Hunter Boutain is the latest teen to be fatally infected by a brain-eating amoeba. He was 14.
The New York Daily News reported Boutain went swimming in Lake Minnewaska in his home state of Minnesota two days prior to his death. He was unresponsive shortly after being hospitalized, and his family members took to blogs to say they were “praying for a miracle for this rascal.” But despite these prayers, Boutain’s doctors declared him brain dead.
"The Lord didn't want him to stay on Earth,” his older brother Lee Boutain wrote on Facebook. "As much as I am hurt I know I can't love him as much as GOD. For my little brother will be there waiting for me when I leave this earth."
Brain-eating amoebas are formally known as Naegleria fowleri, a parasitic species that thrive in fresh, warm water. They enter the body through the nasal cavity and infect the brain, causing what's known as primary amebic meningoencephalitis. Since 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has investigated two other cases like Boutain’s, including 12 year old Zachary Reyna who was fatally infected after kneeboarding in a watery ditch.
Some suggest the Earth’s rising temperatures were to blame for the increased amount of amoebas given it’s what the CDC refers to as a “heat-loving” microbe. Either way, it’s common, but should we all be concerned?
“The deadly amoeba is common, but can only access the brain through the nose,” Dr. Stacene Maroushek, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Hennepin County Medical Center, told the Daily News. “Diving or jumping into the water seems to pose the greatest risk.”
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