RUSH: Here’s Ryan in Grand Prairie, Texas. Glad you waited. Great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Yes, sir. It’s an honor. I am actually a resident of Dallas County but I work for a large municipality in the Dallas/Fort Worth area as a paramedic. I don’t claim to be an expert in infectious disease, but I’d like to give more of a boots on the ground situation to you. Most of the time people assume EMS is like what you see in Chicago Fire. But it doesn’t work that way. When you get a call for a shortness of breath and you show up and they’re coughing and you ask them, you know, the litany of questions and whatnot. They say they’re fine. They say they’re just a little sick. And then about two weeks later the supervisor comes to me and says, “You’ve been exposed to tuberculosis.” This has happened to me four times seriously, and a fifth time I was wearing a respirator because, you know, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

RUSH: Yeah, exactly, right.

CALLER: And I think this can shed light on Ebola here. Our health care system here — and I can speak about Presbyterian because I’ve waited over an hour with patients on the cot there — it’s overworked. And people don’t understand how the divert status works. You could be in an accident, you could have a heart attack or stroke, but we’re given updates throughout the day who’s on divert. So even though this hospital may be a mile and a half from you, we go somewhere else ’cause they’re not accepting anybody because they’re so swamped.

RUSH: Ryan, hang on your thought. I gotta take a break here and we’ll continue this when we get back. Don’t go away.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We’re back to Ryan, EMS in Grand Prairie, Texas, near Dallas. Ryan, I was just reading, the ambulance that transported Thomas Duncan supposedly was not scrubbed down immediately. And, in fact, the same ambulance picked up a homeless man who the hospital couldn’t find for several hours after he wandered away from the hospital. I mean, nobody knew what they were dealing with at the time, including, I would assume, you guys, the guys on board that ambulance, the EMS people.

CALLER: Correct. Yeah, and that’s the thing. How it works is you clean your ambulance on the threat level, so to speak. They could have ran three or four calls after that, you know, and then they went back to the station, they were there the rest of the evening. And Mr. Duncan, you know, he was waiting in that hospital room for so long, you know, they say — now, I’m not an expert in infectious disease, obviously. But if he was sweating, just the evaporation of the sweat, you know, that could be enough to trigger a delayed response in someone else. He could have been —

RUSH: Well, that seems right to me. That’s a precious bodily fluid, sweat. It does happen to evaporate. Yeah, yeah. That’s an excellent point. Well, you guys are doing the Lord’s work. And here’s a question I’ve got. I mean, hospitals are dealing with one patient here, one patient there. What happens if it becomes 10? What happens if it becomes 50? I don’t know what the state of preparedness is. The CDC says: We got it handled, don’t sweat it, We’re not gonna bring anybody in the country that’s got it. We’re doing great screening procedures, don’t worry. Yet in Europe they’re telling everybody be on the lookout ’cause we think it’s gonna spread throughout all of Europe. It’s inevitable that that’s gonna happen. Now, they’re closer to Africa, obviously.

Here’s Chuck in Valhalla, New York. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello, Chuck.

CALLER: Hello, Rush. Mega dittos. You know, I had one thing that I have not heard said about this Ebola thing, and maybe it’s a little out of line, but it seems to me that stopping immigration from these countries affected by Ebola should be done because if it saves one child, isn’t it worth it?

RUSH: Hmm.

CALLER: I think we have an obligation to keep our own kids safe.

RUSH: Yes. Yes, I hear you, Chuck. In fact, now that you mention that, whatever happened to that? Whatever happened to, “If it saves just one child.” That is a marked difference. There is a really profound difference in the way public health officials are dealing with this versus other things. And whatever Draconian steps are necessary, if it saves the life of one child, we had to do it. Like raising taxes for welfare benefits or what have you. “For the children” used to be the way you put the final nail in the coffin to get anything you want. It was for the children. If it saves just one child’s life. And we’re not hearing anything approaching that here.

It’s all political, folks. I know some of you don’t like hearing that, but this stuff is all political, and the way this is being politicized, and if you don’t believe me, just be patient and wait, you’ll see it on your own. All of this in the media is being couched in terms of how it will impact Obama and how it might help or hurt Democrat electoral chances in November. I’m not being snarky, facetious, making it up. It’s the aspect of this that interests the media. Is Obama gonna do well here? Are people gonna trust Obama? If it goes wrong, is it gonna hurt Obama? Is it gonna be a big attack on Obama’s perceived leadership? These are the kind of questions that the Drive-Bys are very much concerned about.