.

Her only chance of survival was to be medivaced to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta to be treated with experimental drugs.

She said, “There were nights when I laid my head down on that pillow, I knew that as I laid my head down, I didn't know whether I would wake up.”

She says having Ebola is like being eaten alive, saying, “Your whole body feels like it is just being eaten.”

Nancy is now Ebola free, but she says some people are still afraid to be near her.

She said, “They have not wanted to have contact with me and keep distance from me.”
 
And she has this message for the two nurses still battling the disease, saying,  “There's good days and bad days with Ebola. Just continue to pray and to trust that God will hold them in his hands and that we're praying for them.”