Family of boy who died from brain-eating amoeba speaks out: 'Unimaginable'
Jaysen Carr died on July 18 after developing an infection from the brain-eating amoeba Naegleria fowleri, the statement shared by Bailey Law Firm said.
The South Carolina Department of Public Health confirmed in a statement to USA TODAY on July 23 that a person died after being exposed to the amoeba earlier in July.
Prisma Health Children's Hospital Midlands confirmed on July 22 that the person was treated at the facility but did not publicly identify the person.
"The Carr family is incredibly grateful for the outpouring of love from the community and for the dedicated care provided by the doctors and nurses at Prisma Health Children's Hospital in the Midlands," the statement said.
Brain-eating amoeba victim was 'bright and beloved' middle schooler
The statement from the Carr family's lawyer said Jaysen was a "bright and beloved" middle school student.
"His loss is unimaginable, and our hearts are with his family as they grieve their son and search for answers," the statement said.
The legal team said it will "stand beside this family not only to seek the truth, but to help ensure no other family endures a loss like this."
"We ask that you keep the Carrs in your thoughts and prayers and respect their privacy as they prepare to lay Jaysen to rest," Bailey Law Firm's statement said.
Brain-eating amoeba: Person dies from Naegleria fowleri in South Carolina, officials say
Family says boy was infected with brain-eating amoeba at SC lake
The family's statement also said Jaysen Carr developed the infection after swimming at Lake Murray outside Columbia.
The SCDPH said it also believed the exposure occurred at the lake.
"We cannot be completely certain as this organism occurs naturally and is present in many warm water lakes, rivers and streams," the agency said.
What is Naegleria fowleri? Why is it known as a brain-eating amoeba?
Naegleria fowleri is a type of amoeba that can cause a rare but nearly always fatal brain infection. It thrives in warm freshwater lakes, rivers and hot springs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The amoeba is often referred to as brain-eating because it can cause an infection called primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) that destroys brain tissue.
Most people who have been in bodies of waters have been exposed to the amoeba, but contact alone is not harmful, Dr. Anna Kathryn Burch, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Prisma Health Children's Hospital Midlands, said during a news conference on July 22.
"Where it can cause an issue is if forceful water gets up the nose and is able to cross from the nose into the brain," Burch said, adding that a PAM infection causes the brain to swell.
To protect against a possible infection, the CDC recommends holding or wearing a nose clip when jumping into fresh water, keeping the head above water in hot springs and using distilled or boiled tap water when rinsing sinuses.
Melina Khan is a national trending reporter for USA TODAY. She can be reached at melina.khan@usatoday.com.
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New York Times
a day ago
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A 12-year-old boy died last week in South Carolina from a rare brain-eating amoeba he contracted after swimming in a local reservoir, a lawyer for the boy's family said in a statement on Thursday. Jaysen Carr, a middle school student, contracted the deadly infectious amoeba after swimming in Lake Murray, a reservoir roughly 15 miles from Columbia, S.C., the law firm of Tyler D. Bailey said on Facebook. Jaysen died on July 18. In a briefing on Thursday, Prisma Health Children's Hospital in South Carolina confirmed that Jaysen died from Naegleria fowleri, a brain-eating amoeba that thrives in warm freshwater. It was not immediately clear when he had gone swimming. Dominion Energy, which owns the lake and runs recreational access to it, could not be immediately reached on Saturday. The amoeba is 'ubiquitous to any fresh water in the state of South Carolina' and much of the Southeastern United States, Anna-Kathryn Burch, a doctor of pediatric infectious diseases, said at the briefing. As the weather heats up, the number of amoeba in the water increase while water levels decrease. That is often when infections occur. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
USA Today
2 days ago
- USA Today
Insomnia is a global epidemic. How do we fix it?
On a special episode (first released on July 24th) of The Excerpt podcast: The question is: Why do we struggle to sleep? Jennifer Senior, a staff writer at The Atlantic, joins The Excerpt to talk about insomnia and what we can do about solving our sleep issues. Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text. Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here Taylor Wilson: Hello, I'm Taylor Wilson, and this is a special episode of the Excerpt. According to a report released by the American Medical Association earlier this year, one-third of American adults experience acute insomnia, an inability to fall or stay asleep for several days at a time, but one in 10 adults suffer from chronic insomnia. That's an inability to fall or stay asleep three nights a week for three months or more. The condition has potentially debilitating health impacts, including an increased risk of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and even car accidents. So the question is, why can't we sleep? Here to help me dig into the issue is Jennifer Senior, a staff writer at The Atlantic who recently went on her own journey to solve her insomnia and who shared her story in the magazine. Thank you for joining me, Jennifer. Jennifer Senior: Thanks for having me. Taylor Wilson: So let's start with I guess a 30,000-foot view of the issue. I know you spoke with a lot of sleep specialists, did a lot of independent research for your piece. Jennifer, what's the big picture here on American's trouble with sleep? Jennifer Senior: Right. Yeah. What's funny, I think the story was a little misnamed. I mean, this is really more story about, well, if you can't sleep, don't feel awful about it because there are so many shaming stories about people, whatever solutions people seek out. I do talk in the beginning about the way that the modern world absolutely conspires against sleep, that it just lays waste to your circadian rhythms. That people work two jobs, 16.4% of us work non-standard hours. If you're a white collar kind of professional, you've got these woodpecker like peck, peck, peck, incursions into your life all night and weekend long from your boss's work sort of never ends. I mean, we're just no longer yoked to the rhythms of the earth anymore. We're just part of this whirl of a wired world. Taylor Wilson: In the course of doing your research, was there something in particular that surprised you most about the problem? Jennifer Senior: I'll tell you what surprised me most, just generally. 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Taylor Wilson: Well, you talked Jennifer about the modern world conspiring against us and our sleep, and I guess let's try to outline a few of the possible causes of what you call a public health emergency, right? What can you share with us here on this? Jennifer Senior: About other causes, you mean besides the kind of modernity itself and kids working on... Kids being assigned homework online, kids socializing online. I mean, adolescents are desperate for sleep. They're so hungry for it, and modern high schools and middle schools have them waking up preposterously early when their circadian rhythms are pitched forward. We've got a substantial sandwich generation that's taking care of young kids and their elderly parents. That's going to conspire against it. These are all immutable things. Also, there are elevated levels of anxiety now in our world, and anxiety itself is a huge source of... Or can be a source of sleeplessness, certainly can make one prone. So I mean, those are additional examples I suppose. Taylor Wilson: Let's talk through your story a bit here. When did you first realize that you had an issue with sleep? And walk us through your experience with insomnia. Jennifer Senior: It was 25 years ago and it was a very mysterious onset. I cannot tell you what brought it on to this day. It is a mystery. I had this extremely well-regulated kind of circadian clock. I fell asleep every night at 1:00. I woke up every day at 9:00. I lost my alarm clock. I still woke up at those times. I didn't have to buy a new alarm clock until I had an early flight one day, and yet sometime very close to my 29th birthday when virtually no circumstances in my life had changed one iota, I had a bad night, fell asleep at like 5:00. Thought nothing of it until they became more regular, and then I started doing all-nighters involuntarily, and I felt like I'd been poisoned. 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It can interfere with your memory and it can increase your odds of falling as you get older. And those are, to me, the real persuasive reasons to get off. Taylor Wilson: I want to back up a minute here to talk about something many may not be aware of, and that's that historically, at least in some eras, people used to sleep in two blocks. What do you know about this? How did this function and really why did this kind of sleep pattern work for some folks? Jennifer Senior: Well, it was sort of, I think, natural. It seemed that this is, and it has not been proven everywhere, but there's plenty of both historical evidence and also some in a lab by this wonderful guy named Tom Ware that shows that if you sort of just put someone in a room, 14 hours of darkness, what will happen is that their sleep will naturally split into two. They'll sleep for a phase, wake up for a phase, and then sleep for a phase again. 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Fox News
2 days ago
- Fox News
Death confirmed from rare and deadly 'brain-eating amoeba' in southern lake
A pediatric death from a "brain-eating amoeba" has been reported in South Carolina, according to health officials. Prisma Health Richland Hospital in Columbia publicly confirmed the death on July 22, according to a statement from the South Carolina Department of Public Health (DPH) sent to Fox News Digital. The patient died after exposure to Naegleria fowleri, a rare amoeba that causes a life-threatening brain infection called primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM). "The July 2025 exposure to the organism Naegleria fowleri likely occurred at Lake Murray, but we cannot be completely certain, as this organism occurs naturally and is present in many warm water lakes, rivers and streams," the South Carolina DPH told Dox News Digital. "Water activities like swimming or diving in warm freshwater areas, such as lakes and rivers, may increase the risk of exposure and infection." Naegleria fowleri can be a risk when swimming in fresh water. The amoeba is most active in the months that the water temperature stays above 77F – July, August and September, the health official said. Infection in humans is very rare, as this is the first case of Naegleria fowleri in South Carolina since 2016. There is no increased risk to the public, as Naegleria fowleri is not transmissible person to person, according to the statement. "Historically, one infection does not increase the chances that another will occur in the same body of water." Fox News Digital previously spoke with Tammy Lundstrom, chief medical officer and infectious disease specialist for Trinity Health in Michigan, about the risks of infection. "The risk of brain-eating amoeba is very low," she said. "Fewer than 10 people in the U.S. every year get infected — but unfortunately, most cases are fatal. There are only a handful of survivors of known cases." The death rate for Naegleria fowleri exceeds 97%, per the CDC. The initial symptoms of PAM usually begin about five days after exposure, but they can be noticed sooner. Early signs usually include headache, nausea, fever and/or vomiting, the CDC's website states. As the infection progresses, people may experience confusion, stiff neck, disorientation, hallucinations, seizures and coma. "People usually start to feel ill one to 12 days after water exposure," Lundstrom said. "Early symptoms should prompt a medical evaluation, as they are also signs of bacterial meningitis." Death can occur anywhere between one and 18 days of infection, at an average of five days. To prevent potentially fatal infections, South Carolina health officials said it's important to know how and when exposure could be dangerous. "How exposure occurs is when water forcefully enters the nose," the officials told Fox News Digital. "To reduce the risk of infection from Naegleria fowleri, hold your nose shut, use nose clips, or keep your head above water, and avoid jumping or diving into fresh water." Lundstrom reiterated that it's best to avoid immersing your head in the water when swimming in summer. "Infection occurs when water harboring the amoeba goes up a person's nose, usually during swimming," she previously told Fox News Digital. "It is not known why some people get infected and others, even swimming companions, do not." Drinking contaminated water does not present a risk, and the infection does not spread from one person to another, Lundstrom added. Because the amoeba is found in soil, the CDC also recommends avoiding stirring up the sediment at the bottom of lakes, ponds and rivers. When a patient has been diagnosed with a brain-eating amoeba, treatment usually includes a variety of antifungal medications, as well as antibiotics like rifampin and azithromycin, according to Lundstrom. Miltefosine, a newer antifungal drug, has been shown to kill Nagleria fowleri in laboratory tests and was used to treat some surviving patients, the CDC states on its website. "However, the effect of all of these drugs on actual infected people is unknown due to the high fatality rate," Lundstrom noted. Those who experience sudden headache, fever, stiff neck or vomiting — especially if they have recently been swimming in warm freshwater — should seek immediate medical attention, the CDC recommends. For more Health articles, visit Despite the infection's high fatality rate, Lundstrom emphasized the rarity of cases. "Millions of people enjoy swimming every summer, but only a few become infected," she said.
