????上周在接受《財富》雜志(Fortune)長約一小時的電訪專訪過程中，艾德?加西亞的手機中途響起了三次。每次他都表示抱歉，然后接起電話。

????加西亞是凡士通利比里亞公司（Firestone Liberia）的總裁兼執(zhí)行董事。他表示：“每通電話我都得接……每通電話都很重要?！狈彩客ɡ壤飦喒倦`屬美國普利司通（Bridgestone）旗下，在利比里亞擁有占地185平方英里的橡膠園，它也是利比里亞雇傭工人最多的企業(yè)。

????加亞西是菲律賓裔，算上在美國本土和利比里亞橡膠園的工作經(jīng)歷，他已經(jīng)為公司工作32年了。目前他全面負責凡士通利比里亞公司的運營——包括橡膠林、橡膠原木和幾個水力發(fā)電站，還有為員工和家屬建設(shè)的120個住宅社區(qū)，以及相關(guān)學校、醫(yī)院等配套設(shè)施。如果按人頭算，加西亞相當于管理著一支80,000人的龐大隊伍。

????自今年3月以來，埃博拉病毒(Ebola)開始在西非地區(qū)的利比里亞、幾內(nèi)亞和塞拉利昂等國爆發(fā)，目前已奪去了3400余條生命。加西亞的首要任務(wù)，就是在埃博拉病毒的肆虐下，保護好他的這些員工。

????“人們整天談?wù)摰亩际前２├?。我們?nèi)栽诶^續(xù)抓緊業(yè)務(wù)，但是目前我們的首要任務(wù)確實是在防疫上，因為我們在這兒有好幾萬人需要保護?！?/p>

????直到最近，情況才演變成這個樣子。

????今年3月，埃博拉病毒在幾內(nèi)亞爆發(fā)，然后迅速蔓延到臨近的塞拉利昂和利比里亞。

????凡士通公司從1926年起就開始運營這片橡膠園。６個月前，這里也遭到了埃博拉的襲擊。3月30日深夜，園區(qū)的醫(yī)療主任給加西亞打來電話，報告了該社區(qū)感染埃博拉病毒的第一起案例?；疾≌呤欠彩客ü疽幻麊T工的妻子，她早先曾去過與幾內(nèi)亞和塞拉利昂接壤的洛法地區(qū)，照顧她染上了埃博拉病毒的姐姐，結(jié)果自己也被傳染了。

????正是這通電話，讓公司的管理層開始惡補一堂如何抗擊埃博拉的防疫課。

????加西亞稱：“這基本上就好比一邊開飛機，一邊翻操作手冊。星期一早上，我們聽說有人感染了埃博拉，星期二早上，我們就開始給醫(yī)務(wù)人員做培訓?！痹摴镜娜?50名醫(yī)務(wù)人員都接受了培訓，但一開始只有6人志愿加入第一支埃博拉治療團隊。

????在治療的頭幾天，最大的難題是應(yīng)該把這名患者安置在什么地方。因為一旦她開始表現(xiàn)出疫情癥狀，她就可能通過體液將病毒傳染給下一個受害者。她也不能在醫(yī)院里住院，因為那里沒有隔離區(qū)。最后醫(yī)護人員將這名女患者轉(zhuǎn)移到醫(yī)院的門診部，因為這里與醫(yī)院主要區(qū)域是隔離的。加西亞回憶道：“等她轉(zhuǎn)移到我們那里時，她的病情已經(jīng)很重了?！睅滋旌笏腿ナ懒?。

????接下來的10天里，凡士通公司的醫(yī)務(wù)人員繼續(xù)將該院的門診部改造成一座埃博拉病毒的治療場所，使它達到了美國疾病控制中心的標準。它只有一個入口和一個出口。該公司甚至為這座樓單獨挖了一個污水處理池，然后請宗教領(lǐng)袖和該公司的廣播電臺“凡士通之聲”(The Voice of Firestone)來教育大家如何抗擊埃博拉。

????凡士通管理層也在準備著應(yīng)對埃博拉病例的大規(guī)模增長，但幸運的是，園區(qū)里再沒有人感染埃博拉——至少在短期內(nèi)沒有。

????醫(yī)務(wù)人員對可能與那名女患者接觸過的人進行了密切監(jiān)控，她的直系家庭成員更是被隔離了21天，但是他們都沒有感染。

????加西亞表示：“經(jīng)過將近４個月，我們終于擺脫了埃博拉?！?/p>

????In an hour-long phone interview with Fortune last week, Ed Garcia’s cell phone rang in the background with a cheerful jingle on three separate occasions. Each time, he excused himself to pick it up.

????“I have to answer every call…. Every call is important,” said Garcia, the president and managing director of Firestone Liberia, a 185 square mile rubber plantation operated by Bridgestone Americas, the largest employer in the West African nation.

????Originally from the Philippines, Garcia has worked for Firestone Liberia—either on the plantation itself or from the United States—for 32 years. He currently oversees the entire Firestone Liberia operation—its rubber farms and rubber wood and hydroelectric power plants, along with 120 housing communities with schools and medical clinics for the companies’ employees and their dependents. All told, Garcia is responsible for 80,000 people.

????And since March, he’s been in charge of protecting those residents from an Ebola epidemic that has spread through the West African nations of Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone and has claimed some 3,400 lives.

????“It’s Ebola, Ebola, Ebola—it’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” Garcia says. “We continue to stay on top of the business and operations, but our priority really is focused on Ebola simply because of the thousands of people that we have to protect here.”

????It’s become this way only recently.

????The ongoing Ebola outbreak in West Africa started in Guinea in March and quickly spread to neighboring Sierra Leone and Liberia.

????The epidemic hit the plantation that Firestone has operated since 1926 six months ago. In a midnight phone call from the concession’s medical director on March 30, Garcia learned that the community had its first case of Ebola. The wife of a Firestone employee had traveled to Lofa—the northernmost county of Liberia, which shares a border with both Guinea and Sierra Leone—to care for her sister who had Ebola and ended up contracting the virus herself.

????The phone call triggered what would become a crash course for Firestone Liberia management in how to deal with the disease.

????“It was basically like flying an airplane and reading the manual at the same time,” says Garcia. “That Monday morning, we started learning about Ebola. We scheduled a training for medical personnel to start on Tuesday morning,” Garcia says. All 150 of the company’s health workers received training, though only six staff members initially volunteered for the first Ebola treatment team.

????The biggest challenge of those first few days was figuring out where to put the Ebola patient, who was contagious via bodily fluids once she started showing symptoms. She couldn’t be admitted to the main hospital because it had no isolation units. The medical staff ended up moving the woman to the hospital’s outpatient facility, which is separate from the main hospital. “By the time she reached our place,” Garcia says, “she was far too advanced.” She died there a day later.

????Over the next 10 days, Firestone’s medical staff continued to convert the hospital’s outpatient building into an Ebola treatment facility, retrofitting it to the standards set by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with one entrance and one exit. The company even dug a new septic tank for the facility, and it relied on religious leaders and its radio station, The Voice of Firestone, to launch Ebola education programs.

????Firestone management was preparing for an onslaught of additional cases, but they never came—not for a while, at least.

????The medical staff monitored individuals who may have come in contact with the first Firestone Ebola victim—her immediate family was quarantined for 21 days—but none of them contracted the disease.

????“For almost four months after that,” Garcia says, “we were Ebola-free.”