Nurse Who Tested Positive for Ebola Flew to Ohio to 'Prepare for Her Wedding

The second hospital worker infected with Ebola after she provided care for another patient in Dallas was in Ohio over the weekend and flew back to Texas before she exhibited symptoms and tested positive the next day.

Why was she in Cleveland in the first place though? According to a state official, she was visiting family and planning her wedding.

This is Amber Vinson, the #ebola patient that flew from #CLE to #Texas after visiting #Akron https://t.co/wBoZM9Hvr1 pic.twitter.com/RGSvcA6l3Q

— WEWS NewsChannel5 (@WEWS) October 15, 2014

"She flew into Cleveland to prepare for her wedding," Toinette Parrilla, director of the Cleveland Department of Public Health, said, according to NBC News. "She came in to visit her mother and her mother's fiancé."

Marshall Samples, 26, of Richardson, Texas, enters Terminal E at Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) International Airport where Frontier Airlines has gates October 15, 2014 in Dallas Texas. The second healthcare worker to contract the Ebola virus had taken a commercial Frontier Airlines flight from Cleveland to Dallas a day before become symptomatic. (Stewart F. House/Getty Images)

Dallas officials announced Wednesday morning that a second person working for Texas Presbyterian Hospital Dallas tested positive for Ebola after being admitted into isolation Tuesday with a self-reported fever. The nurse, identified as 29-year-old Amber Vinson, was one of the 77 staff members who helped care for Thomas Eric Duncan, the first U.S. diagnosed Ebola patient who traveled from Liberia before he exhibited symptoms. Duncan died in the hospital last week. Since then, one nurse, Nina Pham, tested positive Sunday, followed by Vinson later in the week.

Following protocol, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is tracking down the people who might have had contact with these women. In Vinson's case, that includes 132 passengers on Frontier Airlines flight 1143. CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden said Wednesday that because Vinson was asymptomatic on the flight from Cleveland to Dallas Monday night, the risk is minimal for other passengers on board. Still, he added that she should not have been allowed to travel in the first place.

A hazmat worker with Protect Environmental carries a barrel in preparation for decontaminating an apartment as security personnel are near at The Village Bend East apartment complex where a second health care worker who has tested positive for the Ebola virus resides. (Mike Stone/Getty Images)

Parrilla said at a news conference Wednesday that there have been no reported cases in Ohio in light of this recent news.

According to medical records viewed by the Associated Press, Vinson was closely involved with Duncan's care while he was treated at the hospital:

Medical records provided to The Associated Press by Thomas Eric Duncan’s family show Amber Joy Vinson inserted catheters, drew blood, and dealt with Duncan’s body fluids before he died last week. It’s not clear how she contracted the virus.

At a Wednesday morning news conference, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said Vinson was handling her diagnosis with “grit and grace and determination."

According to WEWS-TV, before moving to Texas for work Vinson attended Akron Firestone High School, in Ohio, and later Kent State University.

The CDC announced that Vinson would be transferred to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta while Pham, the other nurse listed in good condition earlier this week, would remain at the Texas hospital.

The Dallas Morning News reached out to Vinson's father for comment, but he declined to offer one at the time.