A water park in North Carolina was forced out of business after the death of a visitor caused by a brain-eating amoeba in one of its attractions sent its insurance costs to the stratosphere.
Eddie Gray had contact with the deadly Naegleria fowleri amoeba at the Fantasy Lake water park in Hope Mills, N.C. last summer and died two weeks later, according to a report from WRAL.com. After the incident, owner Marjorie Turner told WRAL.com that she was forced to close the park because of difficulties in finding an insurer that could provide coverage she could afford.
Meanwhile, news of the popular park’s closure has been met with a measure of surprise and sadness by the local community.
“I wish it would stay open,” local resident Alexander Jacquart told WRAL.com. “I actually miss the beach. I’m from, like, a beach town. We lived just a few blocks from the beach, and this is almost just like that.”
“There’s not another place to go like this that is close by,” Warner said, adding that she hopes to re-open “sometime in the future.”
“It’s hard for someone who has a business like this, or small business, if you do have an incident, that your insurance or the rates are raised or whatever,” Jackie Warner, mayor of Hope Mills, told WRAL.com. “It’s tough, and I understand completely.”
