As they grieve their son, the boy's parents said they were stunned to learn South Carolina, like most other U.S. states, has no law requiring public reporting of deaths or infections from the amoeba. The lake wasn't closed and no water testing was performed. If they hadn’t spoken up, they wonder if anyone would have even known what happened.

A lawyer for the family of 12-year-old Jaysen Carr said he died on July 18 after contracting a deadly infectious amoeba while swimming in a reservoir.

My son was a very smart individual. If he had one warning, he would have thought swimming in the lake was a bad idea," the boy's father said.