WHEN paramedic Mark Smith from Colwall was telling his wife Debbie he wanted to volunteer to go out to Africa to treat Ebola patients, she simple said: “I thought you would.”

The 58-year-old who works for West Midlands Ambulance Service as an area support officer is no stranger to emergencies and crisis situations.

Apart from his experience as a nurse – firstly at Worcester Royal Infirmary in the 1970s and at A & E in Bromsgrove – and as a paramedic, he has taken several roles with the military which have taken him close to the frontline of conflicts.

He started his professional career as a soldier in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers before heading to the medical services and after joining the Hereford and Worcester Ambulance Service, he also went into the Territorial Army joining the Royal Airforce Reserve in 1984.

In the 1990s he was drafted into the RAF for the first Gulf War and in 2003, after joining the Royal Navy Reserves, he was drafted to the Navy to go to the second Gulf War.

“I finally retired from all reserve forces in 2005 and became an area support officer with the ambulance service. I thought I would see out my working days doing that.”

But when the Government put out a call to NHS medical staff asking for volunteers help in Africa with the Ebola crisis, Mark “got the itch”.

He said there was a lot of fear about Ebola and a dread that it would hit this country and the western world. “My feeling was that it was better to treat it at source and contain it, rather than wait for it to come here. I felt that the best way I could save my family and my country was to go and help people in Sierra Leone.”

He said as far as he was concerned this was a humanitarian issue and it didn’t matter who was involved, they were all individuals. “When I was in the Gulf wars I probably treated more Prisoners of War than I did British people. When I signed up to be a medic, it was to treat people and do my best for my fellow man.”

Before leaving for his six-week secondment in Sierra Leone earlier this year, Mark went to a training centre to learn the procedures he would need to survive in the Ebola stricken country – he was going to the Save the Children centre where Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey was based before contracting Ebola herself.

Ebola is a highly contagious virus, mainly passed on by physical contact with someone already infected and through body fluids. “It is a blood-borne disease and attacks all aspects of the body and eats you up from the inside,” said Mark.

And because the people of West Africa are very tactile, the virus spread very quickly killing many before they had time to produce antibodies, said Mark. It even wiped our large sections of the medical staff in Sierra Leone.

Working in the Red Zone with the Ebola positive patients meant wearing a protective suit which took about 20 minutes to put on. Every part had to be sealed and tested to make sure there were no leaks or exposed areas. “Once you go into the Red Zone you had to assume everything was contaminated and it probably was.”

All volunteers went into the Red Zone with a partner or buddy - if they collapsed in the heat or for any other reason, someone had to be there to drag them out.

Mark said it was about 30 degrees C where he was working and the moment the volunteers put on the suit, they started to sweat. “You go there and acclimatise as best you can and you just get on with it. When you took off you boots you tipped them up and the sweat poured out,” said Mark.

After a spell treating the patients themselves, Mark took on a training role, teaching new volunteers – local and from Britain – the painstaking procedures needed to keep themselves safe while working in the red Zone.

“Each volunteer had to pass a test with 100 per cent accuracy before they were allowed to work in the Red Zone. I failed two consultants three times,” said Mark. “And I made it clear if they failed a fourth time they would be going home. They were not used to that level of discipline.” With Mark’s military experience he knew that discipline of the highest order saves lives.

He said one of the heart-breaking aspects of Ebola is that once a person is even suspected of having the virus they are not allowed to have any physical human contact. “There were kids and babies in the Red Zone. Most of them could speak English but trying to connect with them by voice alone through a mask was really hard.

“If you get Ebola, you cannot have any of your loved ones hold your hand – you are alone. I found it heart-breaking,” said Mark.

He added that one of the worst aspects of his secondment was when the ambulance carrying Ebola patients arrived at the treatment centre. “It was not unusual for the ambulance to turn up and for patients to have died or been sick or urinated in it. It was reminiscent of the plague.”

However Mark points out 65 per cent of the patients treated at the centre survived and once a patient was adjudged to be free of the disease, they would be welcomed back into the community with a big celebration which included dignitaries as well as their family and friends.

Mark said it was a very emotional experience and most people taking part cried with joy – including him. “It was one of the greatest experiences of my life watching three children being welcomed back into their society.”

At the end of his six weeks, Mark came back to the UK but had to wait three weeks in isolation before returning to Colwall and his family.

“The incubation period for Ebola ranges from a couple of days to three weeks, so when I returned, I had to undergo three weeks in isolation and had my temperature monitored twice a day which had to be reported to Public Health England every day. It was a scary three weeks.”

Mark has received the Outstanding Achievement Award from the ambulance service and the Queen’s Medal from the Government for his contribution to fighting Ebola. He now has a grand total of nine medals, including those received for his service in the Gulf Wars.

“I am absolutely pleased I went. It was the right thing to do and it was an experience and a privilege to serve my patients and students. There was something that needed to be done and I was able to play a part in doing something about that and bringing an end to it. There is a great deal of satisfaction in doing a job, doing it well and making a difference.”

Mark praised the Government for taking action to stop the virus spreading by asking volunteers to come forward to help treat it at its source. “It did not come here and in terms of mass casualties that was prevented by and large through the efforts of the volunteers who went there.

“We dodged a bullet and it is due to the UK Government and having the fortitude to mobilise volunteers from the NHS,” said Mark. Other countries which sent volunteers included France, China, the US and Cuba.

• On November 7 the World Health Organisation declared that Ebola virus transmission had been stopped in Sierra Leone. The country has now entered a 90-day period of enhanced surveillance, which is scheduled to conclude on February 5 2016. Sierra Leone has now achieved its first objective to interrupt all remaining chains of Ebola virus transmission.

• In Sierra Leone there have been 8,704 confirmed cases of Ebola, 287 probable cases and 5,131 suspected cases. This has resulted in 3955 deaths.