Breaking: First Person To Contract Ebola In The U.S. Was A Sigma Kappa At TCU

Last night, most major news outlets reported that a second case of Ebola in Dallas, TX had been confirmed. At the time, the only thing anyone knew was that the latest victim of the disease was a healthcare worker who had cared for Dallas’ first patient, Eric Thomas Duncan. Naturally, everyone’s immediate response was to go running for the hills…or at least talk about running for the hills. It was (and still is) easy to get caught up in the fear and the anxiety and the “OMG. What if this happens to me?”

The panic gets the better of us, and, where mere moments ago we were perfectly sane, rational people, we instantaneously morph into some sort of eager doomsday prepper. Our normal, level-headed way of thinking goes out the window, and we immediately take to Google.

We watch trailers for “Contagion” and “Outbreak” and we text our mom and we take a Xanax and we pour another glass of wine in our safe apartment that is thousands of miles away from the “outbreak,” and we think and obsess and fixate over what we would do in this completely unrealistic scenario that we have concocted in our mind. And it’s easy, it’s easy to be selfish in that moment of sheer panic because as humans, we are selfish. We are out for number one. If it’s you vs. me in this hypothetical doomsday, I want it to be me and you want it to be you. The survivor instinct kicks in and you put yourself first. But that hasn’t happened. We’re not there. This is not the “Walking Dead.”

Instead, we’re a country with great (or at least mediocre) medical care. We’re a country that has planned for something like this ten times over. We’re a country that (for the most part) knows that scientists aren’t evil and that doctors are here to help us. We’re a country that should take a moment to put our selfish, fearfulness aside and remember that it hasn’t happened to us, but it has happened to someone, and her name is Nina Pham.

She is a 26-year-old nurse who currently resides in Dallas. She is described as being a dog lover, having a great sense of humor, and being a really, really great person — which makes sense, because she’s one of the 70 people who cared for Eric Thomas Duncan while he was in quarantine. She is a 2010 graduate of Texas Christian University…and a sister of Sigma Kappa.

Basically, she could be any one of us.

She’s a person. She went through Bid Days and formals and the exhaustion of both Big/Little reveal and finals. She has probably had her heartbroken — and, judging by her photos, she’s probably broken one or two of her own. She has a favorite alcoholic beverage, she likes either Coke or Pepsi, and she either loves or hates EDM. She’s a human. She’s a human who needs our well wishes and support and who needs good thoughts sent her way. Put down the Google machine, kiddos. You’re not going to get Ebola. But Nina? Nina has it. So maybe throw some good karma out there and hope that she gets better soon. After all, she’s one of us..

[via ABC News]

[via NBC News]

[via Twitter]