Boy’s death from amoeba spurs warning
LAKE JACKSON — About a month ago, Josiah McIntyre got sick. First a fever, headaches and vomiting. The 6-year-old’s condition progressively worsened. After a few days, he was admitted into the intensive care unit at Texas Children's Hospital. He was tested for strep, COVID-19 — everything doctors could think of, but there was no explanation.
By the time doctors realized he had been affected by an amoeba that eats the brain, it was too late, his relatives said. He died Sept. 8.
The boy’s grandparents speculate he inhaled water, from a city water supply, at a splash-pad they visited shortly before he became ill. They can’t be certain, but they urged multiple agencies to test the water.
“We just want people to be aware that it’s out there,” his grandmother, Natalie McIntyre, said at a fundraising event for the family Saturday afternoon. “If you’ve been exposed or possibly exposed and you experience those symptoms, get to a hospital and let somebody know.”
His death prompted water testing that resulted in a startling warning late Friday to Brazoria County-area residents: Don’t use water because it might contain a brain-eating amoeba. The Brazosport Water Authority lifted its “do not use” advisory later in all areas, except Lake Jackson, according to a news release issued Saturday.
“After extensive conversations with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality as well as ensuring that Brazosport Water Authority has an adequate disinfectant residual, a determination has been made that there is no safety issue for BWA’s distribution system,” the
release said.
Resident Norma Santoyo awoke Saturday to a strange message from city officials: She couldn’t make coffee or breakfast, and she definitely couldn’t shower, so she headed to Walmart to buy water.
“I’m more afraid of this than COVID,” Santoyo said as she loaded the bottles into her pickup bed. “What a great year, 2020.”
Nearby, Robert Mendoza pushed a cart with 80 water bottles and an empty 5-gallon water jug. He plans to go to Houston to fill up the giant bottle.
He was still at work late Friday when a friend heard about the water advisory issued at 9:30 p.m. that included Lake Jackson, Freeport, Angleton, Brazoria, Richwood, Oyster Creek, Clute, Rosenberg, Dow Chemical, TDCJ Clemens and TDCJ Wayne Scott.
“I didn’t think it was that important,” he said.
But in the morning, he read a report about the advisory and reassessed.
“Today, I took precautions to not get wet at all,” Mendoza said.
The advisory was originally issued for all areas “out of an abundance of caution.” TCEQ and the Brazosport Water Authority are working with Lake Jackson officials to fix the issue, according to the release.
The water is contaminated with naegleria fowleri, a free-living microscopic amoeba, or single-celled living organism commonly found in warm freshwater and soil, according to the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It usually infects people when contaminated water enters the body through the nose, from where it travels to the brain and can cause a rare and debilitating disease called primary amebic sqmeningoencephalitis.
The infection is usually fatal and typically occurs when people go swimming or diving in warm freshwater places such as lakes and rivers.
Brazosport ISD said they will announce Sunday if any Lake Jackson schools would need to close on Monday because of the water advisory.
“Please know that the safety of our students and staff remains a top priority for all decisions made by the district,” the district wrote in a Twitter post.
Kroger also is sending 250 pallets of water to area stores in Clute, Rosenberg and Angleton because of the water advisory, according to its Corporate Affairs Manager, Clara Campbell.
In rare instances, naegleria infections also may occur when contaminated water from other sources (such as inadequately chlorinated swimming pool water or heated and contaminated tap water) enters the nose.
The contamination of U.S.treated public water systems by the microbe is rare but not unheard of. According to the CDC website, the first deaths from naegleria fowleri found in tap water from treated U.S. public drinking water systems occurred in southern Louisiana in 2011 and 2013.
The microbe also was found in 2003 in an untreated geothermal well-supplied drinking water system in Arizona, as well as in disinfected public drinking water supplies in Australia in the 1970s and ’80s and in 2008 in Pakistan.
Carlos Granados, who lives in Clute, was among the lucky whose advisory was lifted by afternoon — but not before his plans to grab Whataburger were hampered because it was closed, he said. As was McDonald’s.
“I haven’t experienced this,” he said. “I’ve never even heard of it.”
Meanwhile, relatives remembered Josiah as a peacemaker who refused to exclude others. He loved his family, his dog, Winston, and baseball.
He enjoyed spending time outdoors, regardless if it was playing hide and seek or taking cuts in his grandpa’s batting cage or playing ball with his father and uncles.
His love for the Astros also extended deep. When people asked him his name, he would add Carlos Correa to the end.
On the same day he died, Correa sent the family a video lamenting he never had the opportunity to meet the young boy or give him a hug.
“I know he’s watching over all of us right now,” Correa said in the video, a copy of which his grandmother had at hand on her phone, also availing himself to the family. “I’ll keep you guys in my prayers.”
His grandfather, Ray, who called him Jo-Jo, remembered the boy as a happy, affectionate child who kept others in mind.
Among his last words before he stopped being vocal in the ICU were telling his mother he loved her. He spoke about his other grandfather, who had already died, and his dog.
Hospital staff allowed a few relatives to see him in his final moments.
Since then, his mother said she’s been hanging by, “trying to wrap my head around it all, still.”
But she already knows she’ll miss her boy’s hugs.
“Every time I walked through the door, it was the exact same smile, the exact same hug,” Maria Castillo, 28, said of her firstborn.
“I missed you much. I’m so happy you’re home,” he would tell her.
This report contains material
from the Associated Press.