After visiting a splash pad last September, a 3-year-old boy named Bakari was infected with a rare brain-eating amoeba and died.
The parents of the boy sued the city of Houston and the city agreed on a settlement.
A $250,000 settlement was approved on Tuesday between Arlington and Bakari Williams’ parents.
On Sept. 11, the boy died of primary amebic meningoencephalitis, an infection caused by the amoeba Naegleria fowleri.
According to Chron, the city intends to invest in health and safety improvements under the settlement, including technology that automatically shuts down splash pads where water levels aren’t within acceptable boundaries.
Visitors to the location will also be able to view current information about water quality using QR codes.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discovered the brain-eating amoeba in samples of water collected from the city splash pad Bakari visited after his death.
Bakari had visited one of the four splash pads the city has.
Prior to Bakari’s visit, records showed that employees didn’t consistently record, or didn’t conduct water quality tests required before each and every facility opened to the public.
The lawsuit stated that city employees “failed to adequately monitor and chlorinate the city’s splash pad water, making the splash pad unreasonably dangerous.”
