--- title: Ebola Nurse Was 'In No Way Careless' Before Flying, Family Says description: The family of the second nurse to contract Ebola says Amber Vinson was “in no way" careless about her decision to fly to Dallas canonical: https://time.com/3523196/second-u-s-nurse-with-ebola-was-in-no-way-careless-by-flying-family-says/ author: Helen Regan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-10-20T06:36:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:00:26.646Z article:section: Health og:title: Amber Vinson Had CDC Permission to Travel: Family og:description: The 29-year-old apparently decided to fly back to Dallas from Cleveland, Ohio, as a precaution og:url: https://time.com/3523196/second-u-s-nurse-with-ebola-was-in-no-way-careless-by-flying-family-says/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3dae3dae333afd7e/69876195e20a8774f7a828b1/rtr4acz7.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2200 og:image:height: 1238 og:image:alt: Texas nurse Amber Vinson (L) steps from an ambulance at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Amber Vinson Had CDC Permission to Travel: Family twitter:description: The 29-year-old apparently decided to fly back to Dallas from Cleveland, Ohio, as a precaution twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3dae3dae333afd7e/69876195e20a8774f7a828b1/rtr4acz7.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Second U.S. Nurse With Ebola Was 'in No Way Careless' by Flying, Family Says > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola [Watch (HLS stream): Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/G194AmTC.m3u8) (2:32)  _Published 2014-08-13. Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola_ by [Helen Regan](https://time.com/author/helen-regan/) ## Helen Regan Oct 20, 2014 6:36 AM UTC  Texas nurse Amber Vinson, left, steps from an ambulance at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Ga., on Oct. 15, 2014. Texas nurse Amber Vinson, left, steps from an ambulance at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Ga., on Oct. 15, 2014.Stringer—Reuters by [Helen Regan](https://time.com/author/helen-regan/) ## Helen Regan Oct 20, 2014 6:36 AM UTC The family of the second nurse to contract Ebola in the U.S. says she was “in no way” [careless](https://www.scribd.com/doc/243590194/Amber-Vinson-Family-Statement) in making the decision to fly to Dallas after her exposure to the disease. Amber Vinson, 29, apparently decided to fly back to Dallas from Cleveland as a precaution, after she heard her colleague Nina Pham had been diagnosed with Ebola. Both Vinson and Pham had cared for Thomas Eric Duncan, who died of the disease on Oct. 8. “To be clear, in no way was Amber careless prior to or after her exposure to Mr. Thomas Eric Duncan. She has not and would not knowingly expose herself or anyone else,” Vinson’s family wrote in the statement. According to the statement, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had given the green light for Vinson to travel. Her family says she had even asked to stay at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital for the remainder of her 21-day monitoring period. “Suggestions that she ignored any of the physician and government-provided protocols recommended to her are patently untrue and hurtful,” says the statement. The family insists she followed CDC self-monitoring guidelines correctly and reported her temperature three times before boarding her flight, and each time the CDC cleared her to travel. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3523196/second-u-s-nurse-with-ebola-was-in-no-way-careless-by-flying-family-says/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3523196/second-u-s-nurse-with-ebola-was-in-no-way-careless-by-flying-family-says/"},"headline":"Second U.S. Nurse With Ebola Was 'in No Way Careless' by Flying, Family Says","datePublished":"2014-10-20T06:36:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:00:26.646Z","description":"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had given the green light for Amber Vinson to travel, claims her family","url":"https://time.com/3523196/second-u-s-nurse-with-ebola-was-in-no-way-careless-by-flying-family-says/","keywords":["ebola","U.S.","Dallas","Nurse"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3dae3dae333afd7e/69876195e20a8774f7a828b1/rtr4acz7.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Helen Regan","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/helen-regan/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3dae3dae333afd7e/69876195e20a8774f7a828b1/rtr4acz7.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Texas nurse Amber Vinson (L) steps from an ambulance at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta","caption":"Texas nurse Amber Vinson (L) steps from an ambulance at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta","creditText":"Stringer—Reuters","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/ebola/","name":"ebola"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3523196/second-u-s-nurse-with-ebola-was-in-no-way-careless-by-flying-family-says/","name":"Second U.S. Nurse With Ebola Was 'in No Way Careless' by Flying, Family Says"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola","description":"Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/G194AmTC/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-08-13T23:41:12.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/G194AmTC.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3523196/second-u-s-nurse-with-ebola-was-in-no-way-careless-by-flying-family-says/","duration":"PT2M32S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3523196/second-u-s-nurse-with-ebola-was-in-no-way-careless-by-flying-family-says/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```