– Three lifeguards sat atop an observation platform Wednesday looking over an empty beach and no swimmers in Lake Minnewaska, a sign of unease over the news that a 14-year-old swimmer was fighting for his life because of a rare but frightening parasitic infection in the lake. 
 
 Swim lessons for 5- and 6-year-olds were moved to a local hotel pool and the usual handful of lunch-hour swimmers were nowhere to be found. “It’s sad to see it labeled, but it will make people aware of the situation,” said Mike Anderson, a Glenwood resident who has fished and swum in the central Minnesota lake since he was a boy. 
 
 Hunter Boutain, of Alexandria, Minn., remained in critical condition Wednesday night at the University of Minnesota Medical Center, after apparently inhaling the Naegleria fowleri amoeba while swimming in Minnewaska. The parasite, which has historically been found in warmer, southern U.S. lakes has now been confirmed in three cases involving Minnesota swimmers since 2010 and may have been involved in at least three other unconfirmed cases. 
 
 Boutain, who just finished eighth grade at Discovery Middle School, was largely unresponsive and breathing with a respirator, according to posts from his uncle on a family CaringBridge website. 
 
 “We are praying for a miracle for this rascal,” his uncle wrote. 
 
 Boutain’s infection occurred in a relatively large body of water — compared to the state’s prior two confirmed cases, which occurred in the much smaller Lily Lake in Stillwater — meaning that precautions should be taken when swimming in any freshwater lake, said Trisha Robinson, supervisor of the Minnesota Department of Health’s waterborne diseases unit. 
 
 Lifeguard Jaeger Jergenson, 15, kept watch at an empty beach on Lake Minnewaska in Glenwood, Minn., on Wednesday. 
 
 “Prior to our 2010 case, the northernmost case was 550 miles south of us,” Robinson said. “It should be assumed that it can be anywhere. While the occurrence of the amoeba is common, infections fortunately are rare. That’s not to take anything away from the families that this has affected, because rare is not rare when it’s you.” 
 
 The surefire remedy is staying out of lake water entirely, but health officials viewed that as unlikely in a Land of 10,000 Lakes where swimming and boating is ingrained in the culture and economy. The infection has been confirmed only 129 times in the U.S. since 1962. But the severity of the infections does give pause. The prior cases in Minnesota resulted in the deaths of 7-year-old Annie Bahneman in 2010 and 9-year-old Jack Ariola Erenberg in 2012. 
 
 Two Minnesota parents are hoping to at least raise awareness to the amoeba and to the precautions, which include keeping your head above water or plugging your nose when you dive in. Chad and Heidi LaMeyer lost their 11-year-old daughter, Hailee, to a brain infection in 2008 that authorities later said was likely caused by exposure to N. fowleri while swimming in a lake near their old home in Stacy, Minn. They have since formed a nonprofit group, Swim Above Water, to alert families to the risks. 
 
 “You can drink water that has the amoeba in it and it does not affect you,” Chad LaMeyer said. “The only way you get this is to get water in your nose that has the amoeba and from there it gets into the brain.” 
 
 Symptoms develop rapidly, and typically involve severe swelling in the brain. Almost all of the known infections have resulted in deaths within days, though a 12-year-old Arkansas girl survived her infection in 2013. LaMeyer believes hospital and health officials hadn’t been looking closely for this infection in northern states until recently, which is why it wasn’t confirmed at the time his daughter died. His nonprofit website also references two other unconfirmed deaths, including of a 7-year-old from Iowa who died after swimming in the Detroit Lakes area. 
 
 Infections are considered more likely in shallow, warmer waters. The amoeba survives underground and then emerges to lake levels when temperatures warm up. Another prevention tip consequently is to refrain from churning up sediment on the lake bed, which can stir the amoeba into the water. 
 
 But LaMeyer said there have been cases nationally involving wakeboarders skimming over deep waters, and children on slip-and-slides using water from household garden hoses. 
 
 Adults are as susceptible to infection, but are less likely than children to submerge in lake water, Robinson said. “Children are more adventurous and more likely to participate in activities that would get water up their noses.” 
 
 The beach at Lily Lake remains closed years after the infections were discovered there. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted testing at that and nine other lakes in Washington County between 2010 and 2014. Six tested positive for the amoeba in 2010, but no trace was found in any of the water samples from the lakes in 2013 or 2014. 
 
 Robinson said the mere presence of the amoeba doesn’t make a lake unsafe, nor does the absence mean swimmers should ignore precautions. 
 
 She added that Minnewaska, an 8,000-acre lake along the communities of Glenwood and Starbuck, is no more of a risk than others. Glenwood leaders on Wednesday discussed whether to cancel any lake activities in the upcoming Waterama celebration, but opted to continue. 
 
 “It’s a shock,” said Kristina Kostelecky, the owner of Hunt’s Resort, one of at least three resorts on popular Lake Minnewaska. “I don’t know what to think about it.” 
 
 She said she was thinking about the boy’s family. 
 
 Tests wouldn’t help 
 
 Water quality tests are common on many lakes. Cities often check for E.coli bacteria, and Pope County officials test Minnewaska for algae levels and phosphorus, which usually comes from fertilizer and farm runoff, said Gary Maurstad, treasurer of the Pope County Coalition of Lakes. 
 
 Robinson said more testing for N. fowleri wouldn’t be effective, and is only conducted right now by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. LaMeyer agreed, noting that a negative test in one corner of a lake isn’t conclusive for the entire body of water. 
 
 Lifeguard Jaeger Jergenson, 15, cleans the pedestals in the swimming area on the empty Glenwood City Beach on Lake Minnewaska in Glenwood on Wednesday. 
 
 LaMeyer recalled growing up in Anoka and going with a dozen friends to a nearby lake in the summers, when they would then dare one another to dive to the bottom and come up with a handful of muck. He doubts the recent infections will deter people from swimming in lakes. He watched his own nieces over the holiday weekend diving out of a canoe at a lake where the family has a cabin. But he hopes the precautions will sink in. 
 
 “This is a pain that we don’t want any other parent to go through,” he said. 
 
 Prayers and support poured into the CaringBridge site for Boutain, who played in his school orchestra and jazz band and helped produce a student-led video news program. 
 
 Some came from family and friends, others from people unnerved by the incident. 
 
 “I don’t know the family,” wrote a Sauk Centre woman, “but saw that a child was critically ill from a lake. And I think, as does many, this could’ve been my child. I will continue to say prayers.” 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ||||| "A miracle. A miracle. A MIRACLE. No matter how many times I whispered in his ear that I love him and that I wish he would be bothered enough by my buffalo-winged bad breath to punch me in the face...he does not," Boutain wrote. "I mightily will him to do so. He does not. I beg him. He does not. I..., yet, he does not. Why won't he? Come on, Hunter...say something smart to me! Hunter! Hunter? Hunter. Hunt..." ||||| MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A 14-year-old boy who developed a rare brain infection after swimming in a Minnesota lake died Thursday, his family said in a statement as health officials worked to determine whether it was caused by a water parasite that's more common in warmer southern states. 
 
 The family of Hunter Boutain, of Alexandria, made the announcement in a statement issued through the University of Minnesota Medical Center, where he died. 
 
 "Hunter's condition deteriorated throughout the night and he was declared brain dead this morning," his uncle and family spokesman, Brian Boutain, said in the statement. "Hunter died surrounded by his family. It is a deeply emotional time for all us. We ask for privacy and prayers as we remember our beloved Hunter." 
 
 David Martinson, a spokesman for the University of Minnesota Masonic Children's Hospital, confirmed the boy's death. 
 
 The Centers for Disease Control and Minnesota Department of Health have been trying to confirm whether the youth's infection was the result of the Naegleria fowleri amoeba, but said Thursday that they don't have a definitive timeline for getting results. If confirmed, it would be Minnesota's third verified death from the amoeba. 
 
 The new case has health officials puzzled because it happened in Lake Minnewaska in western Minnesota, a much bigger lake than the lakes where the two previous cases occurred. Cases in 2010 and 2012 happened in Stillwater's shallow Lily Lake. The amoeba had not been found so far north before 2010. 
 
 "It is not what we think of as typical because the risk is greater when water temperatures are higher and water levels are lower," said Trisha Robinson, waterborne diseases unit supervisor for the Minnesota Department of Health. 
 
 A warming climate could be making it easier for the amoeba to thrive in Minnesota waters, but Robinson told Minnesota Public Radio there isn't enough evidence to support that theory yet. She said it's just as likely that this new case was a coincidence. 
 
 While the amoeba is common, the risks of infection are still extremely low, she said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says at least 133 people have been infected in the U.S. over the last five decades. It's almost always fatal. 
 
 It enters the brain through the nasal cavity, and diving or jumping into the water seems to pose the greatest risk, according to Dr. Stacene Maroushek, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Hennepin County Medical Center. 
 
 "Try to avoid getting water up the nose," she said. "Use nose plugs or at least try not to do diving that pushes water up the nose and things.:
– The Naegleria fowleri parasite is extremely rare, experts say, but that will be no comfort to the family of 14-year-old Hunter Boutain. The Minnesota teenager, the latest victim of the brain-eating amoeba, was dead just 48 hours after he became infected while swimming in a Minnesota lake, the New York Daily News reports. The amoeba travels to the brain through the nose, and to minimize the risk of infection, health experts advise using nose plugs while swimming in lakes or to at least avoid dives that could get water up the nose, reports the AP, which notes that experts are worried by how far north the latest case is. The parasite is usually found in Southern states, but this is the third infection in Minnesota since 2010, and there have been three other unconfirmed cases in the state. "Prior to our 2010 case, the northernmost case was 550 miles south of us," the chief of the state health department's waterborne diseases unit tells the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "It should be assumed that it can be anywhere." She says that while adults are just as susceptible to infection as children, children "are more adventurous and more likely to participate in activities that would get water up their noses." Swimmers are also advised to keep their heads above water and avoid stirring up the lake sediment where the amoeba dwells. (The parasite killed a 21-year-old woman in California last week.)