ABC News journalists in Liberia captured a horrifying scene from the frontline of the Ebola outbreak on Thursday while filming a burial team picking up bodies.
The footage shows ABC correspondent Dr. Richard Besser observing health workers while they douse the body of a suspected Ebola patient lying on the streets of the Liberian capital Monrovia with bleach, a regular precaution while removing bodies to prevent the spread of the disease. The workers place the suspected victim in a body bag. Then, his hand moves.
"He's not dead!" Besser exclaims, to the cheers of a crowd of Liberians.
Residents told Besser they had spent days unsuccessfully seeking help for the man as he lay suffering on the road. The burial team, however, arrived within an hour of the victim's reported death. "They only come when you die," one community leader told the news crew.
One of three countries battling Ebola in West Africa, Liberia has been hardest hit by the outbreak, with nearly 2,000 recorded deaths from the virus. The country's beleaguered health system has been overwhelmed by the crisis. Liberia has a dire shortage of hospital beds and international efforts to help have struggled keep pace with Ebola's spread.
Richard Besser, who is ABC's chief health and medical editor, was the first journalist permitted to film inside Liberia's Ebola Isolation Unit, ELWA2. He told The Huffington Post earlier that the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is the most devastating he's ever seen anywhere in the world.
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