Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital Due to Reopen Within the Hour

Aired November 06, 2001 - 08:23   ET

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

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital is due to reopen within the hour. It was locked shut for a week, after a hospital worker, Cathy Nguyen, came down with inhaled anthrax. She died last week. But just how she got the disease is still a mystery, and investigators have intensified their examination of Nguyen's life.

Our Michael Okwu is outside the hospital. He has more for us this morning -- good morning, Michael.

MICHAEL OKWU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, good morning.

You know, they have -- it's been searched and it's been cleaned and it's been tested, and it has come up clean. So you could say that this is a very hopeful day, because the hospital, where Cathy Nguyen worked, is anthrax-free, and as you put it, reopening to the public now one week after it had been closed. And yet, at the same time, you could say that this is a very sobering day.

Now, Nguyen fled a war and saved herself from her native Vietnam years ago, but she may have lost her life in a new war here in the United States. Yesterday, hundreds of her friends and co-workers, bussed in by her union representatives, mourned her death at a multi- lingual church service near the South Bronx apartment where she lived. There were no family members.

And at this point, investigators are finding almost no clues to help them determine just how she got this anthrax, and specifically she was killed of inhalation anthrax. Investigators are hoping that her case might lead them in a different direction from those -- from the trail of those three tainted letters that were postmarked from Trenton, New Jersey, but at this point, nothing.

Her friends and co-workers have been questioned; her apartment tested. No germs were found on her clothes or on anything in her apartment. Employees at Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat were also tested, and none of those results have come back positive.

So, Miles, at this point, as the hospital reopens, investigators are looking into the possibility that she may have been moonlighting at another job, and that more specifically, she might have come into direct contact with the person or the persons who are responsible for spreading these spores -- Miles. O'BRIEN: It makes it a very intriguing prospect, as they look into that moonlight job, and the people she might come in contact with, or have come in contact with. Possibly could lead them to a suspect. I guess that's getting a little far ahead of the game here. But is that the sense you're getting from the investigators?

OKWU: That's exactly right. I mean, the fact is, and no investigator will really tell you that they are clueless, but when you look at all of the angles involved in her particular case, when you look at the fact that the area where she worked, which was not typical -- was not a typical area at all. It wasn't a post office. She didn't work for a media company. That that particular area came up negative; that her apartment came up negative; that all of the items in her apartment and her clothes, and those people that she spoke to and work with, that many of those people have tested negative. It just leaves a very big question mark, Miles.

O'BRIEN: And maybe could lead to an answer. Who knows? CNN's Michael Okwu in Manhattan -- thank you very much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.