A 12-year-old Florida boy has succumbed to a rare and deadly brain-eating amoeba, the child's family announced Saturday. Zachary Reyna had been trying to fight the infection caused by the amoeba with antibiotics, but was unable to beat it, passing away at 1:54pm Saturday, according to an announcement on the Facebook page set up by his family. Reyna's family had held out hope he would survive after recently announcing the amoeba was gone, but doctors feared he may have suffered severe brain damage had he survived. 'Wake up child it's YOUR TIME TO SHINE! Continued prayers please #pray4number4 #wakeupzac #prayer #powerofprayer,' Zachary's sister Amanda tweeted Saturday morning. It was not long after that her brother passed away. 'At 1:54 today there was a crack of a bat heard. Zac took it deep. My boy hit his homerun. One that I'll never forget,' the boy's devastated father wrote. 'I'm so proud of him. He left it all on the field and I can't ask for more. He did so well that he'll be the starting 2nd baseman for The Lords team.' Zachary Reyna''s plight has caught the attention of Florida and the rest of the U.S. The Facebook page set up looking for donations to help pay for the suffering young boy has more than 10,000 likes, with baseball players and celebrities including Taylor Swift sending presents and messages of support. Improvement in Zachary's condition was highlighted by his father on the page, and based on the hope that he will be the fourth person to survive the amoeba. 'We were told this morning that the antibiotics have defeated the infection. Tests showed negative activity from the amoeba,' Jesse Reyna wrote Thursday. Sadly, that hope was short-lived. Zachary fell critically ill after playing on a knee board with friends in a ditch near his LaBelle, Florida home on August 3. Source
