Dallas nurse Amber Vinson: I followed the CDC protocols on Ebola to the letter every time

“I have no idea,” she told CNN. “I go through it almost daily in my mind: what happened, what went wrong. Because I was covered completely every time. I followed the CDC protocol. … I never strayed. It is a mystery to me.”

Vinson, who was declared Ebola-free last week after treatment at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, spoke with CNN’s Don Lemon in an exclusive interview that aired Thursday. She described her experience fighting the deadly virus and fired back at critics who said she should never have boarded commercial flights after treating an Ebola patient.

“I’m a nurse. I care. I care for me, I would not put myself in danger. First, I would not take Ebola to my family and my best girlfriends. I would not endanger families across the nation, potentially exposing them to anything,” she said. “I had no symptoms. There was no way, at that time — I could not transmit it.”