Parents issue warning after son, 12, died of brain-eating infection caught whilst swimming
The family of a 12-year-old boy who died from an infection he caught while swimming have issued a warning in the hopes that other parents won't lose their children the same way.
His parents Clarence and Ebony Carr said that their son Jaysen died two weeks after going swimming in a lake in South Carolina.
A brain-eating amoeba, also called a naegleria fowleri, entered the 12-year-old's body through his nose while swimming in the water and a few days later he started to feel unwell.
Initially suffering from headaches, Jaysen then became nauseous and disoriented as the amoeba had travelled along his olfactory nerve and got to his brain.
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The organism destroyed brain tissue and caused an infection known as primary amebic meningoencephalitis, which is a very rare condition that is almost always fatal.
The infection typically follows someone swimming in warm, fresh water submerges their heads underwater, though there have also been cases of people washing their noses with tap water who have caught it that way.
In the US their Center for Disease Control (CDC) says most cases come from people swimming in the southern states, and that a person typically dies around five days after symptoms first show themselves.
The family are hoping for more awareness around the cases and risks of the amoeba and the infection it can cause.
Jaysen's mother Ebony said: "Had we known the risk of him swimming in that lake, nobody would have ever chosen to get in.
"So we definitely want the public to know that there are major risks swimming in Lake Murray and any other body of water.
"There needs to definitely be some awareness about it, and we don't want his death to be in vain because had we known, he wouldn't have been in it."
While he was taken to hospital the boy later died, and CBS reports that his death was the first recorded case in South Carolina since 2016.
The 12-year-old was the Carr's middle child, with a younger brother and older sister, and his mum praised him as a 'great big brother' as well as a 'great role model'.
She said: "He also was very protective of his older sister as well. He truly had the gift of love, compassion, athleticism, and that big smile that everybody loved about him."
A GoFundMe, which can be donated to here, has been set up for the family in order to help ease the financial burden on the family while they are going through a time of greatest grief.
Joe Harker