Ebola Victim’s Journey From Liberian War to Fight for Life in U.S.

DALLAS — The murderous civil war that terrorized Liberia from 1989 to 2003 left at least 5 percent of the population dead, and sent wave after wave of refugees to neighboring countries. To escape the ethnic and political turmoil, more than 700,000 fled from a nation that had barely two million residents when the conflict began.

Among them were Thomas Eric Duncan, the man who brought the Ebola virus to the United States last week, and Louise Troh, the woman he had come to Dallas to visit. After meeting in the early 1990s in a refugee encampment near the Ivory Coast border town of Danané, the two Liberians started a relationship and bore a son, several family members said.

It is not clear what drove the couple apart — Mr. Duncan, 42, who is fighting for his life at a Dallas hospital, has not spoken publicly, and Ms. Troh, 54, who will be quarantined for another two weeks, declined to discuss their history.

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But starting in 1998, when Ms. Troh left for the United States — first settling in Boston, and then in Dallas with another Liberian man — they began a 16-year separation.

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Thomas Eric DuncanCreditvia Associated Press

Not only did Mr. Duncan not see Ms. Troh, he missed the entire childhood of their son, Karsiah, who adapted well enough to his new home to become the starting quarterback for the Conrad High Chargers.

Tragedy befell Ms. Troh in February when a daughter in Liberia died during childbirth. In March, she split with Peterson Wayne, the Liberian refugee she had followed to Texas. It was after that that she and Mr. Duncan apparently revived their relationship, first at long distance, and then when Mr. Duncan landed at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on Sept. 20.

“They had had a falling out, and had patched things up,” said the Rev. George Mason, Ms. Troh’s pastor at Wilshire Baptist Church, “and he had come here with the intention to marry and start a new life together. Obviously, what happened has thrown a wrinkle into that.”

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Mr. Duncan’s compound in a neighborhood called 72nd SKD Boulevard on the eastern outskirts of Monrovia, Liberia, an hour’s commute from his job as a driver in the central city.CreditDaniel Berehulak for The New York Times

And then some. What began as a joyful reunion — refugees from African civil strife seeking to rebuild their lives in America — spiraled last week into a national health scare once only imagined in science fiction. Once again, Mr. Duncan and Ms. Troh found themselves in the vortex of larger forces beyond their control.

The arrival of Ebola with Mr. Duncan put Dallas so on edge that parents kept children home from school and officials with the State Fair of Texas programmed Big Tex, their talking mechanical mascot, to urge fairgoers to wash their hands. It commanded the attention of President Obama and his top health advisers, exposed a series of disconcerting lapses in medical care and crisis logistics and incited a national debate over whether to restrict travel to and from afflicted countries. For Ms. Troh, who spent five days as a captive in her contaminated apartment, a week that started with home-cooked meals and happy introductions ended with the seizure of her belongings by workers in yellow hazardous-material suits.

On Sunday, the director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, said that Mr. Duncan’s medical condition was quite critical and that he was “fighting for his life.”