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American Morning
Simple Swim in Lake Turns Dangerous
Aired July 29, 2002 - 08:33 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Time now for this morning's "House Call." A simple swim in a lake has turned very dangerous, in fact, fatal for one young boy in Florida, dangerous for another. He's hospitalized. A 15-year-old boy has been upgraded to good condition this morning, fighting off an infection he got from swimming in a lake contaminated with amoeba. The worst part of the story, a 12-year-old boy died Friday from amoeba he picked up in another Florida lake.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us from Atlanta. He's going to talk about what happened to these two kids, and things you might want to watch for if you're going to be swimming in fresh water lakes.
Before we do that, doctor, what do you expect we might hear in this medical briefing concerning the outlook for these three miners who remained hospitalized this morning?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jack, you know, we've been covering all day yesterday. It really sounds like they are going to all do just fine. Three men, as you mentioned, still hospitalized, two of them sounded like with heart conditions, not surprising after being dehydrated, after being hypothermic. Both those things can lead to problems with the heart. Another gentlemen having problems with decompression, after being down that deep and coming back to the surface. It sounds like he was having joint pain and required to be in the decompression chamber for several hours yesterday.
A lot of times just observed overnight after that to make sure they don't have any further compression problems. It really sounds like they are going to do well. One gentleman did have a heart arrhythmia that may require medications, may require just replacement of all the fluid that he lost being down there. But it really sounds like they are all going to do pretty well -- Jack.
CAFFERTY: You expect them to continue to get better, not worse? They are going to recover, just a question of taking a little longer for some of them?
GUPTA: That's right. I think as far as life-threatening things, certainly all of that is in the past now. There may be other smaller problems, problems like being submerged in water, having your feet and knees submerged in water for long periods of time. That can certainly cause problems, but I think all the life-threatening things are well away now. CAFFERTY: Let's switch gears. What is going on with these stories of these two kids? One of them died, the other one is hospitalized. It looks like he's going to recover, from amoeba infections they picked up in fresh water lakes. What's that about?
GUPTA: Right, this is very rare, but also tragic, Jack. Actually, it was two different sorts of infections. The 12-year-old did get an amoeba infection; the 15-year-old actually got a rare bacterial infection. Both of these things very rare. Both of these things picked up in Florida lakes. The 15-year-old did recover well with the treatment of antibiotics, which is a good treatment for bacterial infections. The 12-year-old got an amoeba infection. Those are actually two different organisms. The amoeba actually -- I talked to the doctor yesterday. They said it actually probably went up through his nose, and from there, directly to his brain, where it caused a meningitis or swelling of the brain, infection of the brain, and he subsequently decide from that.
There is no good treatments really for amoeba infection. This boy in particular, just to tell you what happened to him, you know, within 24 hours after getting out of a lake, so pretty quickly, he started getting into trouble, having some series problems with headaches. Within 36 hours, he was in the emergency room. At that point, he was having severe headaches, lapsing in and out of consciousness.
Doctors didn't really know what was going on with him, so they decided to perform a spinal tap, actually taking some of the fluid from around his spinal cord. When they looked at the fluid, they actually saw this rare amoeba. They literally threw everything they could at him, but unfortunately, he did not live on after that.
CAFFERTY: Even if they had know, doctor, what it was, is there anything they could have done? Could they have cured him?
GUPTA: Well, this is a very rare infection, 20 to 30 cases only documented in the United States, and only one survivor, and that was actually using an antifungal medication, a medication typically used to treat fungus. They used that sort of as a longshot to treat the amoeba. In that one case, it worked. But, Jack, there is usually not good treatment for amoebas, and because they are so rare, there hasn't been a lot of focus on that.
CAFFERTY: Anything I can do to protect myself if I'm going to go on vacation and go swimming in a fresh water lake?
GUPTA: One of the things, again, it is pretty rare. A couple of things to keep in mind. We have a couple of pointers. One is that these amoeba tend to live in still water lakes, ponds, things like that, so you can avoid those, certainly. Also, above 80 degrees, and this is certainly a time of year for that, so be careful about this time of year. Don't submerge yourself. These amoeba tend to not be near the surface of the water, but tend to be further down. This may sound like a simple recommendation. Sometimes the simplest are the best, but a nose plug. You don't want to get these things in your nose. That's how they cause infections. And finally, it's not as deep a lake, you don't want to be kicking up sediment from the bottom. When you kick up that sediment, that's where the amoebas tend to cause the infections.
CAFFERTY: Scary scuff, but as you point out, extremely rare.
Dr. Gupta, thank you. Nice to have you with us for the "House Call" this morning.
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