--- title: Ebola: Nebraska Hospital Recalls 'Heroic Effort' to Save Martin Salia description: Doctors in Omaha who helped to treat a surgeon who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone said Monday the virus progressed too far to save him canonical: https://time.com/3589550/ebola-patient-martin-salia-dies-nebraska/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-11-17T18:12:13.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:00:20.911Z article:section: Health og:title: Doctors Recalls 'Heroic Effort' to Save Ebola Victim Martin Salia og:description: Doctor arrived critically ill from Sierra Leone on Saturday og:url: https://time.com/3589550/ebola-patient-martin-salia-dies-nebraska/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5fabbd720768a425/69876917f887dcd1f7e88668/martin-salia.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5184 og:image:height: 2916 og:image:alt: Doctor Being Treated For Ebola In Nebraska Dies Of Virus og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Doctors Recalls 'Heroic Effort' to Save Ebola Victim Martin Salia twitter:description: Doctor arrived critically ill from Sierra Leone on Saturday twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5fabbd720768a425/69876917f887dcd1f7e88668/martin-salia.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Nebraska Hospital Recalls 'Heroic Effort' to Save Ebola Victim Martin Salia > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=70b594ef-72c3-46fa-9b8c-69ceaf50c7cb&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## 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 [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Nov 17, 2014 6:12 PM UTC  FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE - APRIL 5, 2014: In this handout provided by the United Methodist News Service, surgeon Dr. Martin Salia, poses for a photo at the United Methodist Church's Kissy Hospital April 5, 2014 outside Freetown, Sierra Leone. Salia, was flown to Omaha, Nebraska from Sierra Leone for treatment at the medical center's specialized bio-containment unit after testing positive for Ebola. According to the Medical Cental Martin Salia died on November 17, 2014 as a result of the advanced symptoms of the disease. (Photo by Mike DuBose/United Methodist News Service via Getty Images) FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE - APRIL 5, 2014: In this handout provided by the United Methodist News Service, surgeon Dr. Martin Salia, poses for a photo at the United Methodist Church's Kissy Hospital April 5, 2014 outside Freetown, Sierra Leone. Salia, was flown to Omaha, Nebraska from Sierra Leone for treatment at the medical center's specialized bio-containment unit after testing positive for Ebola. According to the Medical Cental Martin Salia died on November 17, 2014 as a result of the advanced symptoms of the disease. (Photo by Mike DuBose/United Methodist News Service via Getty Images) Handout—Getty Images by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Nov 17, 2014 6:12 PM UTC Doctors in Omaha who helped to treat a surgeon who had contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone said at a news conference Monday that the virus had progressed too far for him to be saved. Nebraska Medical Center called its treatment of Dr. Martin Salia a “heroic effort.” Salia arrived critically ill on Saturday and was given the experimental drug ZMapp as well as a transfusion of blood from someone who had survived the disease. The hospital, which had previously treated two other cases successfully, did not disclose the donor. “Even though this was the best possible place for a patient, at the very advanced stages, even the most modern techniques that we have at our disposal are not enough to treat these patients,” said a hospital representative involved in Salia’s care during the news conference. Salia was said to have no kidney function, working extremely hard to breathe and was unresponsive. The hospital placed Salia on dialysis but he eventually went into complete respiratory failure. He had severely low blood pressure and progressed to cardiac arrest. He died around 4 a.m. on Monday. “It was an absolute honor to care for Dr. Salia,” said one of the nurses involved in his care. The White House issued a statement after news of Salia’s death became public: “Dr. Salia’s passing is another reminder of the human toll of this disease and of the continued imperative to tackle this epidemic on the frontlines, where Dr. Salia was engaged in his calling.” More than 5,000 people have died in the Ebola outbreak, the World Health Organization reports, including at least 324 health care workers. ## Transcript [00:02] This Ebola outbreak is unprecedented. This is [00:05] definitely a marathon and not a sprint. The bugs have [00:08] evolved. The outbreak has gotten bigger. We are only [00:11] as strong as the weakest link, and we have learned [00:13] from Ebola that West Africa was a very weak link. [00:16] [ MUSIC ] [00:19] There's small clinics, these are like one room places [00:22] where sick people might go in their house with maybe [00:25] an auxiliary nurse as some one who has a little bit of [00:27] medical training, but defiantly not the same standards [00:30] that we would have here in the US. We're facing 3 main [00:33] threats. The first is the threat of new organisms. It was [00:36] coming and spreading in different places. The second [00:40] is drug- resistant bacteria, and the third are [00:43] intentionally created organisms. What we do in an [00:46] outbreak response is continuously see how can we [00:49] make it better. The exercises we've gone through [00:53] both, re- evaluating our own protocols but also [00:55] understanding what the public and governmental [00:58] responses are has really helped us understand. How [01:01] to take care of these patients in the larger context of [01:04] our healthcare systems. And, those who are in the [01:06] building, I would urge you to come down to either the [01:07] ops team room, or the, When [01:11] designing a unit that is designed to accept patients [01:16] with serious communicable diseases, like Ebola, there [01:18] are ways to design a unit so that it's function. [01:21] Functional. Any hospital that can isolate a patient in a [01:24] single patient room with a bathroom and can follow our [01:27] infection control recommendations is capable of safely [01:30] caring for a patient with Ebola. And we've tried to [01:32] encourage every single hospital in the country to have [01:35] an antibiotic stewardship program to improve [01:38] antibiotic prescribing practices. There [01:42] is a concern about fatigue as we go on that, [01:46] the CDC other groups have sort of ramping up now to [01:48] try to surge resources into the area. What we're also [01:51] realizing is, we need to be able to maintain that surge [01:55] for many months to keep the pressure on to [01:57] completely control the outbreak. Time [02:02] will tell in the next few weeks if we can start to see [02:04] those numbers going in the right direction. Fewer new [02:07] cases each day or each week. The single most [02:11] important thing to understand about protecting [02:13] Americans from Ebola is that can best be done by [02:16] stopping it at the source in Africa. Its normal to be [02:20] scared of something as deadly as Ebola and for the [02:23] general public I really hope we can never let our fear [02:27] undermine our compassion. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3589550/ebola-patient-martin-salia-dies-nebraska/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3589550/ebola-patient-martin-salia-dies-nebraska/"},"headline":"Nebraska Hospital Recalls 'Heroic Effort' to Save Ebola Victim Martin Salia","datePublished":"2014-11-17T18:12:13.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:00:20.911Z","description":"Doctor arrived critically ill from Sierra Leone on Saturday","url":"https://time.com/3589550/ebola-patient-martin-salia-dies-nebraska/","keywords":["ebola","nebraska","Ebola outbreak","blood","died"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5fabbd720768a425/69876917f887dcd1f7e88668/martin-salia.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5fabbd720768a425/69876917f887dcd1f7e88668/martin-salia.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Doctor Being Treated For Ebola In Nebraska Dies Of Virus","caption":"Doctor Being Treated For Ebola In Nebraska Dies Of Virus","creditText":"Handout—Getty Images","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":"https://time.com/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/tag/ebola/","name":"ebola"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3589550/ebola-patient-martin-salia-dies-nebraska/","name":"Nebraska Hospital Recalls 'Heroic Effort' to Save Ebola Victim Martin Salia"}}]},{"@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/3589550/ebola-patient-martin-salia-dies-nebraska/","duration":"PT2M32S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3589550/ebola-patient-martin-salia-dies-nebraska/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```