An 8-year-old girl named Lillian Smart passed away in a Ruston hospital after health officials suspected she contracted a brain-eating amoeba while swimming in a lake in northern Louisiana.
This tragic event occurred just a day after Lillian celebrated her eighth birthday.
The Smart family expressed their heartbreak in a Facebook statement, saying, “The injuries to her brain were too severe for her little body to recover from. Everyone did everything they could to keep her here. We are heartbroken and honestly do not know what to do next. How do we put one foot in front of the other without our girl?”
On Wednesday, the Louisiana Department of Health revealed that a state resident had been hospitalized due to an infection caused by Naegleria fowleri, a tiny amoeba known for leading to a rare and often fatal brain infection. Although state officials did not name Lillian as the referenced patient, her family confirmed on social media that she had been hospitalized in the pediatric intensive care unit and had been diagnosed with Naegleria fowleri.
According to the health department, the infection likely occurred while she was swimming in Lake Claiborne shortly before her illness began.
A representative from the Louisiana Department of Health has not responded to inquiries regarding this situation.
Since 2011, Louisiana’s health records show three prior deaths related to Naegleria fowleri. Two fatalities occurred in 2011—a 20-year-old man died after rinsing his sinuses with tap water, and a 51-year-old woman died under similar circumstances. In 2013, a 4-year-old boy contracted the amoeba during a visit to a house where he played on a slip-and-slide; state officials later found Naegleria fowleri in that parish’s water system.
Naegleria fowleri leads to primary amoebic meningoencephalitis, or PAM, which is an exceptionally rare brain infection that arises when contaminated water gets into the nose, allowing the amoeba to migrate to the brain. It’s worth noting that swallowing contaminated water doesn’t result in infection.
This amoeba does not exist in saltwater or well-chlorinated swimming pools.
Symptoms typically begin with headaches, fever, nausea, and vomiting, later escalating to a stiff neck, seizures, and coma. They generally emerge around five days post-infection, and the disease can be fatal within one to two weeks.
The CDC has reported that approximately 97% of people who develop PAM die from the infection. In the previous year, there were two cases reported nationwide. Of the 173 total infections documented in the last 90 years, nearly 91% occurred during the months of July and August.
