NO ONE’S COMING

Defying death during an epidemic.

In this inspiring, cinematic book, a daring American aviation firm rescues seriously ill medical workers in West Africa. The author, a former paramedic, is well matched with the subject. He skillfully builds dramatic tension, though a handful of scenes read like extracts from a punched-up screenplay. In 2014, Phoenix Air, a Georgia-based outfit that hauls unusually sensitive cargo—“dynamite, warheads, smallpox”—was tasked with getting Ebola-infected American medical professionals back home from Liberia. As Hazzard relates in a very specific rundown of the symptoms, the disease is excruciating and highly communicable. We see handy Phoenix staffers outfit a jet with a bespoke biocontainment unit and secure approval from “a dozen federal agencies.” We witness the mission’s impact on those involved; online dating is tricky when your name is linked with a disease that leaves patients “gushing” bodily fluids. Hazzard makes policy debates interesting. Traditionally, American doctors sickened abroad were treated where they fell ill. But “treat-in-place” wasn’t popular with physicians, inspiring the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to work with Phoenix. Less compellingly, Hazzard picks low-hanging fruit—jingoistic tweets and apocalyptic posts in newspaper comments sections—to demonstrate that the “audacious plan” to effectively “import Ebola” was controversial. The author describes one of the book’s main sources, a Phoenix executive he met several years after the Ebola flights, as “a world-class salesman” and “a P.T. Barnum for our age.” So it’s not surprising that some of the proceedings have an oft-told, just-so quality. In Hollywood-ready scenes, real-life characters are ultracool, with pithy quotes at the ready, when facing extraordinarily daunting challenges and panicky government functionaries. These overly polished anecdotes don’t help a generally solid record of real-life heroism.

A stirring account of the dauntless ingenuity that saved lives during an infectious disease outbreak.