Nurse In Maine Breaches Quarantine With Bike Ride

By Scott Neuman / NPR

Published October 30, 2014 at 4:50 AM PDT

This story was published more than 10 years ago.

Nurse Kaci Hickox, right, and her boyfriend, Ted Wilbur are followed by a Maine State Trooper as they ride bikes on a trail near her home in Fort Kent, Maine, on Thursday.

For nurse Kaci Hickox, a morning bicycle ride with her boyfriend has become an act of defiance.

Hickox, who has repeatedly refused to remain in voluntary quarantine since she returned to the U.S. from Ebola-stricken Sierra Leone, set out on her bike from the home of her boyfriend, Theodore Wilbur, in Fort Kent, Maine, in an open challenge to state officials who have threatened to get a court order to compel her isolation.

The Associated Press writes:

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"Police were monitoring her movements and public interactions but couldn't detain her without a court order signed by a judge. "Hickox contends there's no need for quarantine because she's showing no symptoms. She's also tested negative for the deadly disease. " 'I really hope that we can work things out amicably and continue to negotiate,' she said Thursday morning while riding on a dirt trail."

Hickox was in West Africa volunteering with the nonprofit Doctors Without Borders to care for Ebola patients.

After returning to the U.S. over the weekend, she blasted New Jersey officials for confining her. When they discharged her earlier this week, she returned to Maine, where she was asked to self-quarantine.

In television interviews Wednesday, she vowed not to stick to guidelines, setting up a confrontation with Maine Gov. Paul LePage, who said he would seek a court order to compel her to remain at home.