BRAIN-EATING AMOEBA FOUND IN POPULAR GRAND TETON SOAK SPOT – IOTW Report

BRAIN-EATING AMOEBA FOUND IN POPULAR GRAND TETON SOAK SPOT

MOOSE, Wyo. (AP) — A parasitic amoeba that causes deadly brain infections has turned up in a warm spring in Grand Teton National Park, prompting a warning Monday for anybody intent on soaking in the popular pool: If you absolutely must take a dip, try not to get water up your nose.

kelly hot springs wyoming

The single-celled, microscopic Naegleria fowleri amoeba typically occurs in the Southern U.S., not the Rocky Mountain West. Nobody on record has fallen ill from the parasite in Wyoming.

Cases of the so-called “brain-eating” amoeba are rare – just a handful in the U.S. every year – but get attention. The amoeba killed an 11-year-old girl in South Carolina on Friday.

Tests recently confirmed the amoeba in , a popular spot for locals to take the edge off a mountain-country chill.  MORE

13 Comments on BRAIN-EATING AMOEBA FOUND IN POPULAR GRAND TETON SOAK SPOT

  1. It’s always too cold for swimming when I go up that way.
    Flathead lake, MT is supposed to have some kind of parasites living in it too.
    Most parasites do live in Washington, D.C., though.

  2. You need to go to Wallowa Lake in North Eastern Oregon if you ever want to swim in a very cold lake. It’s a beautiful glacier fed lake down in the Eagle Cap Wilderness Area but it’s colder than Hell even on hot days. The Wallowa valley with the small towns of Enterprise, Lostine and Wallowa is one of my favorite places, I had relatives who lived there who we visited every once in a while. It’s also the area where Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Indian tribe was chased out of by the US Govt. back in the 1870’s.

  3. Ok, well, full disclosure here. My kids and I used to go to Kelly Warm Springs to swim… The photo says that’s Kelly Hot Springs, so maybe I missed the right place, the better place for getting my brain eaten. We did indeed get in the water and probably drank some too. The buffalo were a problem. They were so often hanging around in that murky wallow that we turned around and drove right back home far too many times. We know better than to swim with the livestock. And it never ever looked that blue. It was mucky. Years later the doctors in town told us not to swim there. hahahah… Could explain some health issues…? nah.

  4. It just doesn’t seem right that something so potentially deadly could be found in a National Park with a name as friendly-sounding as “The Big Tit”*.

    (* – In French, of course.)

    😛

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