As they grieve their son, the boy's parents said they were stunned to learn South Carolina, like most other U.S. states, has no law requiring public reporting of deaths or infections from the amoeba. The lake wasn't closed and no water testing was performed. If they hadn’t spoken up, they wonder if anyone would have even known what happened.

The amoeba entered his brain through his nose, possibly when he jumped into Lake Murray, near Columbia. The CDC said 167 cases of the infection have been reported in the U.S. between 1962 and 2024, and only four people have survived.