"I said I'm not going to cry," Markray said, remembering seeing his fiancée for the first time after she was declared Ebola free.
"I'm a man. All these people are around here," he said. "And I just boo-hooed like a baby and just sunk into her shoulders."
Vinson and Markray talked about weathering the Ebola crisis together although they were far apart in an exclusive interview with WFAA-TV, Dallas.
Vinson contracted the virus after caring for the first man in the United States to die of Ebola, Thomas Duncan, as he was treated in the intensive care unit of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital here.
What followed was not just a fight for life but also a battle to recover personal belongings and her reputation.
Amber Vinson, right, a nurse infected with Ebola after treating a sick patient, gets a hug Nov. 7, 2014, from former President George W. Bush at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas.(Photo: David Woo, AP)
Vinson received intense public scrutiny after taking a flight to Cleveland, then returning home to Dallas the night before she started showing symptoms of Ebola.
Vinson said she did not have a fever when she boarded that Frontier Airlines flight, yet public perception was that she had put passengers and others at risk.
"I was angry," said Markray, who is very protective of his fiancée, "Kind of like the Incredible Hulk was coming out on me. I wanted to go out and tear stuff up. ... It hurt. But I understand it was fear. I understand it was because no one knew who to trust."
Vinson said the public's reaction hurt her because she's a caring person.
"If I know you, I will try to help. I just feel like I was put out there as a person who would risk so much... so many peoples' families put so many in danger," she said. "And that's not who I am, and that's not what I did."
Not until the following morning when Vinson took her own temperature did she discover that it was mildly elevated. She called the Dallas County health department.
She didn't even give Markray a goodbye kiss.
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