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Nurse Aguirre Exposing Oversights on Ebola at Hospital; Ebola Breeding Fear in the U.S.; Kurdish Reporter Goes to ISIS Front Lines; Senegal Free of Ebola; Good News in Spain on Ebola

Aired October 17, 2014 - 14:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Bottom of the hour. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

She says Texas Health Presbyterian may have exposed her and others to Ebola. I'm talking about Briana Aguirre. She's exposing the hospital for oversights happening two weeks into the crisis at this particular hospital. And she sat down and talked to CNN's Anderson Cooper just last night. And so she says the hospital was chaotic. It wasn't ready when the first man that came from Liberia to Dallas died. Thomas Eric Duncan was his name. He showed up in the E.R. back in September.

This particular nurse that Anderson talked to didn't actually provide care for Duncan but she did care for Nina Pham, the first nurse who contracted Ebola, diagnosed just this past weekend. She's the one now sitting in a hospital bed at the National Institutes of Health.

Aguirre said she threw a fit when her protective gear exposed her neck and she was told a suit that would fully cover her was still on order.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIANA AGUIRRE, NURSE, TEXAS HEALTH PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL: It's outrageous. The most outrageous part about it is that every time I think about the facts that I'm saying right now, I just know that the nurses that have been infected, they were dealing with the same equipment while they were dealing with so much more than I dealt with personally. They were dealing with an Ebola-positive patient with copious secretions of diarrhea, vomiting, continuous dialysis, and put their lives on the line and without the proper equipment. And there's nothing --

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, A.C. 360: And you believe Nurse Pham was wearing that kind of equipment when she was exposed?

AGUIRRE: I know she was because the equipment we needed was still on order.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: All right. Here he is, CNN's senior legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin. She has all of these issues with the hospital, the way in which they

reacted and perhaps didn't react. With your legal hat on, where would this stand?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: The first thing in any legal situation is you need to know the facts. You need to know who was in charge. What they --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: We don't have facts.

TOOBIN: That's right. Obviously, this nurse has a story to tell about what she regards as improper behavior by the supervisors at the hospital. It would be certainly important to hear their side of the story.

Also, the whole idea of suing someone is based on the idea of reasonable care. Did the hospital exercise reasonable care? This is an extraordinary situation. We don't know what reasonable care is when it comes to Ebola because no one in the history of United States had ever treated Ebola before.

BALDWIN: That's pretty stunning.

TOOBIN: It's true. That was the first case in American history.

BALDWIN: But that doesn't mean people won't try to sue.

Hang with me for a second.

TOOBIN: This is America. People sue all the time.

BALDWIN: This is from the hospital responding late last night with this new press release. They admit, yes, making mistakes saying, "We have conducted interviews with well over 100 caregivers involved in Mr. Duncan's care, some multiple times. The theme we heard is that all caregivers were compliant with utilizing the PPE" -- that's the protective personal equipment, the gowns, the masks, the gloves, et cetera -- "in accordance with guidelines from the CDC. The CDC guidelines change frequently and those changes were frustrating to them and to management."

So reading the tea leaves, this is the hospital saying it was CDC guidelines.

TOOBIN: Exactly. And one very clear rule is that it is almost impossible to sue the government for misconduct in a situation like this.

BALDWIN: You can't sue the CDC?

TOOBIN: You can't sue the CDC. There's a concept called sovereign immunity. Almost impossible. But it could be the defense if the hospital gets sued and the hospital says, hey, we were following the guidance we got from the part of the federal government that is in charge of responding to infectious diseases like that. So there are a lot of complexities.

The most important thing is let's learn the facts first. Let's learn what the hospital really did before anybody talks about suing them.

BALDWIN: Same with this nurse who got on the plane.

TOOBIN: Her role in all of this is certainly worthy of investigation because even if the hospital behaved appropriately, if a nurse did not, if she knowingly exposed others to risks, you can't fault the hospital for that.

BALDWIN: Boy, complicated.

Jeffrey Toobin, thank you very much.

Coming up next, are people across the country incredibly frightened about Ebola or do most people believe these certain finite cases are isolated? We'll take a closer look at some of the fear and maybe overreaction to this deadly virus across the country.

And a major announcement by the World Health Organization today. This group says one West African country is now Ebola free. Which country successfully battled Ebola? And can we, the United States, learn anything from what they've accomplished?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: With everything that's been happening recently, are you worried about getting Ebola? That question across the United States, and actually one out of five people will say, yes, they are afraid of getting Ebola.

As our correspondent, Ted Rowlands, discovered, Ebola is breeding unhealthy levels of fear far beyond the range of the actual virus.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TED ROWLANDS, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The fear of Ebola is fraying nerves and ringing false alarms across the country. In southern California, a section of Southwestern College was unnecessarily closed over an Ebola scare Thursday. In Texas and Ohio, elementary schools were closed out of abundance of caution after possible connections to the flight that nurse Amber Vinson took before testing positive.

And in Missoula, Montana, the site of one of four hospitals in the country with a specialized isolation unit, there's fear that Ebola may be coming.

UNIDENTIFIED MISSOULA RESIDENT: It's a scary disease. I would not like to see a bunch of people coming with it.

UNIDENTIFIED MISSOULA RESIDENT: That's what people are scared of, scared of anything new.

ROWLANDS: At Joe's Barber Shop in Chicago, Ebola is a major topic of conversation.

(on camera): What scares you about it?

UNIDENTIFIED CHICAGO RESIDENT: It's just frightening just to think that something so simple as a touch can just be contracted to anyone.

ROWLANDS (voice-over): Ron Brackles (ph) says one of his concerns is flying.

RON BRACKLES (ph), CHICAGO RESIDENT: I'm not to the point where I would not get on a plane but it's in the back of my mind, absolutely.

ROWLANDS: According to an "ABC News"/"Washington Post" poll, 43 percent of Americans are very worried or somewhat worried that they or an immediate family member will get Ebola. And 65 percent of Americans say they're concerned about the possibility of a widespread epidemic in the U.S.

DR. MARK REINECKE, PROFESSOR OF PSYCHIATRY, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY: This isn't a situation where individuals are magnifying the awfulness of it but they are magnifying the risk of getting it.

ROWLANDS: Dr. Mark Reinecke is a psychiatry professor at Northwestern University. He says even thought the odds are miniscule but it's natural for people to fear it.

REINECKE: It makes sense for us to be scared of it and to have a natural anxiety just as you would if you saw a bus coming to you as you were crossing the street.

ROWLANDS: And while one probably has a much better chance of getting hit by a bus than getting Ebola, Americans continue to worry.

Ted Rowlands, CNN, Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Ted, thank you very much.

Coming up next, we have breaking news for you in the war against ISIS. U.S. air strikes suddenly appear to be working, at least in this key border city of Kobani. Hear what ISIS is doing differently that is putting a huge target on their backs.

And an interview I do not want you to miss. I talked to this woman who went to the front lines both in Iraq and Syria, talking to the very people who are pushing back on ISIS. Lots of women here and losing loved ones in the process.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: New developments from the front lines of the war on ISIS. CNN has just learned that former Iraqi military officers are training ISIS militants to fly. This is coming from a London-based monitoring group who says ISIS is now using three Syrian warplanes that they captured from a base just outside of Aleppo. This raises the possibility they could begin to use more planes like the ones here that you're looking, captured at a nearby base.

Plus, for the very first time, the U.S. military is getting intelligence from Syrian Kurds on the ground in the border city of Kobani. They are offering up intelligence on ISIS positions as this new round of coalition air strikes hits ISIS targets in an area that appears to be working, with the ISIS advance slowing significantly.

But as we talk about this war, I want to give you a closer look at what it's been like for these Kurdish forces fighting on the ground. Today, I talked to this reporter who traveled to the front lines both in Syria and Iraq. Just a couple weeks ago, she navigated this dangerous region averting militant land mines and IEDs along desert roads, and what she found in her journey to find those battling face to face with ISIS was startling. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

Joining us now is Khazar Fatemi, a Kurdish reporter based there in Stockholm, Sweden. And she traveled to Iraq and Syria recently to profile these ethic fighters on the front lines many of whom are women.

I want to you watch this part of her revealing report.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KHAZAR FATEMI, JOURNALIST & FILMMAKER, QUASAR PRODUCTIONS: I have been following the Kurdish women fighters for some years now but they have been fighting at the front line for more than 30 years. They have been fighting for their rights in the Kurdish areas in Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iraq.

Tamara (ph) has been fighting for the Kurdish PKK for over 10 years now. This time I meet them they are not fighting a government, but ISIS in the Kurdish parts of Iraq.

Even though they are simply armed, they're determined to stay and fight and prevent ISIS from getting to the old city of Kirkuk. And before it's time to change to the next group, they write down their thoughts.

We have been present when history is written but not mentioned. This time, we will be mentioned and seen, Tamara (ph) says, one of 40 million Kurds without a country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: now joins me from Stockholm.

Khazar, thank you so much for joining me.

Absolutely phenomenal reporting there.

FATEMI: Thank you.

BALDWIN: So here's what I want to begin with. I'm wondering, what surprised you more? That so many fighters are women or that they are coming together, all these different nationalities, and they are united and liberated in battle?

FATEMI: I would say both. I mean, I'm Kurdish and I've heard these stories. I've heard a lot of women do go to battle, but still I was surprised. You're not used to seeing women with uniform, with a gun.

BALDWIN: What is their motivation to leave their homes, leave their families, and fight?

FATEMI: I would say their motivation is something we take for granted, to be equal, to have the right to speak your mind, to do what you want to do, to become what you want to become. Those simple things motivate them. And because they have this background by not being able to do this. And when they joined the guerrillas, they feel the equalness and they want to fight even more for it.

BALDWIN: The sense of inequality is something they're accustomed to given this part of the world and the culture from which they come. My question would be, since they are fighting alongside a lot of men from this part of the world, how do the men receive these women?

FATEMI: I felt like they were even proud. They were proud that the women were among them. And very often they said they fight even harder than us. When a fellow gets injured, it's almost always the woman who is the first one on spot to help them.

BALDWIN: A lot of these female fighters, they are actually taking the time to chronicle their roles in this war in their journals, in their diaries. Did they share any of that with you?

FATEMI: They were writing about what they missed and their dreams and what they did that day and friends they lost in the battle, about what gives them courage. They all knew about what happened to the Yazidi people on Sinjar Mountain and many of them wrote that as something they would like to fight for.

BALDWIN: You bring up the Yazidis. Let me ask you that because you've met with the Yazidi people, you stayed behind, to protect Mount Sinjar after the U.S. completed those rescue missions and those humanitarian air drops in the months previous.

Let me just show you what you found.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FATEMI: The journey takes six hours, unless we get lost since much of the driving is through the barren desert. We try to avoid the roads because of land mines and IEDs that have been rigged by ISIS. Village after village we pass are empty if not destroyed and leveled to the ground. I begin to understand how heavy the weapons were as were used in its attacks.

I meet the Yazidi man who has chosen to stay in Sinjar and protect it from ISIS. There are not many, but determined to stay and fight together with the Kurdish Syrian. Despite the difficult times the people here going through, I see the

strength and I see the smile and I do feel hope. And when the sun comes up every morning and the families here from the top of the mountain see their city in ISIS hands, I admire their strength even more for wanting to stay here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Khazar, you talk about their strength. What remains for them now?

FATEMI: They still have hope. They still have hope because they feel like somebody is still there protecting them. And that is really important. I mean, I, myself, have been a refugee. You don't want to sit and wait. That kills you. You feel hope getting further away from you.

BALDWIN: Since this is such a personal story for you, being a journalist and also being Kurdish, what's the one thing that you won't forget?

FATEMI: The smiles, the hope. When you go to these places, I mean, you just keep shaking your head. You don't understand and you just want to ask them, how can you go on like this? How can you live like this? When you feel the smiles and they say it's going to be OK, everything will be OK one day, that's what I bring with me. And that's when I feel that my work becomes even more important to do it. This is my journey to go there and get their voices, get their memories, take it back with me.

BALDWIN: You can tell it's personal. You've done this with sincerity. Phenomenal reporting talking to these different women.

Khazar Fatemi, thank you so much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Coming up, the CDC says the second Ebola infected nurse could have been sick on her first flight, which means there is now a race to find those passengers on that plane. We'll talk live with a former disease detective on how they retrace those steps.

And when Amber Vinson was in Ohio, she went to a bridal shop with her bridesmaids. CNN tracked down the store's owner and wait until you hear what health officials did with her.

This is CNN's special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: While American health officials are scrambling to stop the spread of Ebola here in the United States, the news out of Europe and Africa is more optimistic than it has been in days.

Let me send you three reports, beginning with CNN's senior international correspondent, Nic Robertson -- Nic? (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): I'm Nic Robertson in Madrid, Spain. The World Health Organization, WHO, has announced Senegal free from Ebola. They are expected to make a similar announcement about Nigeria in the next few days. On Thursday, a WHO official in Geneva said the reason Senegal and Nigeria have done so well to combat their outbreaks of Ebola was quick tracing of all of the contacts those infected people had. They said that's key for combating Ebola in West Africa right now. And also key taking quick samples and getting those samples checked by authorities. And also they say a public awareness campaign so the public knows what to do, who to turn to, if they notice somebody has or is showing symptoms of Ebola. They also say very important that health care workers need more help. More than 400 health care workers infected and more than 200 have died so far. They want health care workers to get more protective equipment and more training on how to use it.

AL GOODMAN, CNN MADRID BUREAU CHIEF: I'm Al Goodman in Madrid. A collective sigh of relief in Spain this day, from the deputy prime minister at a press conference on down the line, that the news that four people rushed into hospital on Thursday on fears they might have the Ebola virus, they were exhibiting fever-like symptoms, have all tested negative on their first test. They remain in hospitals pending a second test. These people included a man who was on a flight from Paris to Madrid and he told authorities he had been in Nigeria recently. He had tremors. He was rushed in, in a specialized ambulance, the workers in specialized protective suits. Also testing negative a Red Cross worker who had been West Africa treating other Ebola patients. That leaves just one confirmed case in Spain. Theresa Romero Ramos (ph), who is at this hospital behind me, a nurse's aid, who doctors say is doing better, has been joking with the medical team taking care of her. A family friend came out and said she's taking liquids like juices and broths, so that's beyond water, so there's hope right there. Now, overall in Spain, more than 80 people remain under Ebola watch. Most of them at their homes. None of them showing symptoms. And there are about a fourth of them, about 20 of them, in hospitals.

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Jim Bittermann in Paris. The French began airport checks for Ebola here this weekend but, in reality, that means they are just checking one flight per day. The flight that operates between New Guinea and Paris. There are no other direct flights between the three Western African countries where Ebola is raging and France. The passengers onboard that flight are given a questionnaire and asked to fill out their names, addresses, and where they can be found. And when they deplane, their temperatures are checked with a laser thermometer, so there's no actual physical contact. If anyone shows any symptoms, Red Cross and civil protection teams are standing by.

Jim Bittermann, CNN, Paris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)