PARIS might be known for being the city of love, but for one husband and wife that wasn't the case when they met and fell in love while on a night out in Exeter. However, this happy couple put 'in sickness and in health' to the test when Mental Health nurse, Georgie Grundy Campbell, decided to become an Ebola nurse in Sierra Leone, weeks after walking down the aisle and marrying Ian Campbell.
The couple, who got together on New Year's Eve in 2010, tied the knot in August last year. The following October saw Georgie,34, fly out to West Africa where she has been working tirelessly, seven days a week, to help the victims, survivors and families of Ebola. Since then, the newlyweds have only seen each other once since their wedding.
The couple has spoken about their experiences and difficulties at being separated. Georgie, who is from Hammersmith in West London, said:
"The first time I came to Sierra Leone, I was volunteering in 2006 and have been back and forward since,' she said. I was a volunteer mental health nurse.
"It has been my dream to work in international mental health."
Last year Georgie was offered a permanent position with the EU-funded project Enabling Access to Mental Health in Makeni. The opportunity was too good to pass up.
"Ian had never been to Sierra Leone, but I convinced him it was a good idea and he believed it," she joked.
Ian, who is originally from Hereford, added:
"I had never even been to Africa. Ever since I met Georgie I was aware it was her dream. I wasn't surprised when the job came up."
In February the couple left their jobs and home in the UK and headed to Sierra Leone.
But a week after they arrived, the spread of Ebola started appearing in the news.
Ian said: 'We were watching the news reports very closely. I think we both had the sense it was going to be something a lot bigger.
"We were quite concerned but it still seemed distant. We were watching it on a map coming closer towards us.
"In the middle of July, it really exploded in the area."
Georgie explained:
"The only thing I knew about it (Ebola) was to be terrified of it."
They were due to fly home for their wedding on August 1, and Ian's last job at the university where he worked was to convince management not to invite in prospective students for interviews for fear of the virus spreading further.
"The week we were leaving, other people started being evacuated," Ian said.
"We were very grateful we already had our flights booked - we wished our flights were leaving a few days earlier. Family and friends were very worried."
Coming through the airport, they had their temperatures checked, knowing their wedding would be called off if they showed any signs of illness.
"We were concerned about how we might be put in separate quarantine wards and there was also fear nobody would come to the wedding," Georgie said.
But their special day went smoothly and they tied the knot by the sea in Whitstable, Kent surrounded by family, before partying with friends in London the following day.
After returning from their honeymoon in Italy, they stayed with friends, trying to work out what their next move would be.
"We were sofa-surfing, biding our time," Georgie said. "The way it blew up in the country was huge.
"It literally exploded out here. We had friends who died. We felt quite helpless.
"We knew we didn't want to return to our lives in London, but we recognised life wouldn't go back to normal in Sierra Leone for a long, long time."
Georgie applied for and was offered a job in the country working as a psychosocial coordinator with International Medical Corps - a non-governmental organisation treating Ebola patients in West Africa.
"We had long discussions about what we would do. Agonising conversations.
'Then we decided and I came back alone on October 10. I felt like I had the skills and I could do something to help."
Ian added: "It was very clear she had the skills to help out. At the time it didn't make sense for me to go back because I didn't have a skill to help with the outbreak.
"I was incredibly worried, I was never angry. Our focus was on talking about how to make it as safe as possible. I knew it was something that was important to her.'
Georgie added: "Getting on the plane was bizarre, saying goodbye and walking away was horrible."
Georgie began her work in Freetown, interviewing survivors in preparation for the opening of a new treatment centre in Lunsar, which began admitting patients in December.
Her first patient was a 15-year-old girl who contracted Ebola while caring for her sick grandmother.
"She was weak, she was confused, but she survived,' the mental health nurse explained.
'We were able to take her home, which was a wonderful moment. We are able to take survivors back to their villages.
"Ebola tends to effect families and households. When a person got sick their family was trying to care for them without touching them.
'Mothers would say "if my little child is sick and vomiting, how can you expect me not to touch them".
"We had a 13-year-old who had been in the unit for two weeks and I took him home.
'He knew his father had died, he knew his mother was in quarantine in the village, but he didn't know what had happened to his siblings - he was one of 10.
"When we took him home, his mother just fell apart. They went from a family of 12 to a family of two.
"We are seeing a lot of that - families decimated."
Georgie was also helped a man who lost 19 members of his family in just one week.
The mental health nurse has had to deal with death on a daily basis and earlier this week, three children died in a single night.
"Seeing those three small body bags will stay with me forever,' she said.
'The one-year-old, Mariama, had such a personality. She had Malaria and Ebola and she kept on fighting.
"The nurses said she was really strong and would fight them if she didn't want to do something. But it was just too much for her little body. She just couldn't cope and I don't blame her."
Describing the way Ebola affects patients, she added: "This illness kills so viciously. It has the same symptoms as malaria, typhoid and cholera.
"It's invisible - you can't see it approaching. It's such a horrible, undignified way to die.
"We so regularly see burial teams walking up and down with body bags.
"Ebola is still with us. We still are seeing nine or 12 cases a day. But now people are starting to think about the long-term impact."
In December, Georgie developed sunstroke while working in the heat without any shade, and she developed symptoms similar to those of Ebola.
"It was the most terrifying night of my life and I didn't sleep at all," she said.
Georgie returned to the UK for a few days at Christmas. The couple is now trying to decide what their future holds.
She hopes by June there will not have been a new case for 42 days - two complete incubation periods between Ebola cases which is the official period after which an outbreak is typically declared to be over.
"The bravery the people have is amazing," Georgie added. "They are fighting for their lives.
"We have had so many cases of young children on their own in a treatment centre.
"There has been so much sickness but there is still a sense of hope."
You can support Georgie's work in Sierra Leone, by donating what you can to International Medical Corps UK at: www.internationalmedicalcorps.org.uk/ebola.
