Environment  June 23, 2017

Boulder company sued for wrongful death of teen exposed to brain-eating amoeba at waterpark

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A Boulder company is named in a federal lawsuit seeking damages for the wrongful death of a teenager exposed to a brain-eating amoeba at a North Carolina waterpark.

Recreation Engineering and Planning Inc., of 485 Arapahoe Drive, is a co-defendant with the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte, N.C.

Lauren Seitz, an 18-year-old from Westerville, Ohio, died on June 19, 2016 after coming into contact with Naegleria fowleri, an amoeba that can cause a deadly brain infection.

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The lawsuit alleges that the water park that Seitz visited on a church trip, the U.S. National Whitewater Center, as well as the firm that designed the $37 million park, Recreation Engineering and Planning, were negligent and reckless for there being amoeba at the park.

The lawsuit says that Seitz came into contact with the amoeba on June 8, 2016, when her church group went whitewater rafting at the park. Seitz was thrown overboard from the raft, causing her head and nose to be submerged in the water. After returning home to Ohio, Seitz started experiencing symptoms on June 14 and was hospitalized on June 16. On June 18, she was diagnosed with meningoencephalitis, an infection and inflammation of the brain, caused by the Naegleria fowleri. Eleven days after visiting the center, on June 19, Seitz died.

The lawsuit goes on to say that the amoeba is well-known by waterpark operators, owners and designers, and has a mortality rate of 98 percent. The amoeba can be treated with chlorine  and can be avoided by keeping the head and nose out of water that contains it. The defendants are accused of negligence, by not properly chlorinating the water and not keeping it at a proper temperature, by failing to use a filtration system that could rid the water of the amoeba and by failing to warn visitors of the risks of infection and by not providing them with nose plugs or face masks, according to the complaint.

According to the lawsuit, all 11 water samples of the U.S. National Whitewater Center collected by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services contained Naegleria fowleri.

In addition to the claims against the whitewater center, Boulder-based Recreation Engineering and Planning is accused of poor design of the park, including channels that are shallow enough to foster the growth of the amoeba and a filtration system 50 times larger than what is recommended for protecting against it.

The lawsuit, filed exactly one year after Seitz’s death, is ongoing. The amount the family is seeking will be determined at trial.

 

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