It's every parent's worst nightmare. As 10 year old Lily lays unresponsive in a hospital bed in the near intensive care unit of Cook Children's Hospital in Fort Worth. Her family, friends and school are rallying behind her. She just just just an outstanding young girl on. We're all devastated, but but we're also, um, we're also very hopeful. We just need everybody to pray and continuously thank good positive thoughts. She will be number five to survive in Valley Mills last night, more prayer from classmates and their families and prayers or what's needed, says her Aunt Crystal, and for Lily's body to keep fighting. The doctors told us there is nothing more that they can do for her, and they've exhausted. All resource is due to the fact that this is such a fatal disease, and it claimed its victims so quickly they haven't had time to really study and and learn from it. The show of support for Lily is online in Witney and in Valley Mills as well. Her elementary school principal, Chris Dowty, says. Many people are thinking about her, But you got you got a a huge support system, Um, from this campus from this city from this community all over the state cares about everybody and she loves babies. Those are her favorite thing, and all of her babies were just praying for her to come back to them. Doctors and members of the Center for Disease Control say they haven't figured out where she contract id the amoeba, whether it was when she swam in the Brasses River near her house in Laguna Park or in Lake Whitney on Labor Day. For this to happen to her when there were so many other people in the same waters on the same days. We just don't understand why her many people who get this dangerous parasite die within 3 to 5 days after starting to feel the effects. Lily is about to finish her six day, and that could be good news. We have high hopes. She is a fighter and she has always been a fighter. We're behind you were here for you, and we can't wait to get Lily back on this campus
10-year-old girl contracts brain-eating amoeba while swimming
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Updated: 9:12 PM CDT Sep 14, 2019
A weekend swim left a young girl fighting for her life when she contracted a brain-eating amoeba with a 97% fatality rate.The 10-year-old girl swam in the Brazos River and Lake Whitney in Bosque County near Waco over Labor Day weekend, according to CNN affiliate KWTX-TV.Then, on Sept. 8, the girl "began having a headache, and it was quickly followed by a fever," according to a Facebook page created to support the girl. Her family thought it was a viral infection at first, but after visits to the family doctor and when the girl began having trouble sleeping, the family knew something was wrong."She was incoherent, unresponsive and was quickly swept up and taken to the ER," the family wrote on the girl's Facebook page.The girl was then flown to Cook Children's Health Care System in Fort Worth, where a spinal tap found she had contracted Naegleria fowleri."It's every parent's worst nightmare," the girl's aunt, Crystal Warren, told KWTX on Friday. "For this to happen to her when there were so many other people in the same waters on the same days, we just don't understand why it was her."The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the amoeba is a single-cell living organism commonly found in warm fresh water like lakes and rivers. The amoeba enters the body through the nose, travels to the brain and destroys brain tissue, according to the CDC.Between 2009 and 2018, the CDC says only 34 cases of the Naegleria fowleri infection were reported in the U.S. Only four people out of the 145 known cases survived between 1962 and 2018.Warren told KWTX she's hopeful her niece "will be number five to survive."
BOSQUE COUNTY, Texas — A weekend swim left a young girl fighting for her life when she contracted a brain-eating amoeba with a 97% fatality rate.
The 10-year-old girl swam in the Brazos River and Lake Whitney in Bosque County near Waco over Labor Day weekend, according to CNN affiliate KWTX-TV.
Then, on Sept. 8, the girl "began having a headache, and it was quickly followed by a fever," according to a Facebook page created to support the girl. Her family thought it was a viral infection at first, but after visits to the family doctor and when the girl began having trouble sleeping, the family knew something was wrong.
"She was incoherent, unresponsive and was quickly swept up and taken to the ER," the family wrote on the girl's Facebook page.
The girl was then flown to Cook Children's Health Care System in Fort Worth, where a spinal tap found she had contracted Naegleria fowleri.
"It's every parent's worst nightmare," the girl's aunt, Crystal Warren, told KWTX on Friday. "For this to happen to her when there were so many other people in the same waters on the same days, we just don't understand why it was her."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the amoeba is a single-cell living organism commonly found in warm fresh water like lakes and rivers. The amoeba enters the body through the nose, travels to the brain and destroys brain tissue, according to the CDC.
Between 2009 and 2018, the CDC says only 34 cases of the Naegleria fowleri infection were reported in the U.S. Only four people out of the 145 known cases survived between 1962 and 2018.
Warren told KWTX she's hopeful her niece "will be number five to survive."
