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Ohio Woman's Family Files Lawsuit Against Outdoor Park

The upper pool at the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte. Credit: Wikimedia contributor Howard Morland for Creative Commons http://bit.ly/2mtwaH3

It's been almost a year since an Ohio woman died after contracting a brain-eating amoeba at a Charlotte outdoor recreational park. The woman's family has now filed a wrongful death lawsuit.

The family of 18-year-old Lauren Seitz filed the federal lawsuit Monday against the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte.

Seitz died in June 2016 from meningoencephalitis, a disease caused by the amoeba Naegleria fowleri. The lawsuit says Seitz contracted the amoeba after she was thrown overboard while whitewater rafting at the park.

The suit claims the center failed to properly chlorinate the water, neglected to regulate the temperature of the water and failed to warn visitors of the possible danger.

The family is seeking punitive damages of more than $1 million.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

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