14 DAY TRIAL // Last weekend, while swimming in Lake Minnewaska in Pope County, Minnesota, a 14-year-old boy named Hunter A. Boutain contracted a brain-eating parasite known to medical experts as Naegleria fowleri.
Shortly after, the boy started feeling ill. Come Wednesday, the teenager was admitted at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis in critical condition. The parasite reached his brain and the boy slipped into a coma.
Doctors did their best to save his life but to no avail. Early Thursday morning, he was pronounced brain dead and his family agreed to take him off like support, NY Daily News informs.
“The Lord didn't want him to stay on earth. 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,” his brother Lee wrote in a Facebook post.
Health officials reassure that, despite Hunter A. Boutain's tragic death, the public have nothing to worry about as infections with Naegleria fowleri are extremely rare.
Thus, they say that, between the years 2005 and 2014, merely 35 cases of people who contracted this freshwater parasite and developed deadly brain infections were reported across the entire US.
Nonetheless, they recommend that those who go swimming in lakes and other freshwater bodies try not to stir sediments and make sure no water enters their nose.