Team Koral Reef Spreads Amoeba Awareness

The friends and family of a happy young woman who passed away unexpectedly are making sure her memory lives on as they work to give back to their community and beyond through an awareness campaign. After Koral Meister Pier unexpectedly passed away at the young age of 20 due to a brain-eating amoeba she contracted during a vacation to the river in 2013, her family and friends banded together to begin the Koral Reef Awareness Program, focusing on spreading public awareness and knowledge about the amoebas throughout the world. Based out of Colton, where the Meister family has longtime ties - Koral, as well as her great-grandmother and her grandfather, graduated from Colton High School - Team Koral Reef works to let people know about the amoeba and how it is contracted. The amoeba is said to enter through the blood brain barrier while a person is underwater. When it enters the body, the parasite goes directly to the brain. The Meister family, friends and supporters say that the ballamuthia mandrillaris and the Naegleria fowleri amoeba are becoming major health threats in waterways and want to help spread the word through the Team Koral Reef organization, they said. Koral had a very happy life, according to her family. At Colton High, she was involved in many activities including softball, soccer and travel ball, and she also helped her family at their family-owned drive-in Mexican food restaurant. She had just married her husband Corey Pier before she lost her battle to the amoeba. “Koral was true to herself and never wasted a day on jeopardizing her values and beliefs to accommodate her surroundings. Every moment was lived and cherished in her world. As her family and closest friends we are honored to say we bared witness to a woman that was a gladiator. This path that God had chosen has not ended and we still are forging ahead to honor Koral and her memories,” her family and friends shared on their Team Koral Reef GoFundMe page. As part of their awareness campaign, on Saturday, July 25, Team Koral Reef held a special amoeba awareness fundraiser at El Burrito Drive-In on Mount Vernon in Colton. El Burrito donated 50 percent of their proceeds to Team Koral Reef. Catherine Meister, Koral’s grandmother, shared, “It was a lot of fun. During the day many people came and ate, talked and asked questions and shared information with others about deaths from the brain eating amoeba.” She also shared that there was a lot of networking and communication about the possibility of contracting an amoeba from waterways. Recently national news broke about Naegleria fowleri being discovered in two communities in New Orleans. At the recent fundraiser, Team Koral Reef passed out informational brochures and were selling hats and t-shirts in order to help spread the word to others. According to WebMd, the single-celled brain eating amoeba was a species discovered in 1965. While there are several species of Naegleria, only the fowleri species causes human disease and there are several fowleri subtypes, all believed equally dangerous. Brain eating amoebas are found in warm water and can survive in water as hot as 113 degrees Fahrenheit, according to WebMD. It can be found in warm lakes, ponds and rock pits; mud puddles; warm, slow-flowing rivers; untreated swimming pools and spas; and aquariums, to name a few. Naegleria can't live in salt water. It can't survive in properly treated swimming pools or in properly treated municipal water. “What a great crowd," Catherine Meister said of the recent fundraser. "The family thanks you for allowing us to share information with you that could save your lives or the life of someone dear to you.Thank you El Burrito crew for being supportive, thank you to the volunteers who assisted, especially to Team Koral reef, who hosted the event and welcomed and made everyone feel comfortable.” Sybil Meister, Koral's mother, added, "Team Koral Reef is very thankful for all the people that took time out of their day to stop by and buy lunch and merchandise. We are dedicated to spreading awareness about these deadly brain eating amoebas." The team's dedication to spreading amoeba awareness overlaps on to social media. You can find Team Koral Reef of Twitter and Facebook for daily updates on anything amoeba related. If interested in supporting their cause, they also have a GoFundMe page: http://www.gofundme.com/teamkoralreef.