Andrew Speaker: Man Behind the Mask

June 2, 2007 — -- Behind the headlines about Andrew Speaker is a man trapped in a room with only one person by his side everyday -- the wife who helped him come to that split-second decision to flee the authorities and take a commercial jet home.

That decision has caused panic around the world.

Confined to months in isolation, Andrew Speaker's life is much different than it was just over two weeks ago when he was standing on the cliffs of Santorini. He was there with friends and family to pledge his love to his new bride -- through sickness and in health. He was a successful personal injury lawyer living in Atlanta. He graduated from Georgia, after spending two years in the Naval Academy.

He completed three marathons, three half Iron-man competitions and was the picture of health, running five to 10 miles a day. He was an active volunteer in the community, raising money for a local hospital and serving on the board of the Boys and Girls Club. He spent five weeks volunteering with the Rotary Club, bringing food and money to orphanages, hospitals and schools in Vietnam; where he believes he contracted XDR tuberculosis. And he was about to marry the love of his life.

"She's just the most amazing woman I've ever had the privilege of spending time with. She's my best friend," he told "Good Morning America" anchor Diane Sawyer in an exclusive interview.

Now, Speaker is confined to a small hospital room in Denver. It is a negative pressure room, designed to suck the air out and kill the germs with UV Rays. The room has blank white walls, two beds and two TVs, which are constantly playing news coverage about his case. Everyone who enters the room, including his new bride, must wear a mask. The Internet is their only shared connection to the outside world and it is being constantly updated by the swarms of journalists outside.

His new wife, Sarah Cooksey, spends nearly every moment by his side, leaving only for a few hours at night to sleep.

"We were kidding in isolation -- we can literally sit there all day and just talk. She's beautiful, she's smart, she's ... she's a rock, she's been so strong," Speaker said.

Cooksey is a Merit Scholar and about to enter her third year in law school at Emory University. She has an eight-year-old daughter who Speaker treats like his own, but they won't let him see her. Speaker brags about how much Sarah has been through, graduating at the top one percent of her class at Georgia Tech while raising her daughter.

Speaker and Cooksey were engaged in December right before he found out that he had tuberculosis. He immediately sought medical treatment and has been working with doctors and public health officials ever since.

Speaker continued to work because he claims he was told by his doctors that he wasn't contagious. Then, on May 23, they were sitting in a hotel room in Rome when the CDC called to say that his tuberculosis was the most dangerous kind, XDR tuberculosis. They were scared by the news, but they vowed to stick together.

"We cannot imagine a time in our life when we'll be more stressed than this and she's been wonderful, so what a great thing to know a week into marriage -- that someone's going to stand by you no matter what, no matter how scary or frightening," Speaker said.

Speaker and Cooksey have a long road ahead of them. Doctors at National Jewish Medical Center in Denver said Friday they expect him to remain in isolation for about eight weeks and will have to continue treatment for the next two years. Andrew just hopes life will soon return to normal -- waking up with his wife, taking their daughter to school and practicing law with his father -- just the way it was two weeks ago.

"[I] found the woman of my dreams, had this beautiful daughter, loved my job, I loved our life," Speaker said. "And it was just this feeling like after working so long to finally be at a point where everything was falling into place and then two weeks later it is all gone."