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Pastor: Ebola Victim Wanted to Marry US Girlfriend

But now she's 'overwhelmed' in quarantine with 3 children
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 5, 2014 2:02 PM CDT
Pastor: Ebola Victim Wanted to Marry US Girlfriend
A woman waters plants on the balcony of an apartment in the complex where Thomas Eric Duncan, the Ebola patient who traveled from Liberia to Dallas, stayed last week, Oct. 4, 2014, in Dallas.   (AP Photo/LM Otero)

The Ebola patient who's in critical condition in Dallas traveled there to marry his longtime girlfriend, who's now in quarantine with three children at an undisclosed location, her church's pastor tells NBC News. The pastor, George Mason, says the church has been trying to help the woman, identified by Bloomberg as Louise Troh, as she grapples with fear of the disease and her relationship with fiance Thomas Duncan. "She is overwhelmed," says Mason. "She's doing better now that they have moved her. The place that they're living in now is much easier now. There's less scrutiny, and it's more private." But he admits that his church, Wilshire Baptist, can't do much for her because of the quarantine.

It's not her first brush with tragedy, either: After moving to the US from her homeland of Liberia 10 years ago, she lost a baby in childbirth, says Mason. She and Duncan had an earlier child in Liberia, but they "had a falling out of some sort," Mason says, and only recently decided to reconcile. Now Troh worries that Duncan won't recover from Ebola and she too may be infected—which a disease expert tells CBS News is "absolutely" possible. "I would not be surprised" if someone who came in contact with Duncan "will get Ebola," he says. Meanwhile, Mason talked about Troh at Sunday service today and told congregants that donations to the church would to go to helping Duncan, Troh, or Ebola victims in Africa. (Read about an NBC cameraman with Ebola.)

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