ST. PAUL, Minn. — It wasn't clear what kind of monster was inside Annie Bahneman until an autopsy revealed the presence of a rare brain-eating amoeba.

It wasn't clear when the 7-year-old's fever hit 104 degrees and she started throwing up and couldn't stop. Or when she lay seizing in her mother's arms as her father raced the family car from Stillwater to Children's Hospital in St. Paul.


“At one point, she sat up and said, 'My head hurts terrible,' ” Bridget Bahneman said. “She started to seize every hour. Then she quit talking. She never woke up.”


The parasite was later found in Stillwater's Lily Lake, where Annie had been swimming.


But it would not be the last.

Two years later, 9-year-old Jack Ariola Erenberg died of the same infection after swimming in the same lake. Two other children's deaths may also have been caused by the parasite after swimming in Minnesota lakes.

The unimaginable horror of a child suffering and dying after pursuing one of Minnesota's most treasured summer pastimes raises questions of: Why here? Why now? And, more important, what can we do?



The appearance of Naegleria fowleri in Minnesota has piqued officials' interest because it indicates its geographic range is spreading northward.


Mark Schleiss, head of the University of Minnesota Medical School's division of pediatric infectious diseases and immunology, said Annie's and Jack's deaths have prompted an effort to educate medical professionals to be on the lookout for symptoms.

“It is on people's radar,” Schleiss said.


“(It) may speak to climate change. I don't think there's any scientific question about that,” Schleiss said. “It's a reflection of man-made climate change leading to this change in epidemiology.”



“We're trying to advance the science of detecting ... how to sample and how to analyze samples and what to look for,” said Lowell Johnson, director of the county's public health department. “How can we be in a better position in the future — to have either better science or better understanding around what lakes present a significant risk versus which ones do not?”



Researchers still don't know why there are variations from year to year and even in the same body of water.





Chad and Heidi LaMeyer, who live in Columbus, Minn., believe Naegleria fowleri infections aren't as rare in Minnesota as people believe.


Another boy, 6-year-old Mason Faubel of Missouri City, Iowa, died in June 2011 at Children's Hospital and Medical Center in Omaha after a brief illness consistent with PAM. Mason and his family had just spent a week at a rental cabin on Island Lake west of Bemidji.

Although it was not officially confirmed, health officials later told the family that the likely cause of Mason's death was PAM caused by exposure to Naegleria fowleri, said his mother, Elizabeth Faubel.

The CDC's Yoder said it's difficult to confirm some suspected PAM deaths after the fact because tissue samples are required.

Heidi LaMeyer said Minnesota Health Department officials told her they suspect Naegleria fowleri caused Hailee's death but cannot confirm it because an autopsy wasn't performed.



“One of our main goals is to move along research for the cases that don't have the confirmation,” Heidi LaMeyer said. “If they don't have an accurate number, how can they continue to call this so rare?”





The drug has previously been used on a trial basis to combat other parasitic infections and breast cancer. It's not licensed or approved for use in the U.S., but the CDC can provide it to physicians who are treating free-living amoeba infections.


Health officials, while hopeful, say there's a lot yet to learn.

“Obviously the gold standard would be to prevent all these infections. But it's rare, and we still don't know why the people that get it get it,” Cope said. “As we know, (the amoeba) is everywhere. There are hundreds of millions of swimming visits every year, but why do only a handful of people get (the infection)? Answering that question would be key to preventing deaths. But the position we're in now is that people are going to be infected. That's why we're working on the drug: because we want to save the lives of those who do get infected.”




The Bahnemans regularly visit Annie's grave at Fairview Cemetery in Stillwater. They ride their bikes and Big Wheels, have picnic dinners, play tag, jump in leaf piles and make a toboggan run. They pick out a pink pumpkin to decorate Annie's grave at Halloween, cut down a tree for Christmas and make a heart in the snow for Valentine's Day.

“This is Annie's island,” Chad Bahneman said during a late-afternoon visit on Monday. “That's our sledding hill. We kind of make a toboggan course through the tombstones. We start up on the hill, and we end up coming down on this road.”

Chad Bahneman said he can't help but wonder, “What if?”

“If we had just made one decision different,” he said. “If she didn't swim that day or she had been wearing nose plugs or if we were swimming in a different part, things could have been different. It's just little things like that, you know. A little decision could have changed everything.”



Mary Divine can be reached at 651-228-5443. Follow her at Elizabeth Mohr can be reached at 651-228-5162. Follow her at







Source: Centers for Disease Prevention and Control