2nd Child Battling 'Brain-Eating' Amoeba

A second 12-year-old is now battling a brain-eating parasite in the Southeast. NBC2 reports that Zachary Reyna was likely infected by Naegleria fowleri, a microscopic amoeba that gets to the brain through the nose, while kneeboarding with friends in a ditch in LaBelle, Florida, on Aug. 3. The amoeba lurks in still, warm water and can cause the very rare brain infection primary amebic meningoencephalitis, which the News-Press reports only one person has survived since 1962. Two boys who were with Zachary are apparently fine.