Out of the Water

When Jodi Keough traded in her journalism career for love and a life on the land, she never imagined she would find herself at the centre of a devastating and alarming story. But then the unimaginable happened. Her precious one-year-old son Cash died after playing with a garden hose on the family’s cattle station. Jodi and her husband Laine were shocked to learn that the untreated water from the hose was carrying a rare but deadly amoeba, Naegleria fowleri. Grief-stricken, they appeared on Australian Story last year in the hope that their experience would be a warning to others. As summer approaches, the Keough family’s story is a timely reminder of this hidden danger that can lurk in warm, fresh waters in the bush.