Quarantined nurse blasts Gov. Christie: criticizes the way she has been treated

Kaci Hickox, a nurse quarantined in New Jersey after returning from working with Ebola victims in West Africa, bashed Gov. Chris Christie on Sunday, urging him to stick to politics – and nose out of medical decisions.

The 33-year-old told CNN Sunday that Christie was speaking out of turn when he said she was sick after he laid out the details of New Jersey’s mandatory 21-day quarantine for anyone returning from working the front lines in Ebola-ravage West Africa.


“This is so frustrating to me,” Hickox told CNN’s Candy Crowley by phone Sunday from her quarantine tent outside University Hospital in Newark. “First of all, I don’t think (Christie is) a doctor, and second of all, he’s never laid eyes on me.”

Hickox, fresh off a stint helping Ebola victims in Sierra Leone, was selected for extra screening after deplaning Friday at Newark Liberty Airport. Following hours of tests and questioning, Hickox says she was ordered into isolation inside an unheated tent outside University Hospital in Newark, the first person treated under the new rules in place in Jersey, New York and Illinois.

Hickox said she has no fever and has shown no symptoms of Ebola.

“This is an extreme that is really unacceptable, and I feel like my basic human rights have been violated,” added the nurse from Maine. “All I want is to go home to my partner, who is completely happy to have me and not scared at all.”

The extreme measures were described as “draconian” by NIH’s infectious disease director, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who appeared Sunday on NBC’S “Meet the Press.”We need to treat them, returning (health workers), with respect, and make sure that -- they're really heroes,” he said.

Hickox said chaos reigned as healthcare workers scrambled to set up her accommodations and monitoring. The tent has a portable toilet, no shower and little else – she’s stuck only with her iPhone and a small window .

No one has communicated to her the quarantine protocol, or what will become of her for the next several days, Hickox said.

"To put me in prison is just inhumane,” she told CNN.

She spoke to family on Sunday morning.

“I don’t really know what’s happening to my child,” her mother, Karen Hickox, told the Daily News from Texas. “I love her with all my heart and I want her to be safe.”