Exclusive Interview with N J Anthrax Victim

HAMILTON TOWNSHIP, NJ: The first New Jersey person to contract anthrax who is not a postal employee is on her way to a full recovery, but just how she became infected is still a mystery. "I'm still... sometimes I'm in denial because I had three tests taken on me prior to the biopsy and those three tests came back negative," she says.

There's a bandage now covering the sore on the forehead of the 51-year-old Hamilton Square accountant, who agreed to talk to Action News on the condition that we protect her identity.

She says that she has no idea as to how she contracted the disease. "If I opened mail at home, if I opened mail at the office... I'm just a simple person. I don't go anyplace, I don't do anything out of the ordinary. I don't have a clue." Her sore first appeared two weeks ago, days before her daughter's wedding. It grew progressively worse until she was hospitalized. "I was fortunate, she says. "I just had some discomfort, you know? But I was not ill. I wanted to be out of that hospital and not ill. I felt good. I didn't want to be there." Despite the diagnosis, this New Jersey woman has remained calm. "I am not worried at all," she says. "It's getting smaller, the sore. It's healing. The stitches are out. I feel fine."

She's a mother of two and a grandmother who's been getting calls of support from family, friends and colleagues at the accounting firm where she's worked for 13 years. She's a private person and is anxious to put this anthrax nightmare behind her.

"I just want to go back to my life. I want to be normal and I just want to go about my business. That's all."

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Author: 6 ABC - Action News