Eight-year-old dies after contracting rare brain-eating amoeba in Louisiana
Lillian Smart of Ruston infected with fatal Naegleria fowleri, likely after swimming in Lake Claiborne, health officials say An eight-year-old Louisiana girl has died after contracting a rare, typically fatal brain-eating amoeba after a swim in Lake Claiborne. Lillian Smart, of Ruston, died on Saturday, one day after celebrating her birthday, her family announced in a public Facebook post on the “Love for Lillian” pa
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- #2090
- First seen
- 23 Aug 2026, 22:24 UTC
- Last checked
- 24 Aug 2026, 04:54 UTC
- Version history
- 1 version
- Current fingerprint
8019c66d3e9c...f99160
Publisher layer
Recorded article metadata
- Publisher
- The Guardian
- Country
- England / United Kingdom
- Source published
- 23 Aug 2026, 22:17 UTC
- Source updated
- No update timestamp supplied
- Byline
- Marina Dunbar
- Section
- Louisiana
Lillian Smart of Ruston infected with fatal Naegleria fowleri, likely after swimming in Lake Claiborne, health officials say An eight-year-old Louisiana girl has died after contracting a rare, typically fatal brain-eating amoeba after a swim in Lake Claiborne. Lillian Smart, of Ruston, died on Saturday, one day after celebrating her birthday, her family announced in a public Facebook post on the “Love for Lillian” pa
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Observed version timeline
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1
Eight-year-old dies after contracting rare brain-eating amoeba in Louisiana
Lillian Smart of Ruston infected with fatal Naegleria fowleri, likely after swimming in Lake Claiborne, health officials say An eight-year-old Louisiana girl has died after contracting a rare, typically fatal brain-eating amoeba after a swim in Lake Claiborne. Lillian Smart, of Ruston, died on Saturday, one day after celebrating her birthday, her family announced in a public Facebook post on the “Love for Lillian” pa
Changed fieldstitlebylinedescriptionTextcontentTextsourcePublishedAtsourceUpdatedAtsectionimageUrltags- Version SHA-256
8019c66d3e9c...f99160- Capture SHA-256
9ebdeb7b1fc5...84a385
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Publisher categories are copied from source metadata. Machine signals report observable wording or format and do not determine truth, intent, ethics, or wrongdoing.
- machine content-type Reported news observable-rules-v1 / 70% rule confidence
- machine language-signal Death or self-harm observable-rules-v1 / 65% rule confidence
- publisher category Children rss-category
- publisher category Health rss-category
- publisher category Infectious diseases rss-category
- publisher category Louisiana rss-category
- publisher category Science rss-category
- publisher category US news rss-category
Public response layer
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Evidence layer
Capture provenance
- Capture ID
- #1764
- Observed
- 23 Aug 2026, 22:24 UTC
- HTTP result
- 200 / parsed
- Raw payload
- 477,037 bytes, private gzip evidence
- Collector
- news-ledger/0.1
- Public boundary
- metadata and excerpt