It all started with a headache…😢
Moisés Ponce Mendoza, a teenager from North Carolina, United States, arrived at the Burlington hospital on a Friday night with that single symptom.
A doctor examined him, told the family they could go home, and no one suspected that a lethal infection was already spreading inside his skull.
By the following morning, his mother had to leave work and rush with him to the University of North Carolina hospital at 7 in the morning.
That was when the diagnosis that changed everything arrived: Naegleria fowleri, the amoeba known as a “brain-eating” amoeba, had entered through his nose —probably while swimming in fresh water— and began destroying his brain tissue, causing severe inflammation and infection.
Moisés fell into a coma while doctors tried to stop damage that was already irreversible. He lost the battle on Monday, August 1.
Fewer than ten people a year contract this infection in the United States, and most do not survive more than five days after the first symptom appears.
His mother, Mónica Mendoza, described her son as a young man “full of life” 💔🕊️