Community Corner
UPDATE: MDH Confirms Presence of Amoeba in Lily Lake
State health official said test results confirm Naegleria was in Lily Lake as early as July and is the likely culprit of Jack Ariola Erenberg's death. Parents react personally to the second death in two years.
9:24 A.M., Aug. 10 UPDATE: Richard Danila, Minnesota Department of Health assistant state epidemiologist, said he "just got the test results on his desk" at 9:15 a.m. and Naegleria was in Lily Lake based on July's water samples.
While he hadn't confirmed the presence of the deadly meningitis in Jack Ariola Erenberg's body with the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention he said he was confident Primary Amebic Meningoencephalitis (PAM) was the cause.
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"We can assume that's what it is," he said. "Even if the results are different in the human speciman that won't change our mind."
ORIGINAL ARTICLE: False security in a "rare death" is what one Stillwater mom said she clung to for nearly two years after the death of 7-year-old Annie Bahneman in August 2010.
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But after hearing the "unusual and rare" on Tuesday, Marny Stebbins is making some major changes for her four children.
"I haven’t spoken to a single parent who said they would be willing to let their kid jump in a fresh water lake at the point," Stebbins said. "Everyone keeps saying ‘It’s so rare.’ Well, it doesn’t feel rare – there have been two in our community in the past two years."
Both Bahneman and Erenberg swam in and died from the rare Primary Amebic Meningoencephalitis (PAM) a few days later. State health officials believe the two Stillwater residents died as a result of the common amoeba Naegleria entering their noses and traveling up to the brain and spinal fluid causing an infection and almost always death.
The common microorganism isn’t a problem until the water is warmer than 86 degrees and has a feeding ground to thrive. Typically, science has shown Naegleria becomes dangerous in warm, shallow, small, stagnant lakes. Those were characteristics of lakes in the southern part of the country – not in the colder northern states. Until Bahneman’s, the closest confirmed case was Missouri.
Which lead Stebbins, and other parents, to believe a fluke was to blame for Bahneman’s deadly infection. Tuesday, that changed.
"From the moms that I talked with everyone is upset because no one was aware that Lily Lake was the lake that Annie swam in two years ago," Alicia Donovan said. "Very sad story and it never should've happened twice. A few moms, including me, will not be swimming in any lakes for the rest of summer."
Stebbins said she feels like the recommendations officials are giving are impractical.
"How do you test the temperature of a lake with four kids in the minivan excited to jump out and swim?" she asked. "Or how do you tell a 4-year-old to keep a nose plug on?"
Lowell Johnson, Washington County Public Health and Environment Director, said the lake was closed Tuesday to swimmers as a precautionary measure when officials revealed a potential link between Lily Lake and the death. He also said samples had been taken from the lake earlier in July after the department had vowed to watch the lake closer after Bahneman’s death.
Without any warning signs or lettters some parents are angry nothing had been posted at the park about Lily Lake being the one identified in 2010 as the lake likely responsible for the child’s death.
Patch user kdomschot@comcast.net said in a
"l am so angry that I didn't know that a child died two years ago and the issue was traced back to Lilly Lake. My two boys swam in that lake last week on Wednesday and I am having a panic attack about their health at this moment as I keep reading the 2-14 day period of time … I am distraught that I didn't know this and that my kids were in that lake last week."
Other moms were commenting on Facebook about the same issues. One mom said had she known Lily Lake was the culprit she and her family wouldn’t have gone there and dove to the bottom of the lake searching for things.
Another mom said while she doesn’t plan on changing her activities she does have many questions now, including proactive safety and she’d like to know how it could have happened twice.
Even Erenberg’s father, Jim Ariola, told the Pioneer Press he wouldn’t have had his son swim in Lily Lake if he knew of the dangers.
In a story with Kare 11, Bahneman’s mom said if there had been some awareness about the potential danger of the lake her daughter, as well as Erenberg, could still be alive.
Richard Danila, assistant state epidemiologist, said while awareness of the disease isn’t harmful, it’s so rare that deterring from summertime activities- like swimming in lakes, is not a good solution to propose to families.
Since 1962, he said, there have been just 125 documented cases in the country amongst the hundreds of thousands of times people have gone swimming.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta researcher, Michael Beach, said in a Star Tribune article he won’t suggest "all swimming stop in natural bodies of water, given the benefits and the extremely low risk. Officials do not want to minimize the deaths … but they also are not willing to tell hundreds of millions of people to stop visiting lakes, streams and rivers."
Beach and others are trying to develop a practical, fast way to check water for the organism, known as Naegleria fowleri.
City Administrator Larry Hansen said Lily Lake will be closed until health department officials tell him it's safe to open.
"We are working with the state and Washington County departments of health and until we hear something from them the lake will stay closed," Hansen said. "We expect additional information every day."
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