Rare brain-eating amoeba infection blamed in death of teen who visited Charlotte’s Whitewater Center

Local, state and national health officials are investigating Sunday’s death of an 18-year-old Ohio woman who may have contracted an infection from a rare brain-eating amoeba while visiting the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte.

On Wednesday, the center remained open under normal operations after extra precautions were taken to ensure the water met quality control standards, whitewater officials said.

Experts with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention went to the center Wednesday to test the water, CDC medical epidemiologist Dr. Jennifer Cope said.

Investigators do not know for certain if the victim contracted the amoeba at the center. But authorities are unaware of any other circumstances that could have led to her getting the infection.

The suspected cause of death is attributed to Primary Amebic Meningoencephalitis (PAM), an infection caused by Naegleria floweri, an amoeba that dwells in warm freshwater lakes and other bodies of water during the summer. People cannot be infected with it by drinking contaminated water, and the one-celled organism is not found in salt water.

But it can be fatal if forced up a person’s nose. The teen was in a raft with several others that overturned at the whitewater center, health officials said.

The center “is as safe as any body of water,” said Dr. Marcus Plescia, Mecklenburg County Health Department director. “Any time you go into a lake or pond, there are things in the water that can cause illnesses.”

He said it is unlikely authorities will try to close the whitewater center.

Initial water results may be available in a few days, Cope said. But even if tests turn up negative, that may just mean the amoeba was not in the water sample they happened to collect.

The whitewater center said it disinfects its water with an ultraviolet radiation. The center also uses a disc filtration system and conducts water quality tests weekly.

Plescia said that even with regular testing the water can be contaminated by a variety of sources. “It can be fine one minute and have (soil) runoff the next,” he said. He also said medical authorities don’t know why some people become infected while most do not.

‘Talented, humble, caring’

The victim was identified as Lauren Seitz, who lived in the Columbus, Ohio, suburb of Westerville. She had just graduated from high school in the spring and was heading off to college in the fall. Seitz was visiting Southern states as part of a youth mission music tour with her church.

Seitz was with a group of other young adults singing at nursing homes and churches, leaving Westerville on June 4. They performed two concerts and did volunteer work in Charlotte.

Seitz’s pastor, Jim Wilson with Church of the Messiah United Methodist Church in Westerville, said the group’s “fun day” was a trip to the whitewater center on June 8.

A church staffer said they believed the group did not enter the adjacent Catawba River. According to Wilson, June 8 is the only day the group went swimming. They returned home June 11, and Seitz died June 19.

On Tuesday night, the Westerville South High School band hosted a memorial for Seitz.

She had just graduated in May and was a drum major in the marching band. Seitz was enrolled at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, and planned to study environmental science.

Westerville South’s band director, John Laswell, posted a tribute to Seitz on Facebook: “Lauren...was one of the most talented, humble, and caring students I’ve ever taught.”

A rare infection

The amoebic infection is rare but deadly. Of 133 people known to have been infected since 1962, only three survived, according to the CDC’s website.

This is apparently the first case in Mecklenburg County, Plescia said.

There have been at least three other reported deaths tied to the amoeba since 1991 in North Carolina, in Pitt and Wake counties.

Initial symptoms of PAM start about five days after infection, according to the CDC. Symptoms include fever, headache or vomiting and can progress into seizures and hallucinations. The CDC reports that after the start of the symptoms, the disease generally causes death within about five days.

Whitewater visitors concerned

Observer reporters talked to some visitors to the center Wednesday before being escorted off the site.

There was little indication anything unusual had happened — except for the sharp smell of chlorine. Some visitors said they had not heard about what happened to Seitz.

Sonya Bloomer, of Fayetteville, had been to the center before and detected a difference in the water Tuesday night. “I noticed ... the chlorine smell was really strong,” she said.

Another visitor, Georgieanne Bogdan, a staff member at Guilford College, said she changed her plans and would stay out of the water after hearing about the death.

Water safety

In a statement, whitewater officials said they met with the county health department Tuesday after learning about the death and released additional chlorine into the water system “in an abundance of caution.”

“Based on these tests and all available information, at all times, the USNWC has been in compliance with all required water quality standards and meets the requirements of all regulatory standards and authorities,” according to the center.

The center said it gets its water from the Charlotte Mecklenburg Utilities Department and two wells on the premises.

The water’s ultraviolet radiation treatment is constant, the center said, so it only injects chlorine into its system on an “as-needed” basis, as was the case this time. The levels of UV radiation used are sufficient to “inactivate” the water-born amoeba in question to an effective level of 99.99 percent, the center said. Center officials say they also aren't aware of any breakdowns in their systems for treating the water.

The non-profit center, which opened in November 2006, is not inspected by the county. The center does not meet the criteria to be considered a pool, which are inspected routinely, Plescia said, although the county was involved with the design of its sophisticated system for sanitizing the water.

“This is a very tragic situation, and I don’t mean to undermine it,” Plescia said. “But most people are going to be perfectly safe going swimming in lakes and ponds and at the whitewater center.”

Observer reporters Rachel Herzog, Katherine Peralta and Ames Alexander, and researcher Maria David, contributed.

This story was originally published June 22, 2016 at 5:00 PM with the headline "Rare brain-eating amoeba infection blamed in death of teen who visited Charlotte’s Whitewater Center."