Young Temecula Valley Newlywed Dies from Rare 'Brain-Eating' Amoeba

Koral Reef Meister married her childhood love in Temecula on July 18, 2013. Image courtesy of Sybil Meister.

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Young Koral Reef Meister not only had a beautiful and unique name, but she also had a zest and excitement for life.

All that changed with an infection both rare and tragic.

According to Koral’s mother, Sybil Meister, her 20-year-old daughter, who loved the outdoors and helping others, contracted a deadly infection from rare amoeba, or single-celled living organism, called balamuthia mandrillaris.

After a May 2013 trip to the lake on her birthday weekend, Meister says her daughter started to experience some subtle signs of infection — like headaches and blurred vision — but didn’t think much of it as she continued planning her July wedding to her childhood sweetheart Corey.

“She wasn’t a complainer, so she dealt with stuff,” Meister told Patch, noting that things progressively got worse as the months went by, and her daughter ”...started having a little of the mood swings and the vomiting around Thanksgiving.”

Then, starting in 2014, “...it all sort of progressed... more rapidly,” according to Meister.

Koral tried using natural remedies, but those didn’t seem to do much, and she continued to deal with intense headaches, neck pain, sensitivity to light and tingling sensations in her ear.

“Those symptoms are all very generic and mimic many things, so we weren’t thinking ‘brain eating amoeba’,” Meister said.

It wasn’t until half-way through the year that Koral went to the hospital.

“She had a severe headache in June 2014, had been in bed for 3 or 4 days,” Meister said. “She hadn’t left her apartment so we finally took her to the ER because she finally agreed to go.”

At that point doctors told her her symptoms were likely connected to going off of her birth control pills, and sent her on her way, Meister tells Patch.

Fast forward a few months to Sept. 29, 2014, the newlywed again sought emergency medical help, heading to Temecula Valley hospital due to increasing weakness on her right side and changes in her vision, according to Meister. This time, she would not return home.

It was at that hospital where doctors did an MRI and found a large mass in Koral’s brain, according to Meister.

“They said it was a huge mass and that it had to have been there for at least a year,” she told Patch, adding that emergency surgery was immediately ordered in which doctors removed part of the dead brain tissue to help relieve some of the swelling her daughter was experiencing.

On Oct. 8, tests done at Wildomar’s Inland Valley Medical Center finally revealed that the amoeba had caused all of Koral’s issues, Meister said. Koral died just weeks later on Oct. 20.

Raising Awareness

Though the chances of contracting the balamuthia amoeba are “very rare,” the CDC says that there’s a death rate of more than 95 percent associated with an infection. The agency reports that it’s usually found in dust and soil, but may also live in water.

Meister and her daughter Koral believed that it was in the water at Lake Havasu, Arizona where she was exposed.

“We were planning for a wedding, so there wasn’t much time for anything else,” Meister told Patch of the May 2013 lake excursion with her only child.

Though the CDC also says there’s no sure-fire way to prevent infection ”... since it is unclear how and why some people become infected while others do not,” Meister wants more people to simply educate themselves on the risks.

“They still close beaches when sharks are around; they still educate you on how not to get struck by lighting,” she said.

“Research is currently underway to learn more about Balamuthia in hopes of finding ways to prevent future infections,” the CDC states on its website.

Meister says she’s working to help raise awareness and funds to help get that research going. She’d also like to see it added to the nationally reported list of tracked diseases, so that there’s a way of knowing exactly how many cases are out there.

A Facebook campaign started by Meister has gained traction in recent weeks, with several national news outlets picking up on Koral’s story.

“I just want to help other parents going through it, and prevent others from having to go through it,” she told Patch of Koral’s illness. “I’m not saying don’t live, just be careful.”