Nathaniel Dennis Obituary

Nathaniel Dennis attended Howard High School in Ellicott City, MD. View the obituary, post a memory, or share a photo about Nathaniel Dennis.

Graduation Year	Class of 2007
Date of Passing	Jul 30, 2014
About	A 24-year-old Maryland man is dead after falling ill in Liberia. Quarantined in the midst of a national Ebola crisis, Nathaniel Dennis tested negative for the virus, but he couldn’t receive vital medical treatment while under quarantine. Relatives are now working to have his body returned to the U.S. Dennis was visiting family in Liberia when he had a seizure and went into a coma July 24; and although he tested negative for the Ebola virus, he was quarantined as a precaution, The Telegraph reported. Dennis died Wednesday, July 30. “It could have been prevented. We don’t know what happened to him, besides lack of immediate treatment,” said his older sister Natasha Dennis, who lives in Culver City, CA. Dennis’ mother went to visit him in the hospital but was denied access due to the quarantine, NBC reported. The Ebola virus, which is often fatal, is transmitted by bodily fluids and secretions as well as objects that have come into contact with those fluids; it’s most commonly passed among family members and in health care settings, according to the Centers for Disease Control. As the death toll from the virus rose earlier this week, Liberia sealed many of its borders and put a moratorium on public meetings to prevent its spread, The Wall Street Journal reported. Even though Dennis, who lives in Columbia, tested negative three times for Ebola, “the hysteria got everyone so afraid that no one was willing to help us,” his sister told the Howard County Times. Although relatives set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for his transport, which would have cost $30,000, they could not get clearance to land a medevac in Ghana. The scale of the Ebola virus is “unprecedented,” the World Health Organization said Thursday, noting that more than 1,300 cases have been reported and over 700 have died from Ebola in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia since March. The organization will meet in Guinea Friday to discuss a $100 million plan to control the outbreak. Dennis’ cousin attributed his death to “timing, logistics and unpreparedness by local governments.” His kidneys and respiratory systems began to fail, and the facility where he was being held did not have a dialysis machine or ventilation unit to keep him alive, according to family members. He passed Wednesday morning, The Daily Mail reported. The 24-year-old was working as a DJ at Radio Nubian 97.6 FM after graduating from Howard High School in Ellicott City and attending Howard Community College in Columbia, according to his family. He was reportedly an aspiring artist. Dennis and two siblings had been visiting their mother, who is an educator in Liberia, at the end of May, and by the end of the trip, he landed the job at the radio station and decided to stay longer, the Howard County Times reported. Now, his brother said the family is trying to raise awareness about the lack of access to health care in Liberia so “hopefully we can save a couple lives in the process,” according to 99.1 FM. The GoFundMe page remains open as the family seeks to have Dennis’ body returned to Maryland for burial. Nathaniel Dennis graduated from Howard High, attended Howard Community College.