SC 11-year-old girl with brain-eating amoeba fights for life

An 11-year-old Beaufort girl fighting for her life after contracting a deadly amoeba is a beauty pageant queen and attended Riverview Charter School.

Hannah Collins was infected with a so-called brain-eating amoeba last month in Charleston County, according to an online fundraising page set up for her family. That information was confirmed Thursday morning by a family friend.

She is in the intensive care unit at Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, the fundraising page and a Facebook page said. Hannah has been a student at Riverview, according to Facebook posts from friends and parents of classmates.

Riverview Charter School director Alison Thomas declined comment.

“The family appreciates the tremendous outpouring of love and support and asks that you continue to keep Hannah and her medical team in your thoughts and prayers,” family friend Kate Olin said in a statement provided on behalf of the family to The Beaufort Gazette and The Island Packet on Thursday.

Another family friend said the family is asking for privacy. Attempts to reach a family member have been unsuccessful.

Hannah is the daughter of a single mother in the medical field and has a little brother, the message on fundraising site GoFundMe said. The family is staying at the Ronald McDonald House, the message said.

Hannah won her division of the Colleton County Rice Pageant in April. She was crowned queen amongst several contestants in the Young Miss age group for girls ages 10 to 12, pageant director Ann Drawdy said.

“A precious little girl, a precious child,” Drawdy said. “She's a very sweet child and humble and very appreciative.”

The hospital said it had no record of a patient by that name when contacted Wednesday afternoon. A family request or other circumstance could have kept the patient confidential, a hospital employee said.

A Facebook page has provided updates from the family on Hannah’s condition.

“This mornings report is that the brain pressure is the highest and is threatening her life,” the most recent post said Thursday morning. “Our family is together with her mother, myself, grandparents and family friends. We know you are with us, too. Thank you for your continued hopes and prayers and keep them coming.”

A post on the page late Wednesday night said “extreme measures are being taken in efforts to stop this evil amoeba.”

Another message posted Wednesday afternoon said Hannah was undergoing an MRI to evaluate inflammation, awaiting results from spinal-fluid tests and that brain swelling was fluctuating.

The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control confirmed in a news release Tuesday someone had been exposed the organism Naegleria fowleri while swimming on the Edisto River in Charleston County on July 24. The amoeba is common in warm-water lakes, rivers and streams but infection is rare, the release said.

DHEC did not identify the patient.

To be infected, a person must jump in the water feet-first and have water enter their nose with enough force that the amoeba reaches the brain, epidemiologist Dr. Linda Bell said in the release. The amoeba usually dies before the person is infected, Bell said.

A drug twice successful in treating the disease was rushed in from Orlando this week to treat the patient.

“We have all the meds from the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) but we need a miracle,” Hannah’s aunt, Caroline Crockett, said in a statement on the GoFundMe page.

The GoFundMe campaign had raised almost $17,000 as of 3 p.m. Thursday. The post had been shared more than 1,800 times.

This story was originally published August 5, 2016 at 12:43 PM with the headline "SC 11-year-old girl with brain-eating amoeba fights for life."