14-year-old Florida boy survives brain-eating amoeba

Florida boy, 14, becomes only fifth American ever to survive brain-eating amoeba that has a 97% death rate — but is left so paralyzed he needs to communicate with facial expressions after catching bug while swimming at the beach

• Caleb Ziegelbaur contracted the disease after an amoeba swam up his nose
• Doctors believe he was infected by Naegleria fowleri, which is usually fatal
• READ MORE: Arizona woman reveals her hell fighting deadly brain infection

A teen in Florida has cheated death after catching a brain infection that has a 97 percent death rate.

Fourteen-year-old Caleb Ziegelbaur spent nearly a year in hospital fighting a brain-eating amoeba after contracting it while swimming at Port Charlotte beach last July.

Only four people out of 154 who got the microscopic bug in the US between 1962 and 2021 survived. Doctors believe it entered Caleb’s nose and infected his brain.

Caleb is now walking somewhat but the damage done to his brain means he needs to communicate with facial expressions and has to use a wheelchair. 

Caleb is now walking somewhat but the damage done to his brain means he needs to communicate with facial expressions and has to use a wheelchair

He contracted the illness after he went swimming with his family at Port Charlotte Beach on July 1, 2022

Caleb’s doctor said she was ‘never happier to be wrong’ about his survival chances, his mother recalled.

Doctors believe he was infected by Naegleria fowleri, which is fatal in 97 percent of cases. 

An amoeba is a tiny, single-celled animal that can be found in warm freshwater such as lakes and rivers.

Generally, the amoeba enters through the nose and travels through the sinuses to the brain, where it triggers primary amebic meningoencephalitis – a rare and usually fatal brain infection.

It spreads up nerves to the brain, where it multiplies and destroys tissue.

In the early stages, patients initially experience headache, fever, nausea and vomiting, but days and weeks later they can also face hallucinations and seizures.

Port Charlotte Beach sits where the freshwater Pearl River and the saltwater of the Gulf of Mexico meet. Naegleria fowleri can thrive there

Caleb went swimming with his family at  Port Charlotte Beach on July 1, 2022.

The public beach, however, sits on an estuary, where the freshwater from the Peace River meets the saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico.

A 2018 study published in the journal Science of the Total Environment found that Naegeleria fowleri can survive in the brackish water of Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain, an estuary like the Port Charlotte beach area.

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Just six days later, Caleb began to have headaches and a fever.

Then fever struck Caleb and he complained of hallucinations.

On July 9, he was rushed to the hospital.

Caleb ‘deteriorated rapidly’ even within the one-hour car drive there, his mother Jesse Ziegelbaur told NBC.

He was in a coma at Golisano Children’s Hospital, with doctors monitoring him around the clock. 

Doctors told his mother he only had four days left to live. For eight months, he battled the amoeba while barely conscious.

Precious time was wasted after doctors misdiagnosed him with meningitis, delaying the treatment for the amoeba, which must be treated soon after infection for it to be successful, according to his aunt, Katie Chiet, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

He returned from intensive rehab in March, meaning he can now stand, laugh and communicate, though his speech is impaired.

His family recently handed out boxes of nose plugs at the Freedom Swim across Charlotte Harbor on Tuesday. 

His mother argued that the fatality rate is even higher than 97 due to issues with the reporting process, and said the true death rate is almost 99 percent. 

Mrs Ziegelbaur said: ‘Naegleria fowleri is over 99 percent fatal but 100 percent preventable.’

Caleb has dreams of becoming an epidemiologist. He said: ‘I was going to find the cure for Covid but now I am going to find the vaccine for Naegleria fowleri.’

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