• Fighting Ebola in West Africa: A Baylor alum finds her calling

    Dani Kloepper holds up an Ebola survivor at the Survivor Tree

    Dani Kloepper, BA ’08, knew she wanted to spend her life helping the most vulnerable of people in the world. She didn’t know how exactly, but getting an international relations degree from Baylor sounded like a good place to start — “a wonderful foundation,” as she describes it today.

    After a few years of learning what she did not want to do, Dani realized that nursing was what she was meant to do — and that Ebola patients were who she was meant to help.

    “Something about the Ebola outbreak kept nagging at me; it was like I had to go,” she says today. “Within two months of applying, I was on the ground in Sierra Leone working at a Ministry of Health Ebola Treatment Unit.”

    Dani vividly remembers the first time she cared for an Ebola patient. Upon arriving at the hospital with her group, a healthcare worker showed them how to prepare for the day. After washing her hands in bleach, Dani tucked her scrub pants into long socks, pulled on rubber boots, tied a surgical cap around her head, slipped plastic bags over the boots, slipped the boots on over a way-too-big hazmat suit, fit gloves onto her hands, zipped up the suit, tied a surgical mask over her mouth, covered her face with a disposable face shield, pulled a hood up and around her face, donned a disposable apron, and squeezed a second pair of gloves over the suit. “I had not even entered the red zone yet, and I was hot, sweaty and winded.”

    But Dani’s discomfort was nothing compared to what she was about to witness. The group entered the first area, which hosted the least affected patients, and watched the trainer stop at each patient’s side, asking “How de body?” She watched as he poured water and terrible-tasting medicine into a patient’s water bottle and encouraged, “Come on, ma. Sit up. You have to drink. Ma, drink small, small.” They spent about 10 minutes with each patient before washing with bleach and moving on to the next. “Three patients in, and I was exhausted,” says Dani.

    The trainer brought the group from room to room treating patients — each sicker than the last. The final area was for young children, where a closet-sized room had three cribs crammed inside. And inside those cribs were three toddlers.

    Dani asked the trainer what they could do for the children. “Nothing,” he told her. “They won’t drink. These two are siblings and came in with their mother who passed over night. Their blood work should be back soon, but I can tell you by looking at them they are positive.”

    “We were sucked in by the moment,” Dani says. “All we could do was offer our presence. Our touch. It took everything we had to tear ourselves away, but already we had been inside too long.”

    From moments like that, it was hard for Dani to find hope or anything to celebrate in the midst of Ebola. One thing they did have to celebrate, though, were the survivors. That’s why Dani started a Survivor Tree.

    The women of Sierra Leone would often wear colored strips of cloth around their waste. Dani began cutting up these strips and giving one to each of the survivors to tie around a tree once they were discharged. “The tree became a symbol of hope to both the healthcare workers and the patients,” says Dani. “For me, it was a reminder of how important each and every life is.”

    On Dani’s first day on the site, the unit had more than 100 patients, but just 11 survivors. Today, just outside the Maforki Ebola Treatment Unit in Port Loko, Sierra Leone, where Dani has served since last fall, a small tree stands on the side of the road with 168 ribbons tied on it — one for each survivor. (That’s Dani pictured above, holding up one of the unit’s youngest survivors to tie her ribbon on the Survivor Tree.)

    “When you are working in a place that sees more death than recovery, it is easy to lose focus. There were times I did not want to suit up for the third or fourth time in a day, but when you look at the tree, you remember that each life counts.”

    Sic ’em, Dani!

    [We learned of this story from a Bear who shared her Baylor pride. Do you know of an inspiring story, news item, or just a fun link that makes you proud of Baylor and the Baylor family? Let us know! Click here to submit your point of pride!]