3-Year-Old's Death Triggers Big Changes at Splash Pads

The parents of a 3-year-old boy who died of a brain-eating amoeba contracted at a splash pad in Arlington, Texas, have settled with the city. Tariq Williams and Kayla Mitchell, who initially sought at least $1 million in a wrongful death lawsuit, will receive $250,000, which their lawyer said was the maximum allowed against a city under the Texas Tort Claims Act, CNN reports. Their son, Bakari Williams, spent five days in a hospital before dying of primary amoebic meningoencephalitis caused by the Naegleria fowleri amoeba on Sept. 11. The amoeba, believed to have entered his brain through his nose, was later detected at the splash pad he'd visited at Don Misenheimer Park, which had gaps in water testing.

Arlington said the settlement will include a "significant investment in the installation of health and safety equipment and other improvements for our public pools and splash pads." The city will be required to install the new equipment related to water testing and amoeba prevention by Memorial Day weekend. Under the "Bakari Williams Protocol," visitors to splash pads will be able to scan a QR code for real-time information on water quality, per the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Should the water quality move out of permitted ranges, technology will automatically turn off the splash pads. The city will also be required to prepare a presentation on the lessons learned from the incident, to educate other municipalities, per KTVT.

Bakari's parents said the city agreed to all of their demands for improvements, which were made with the goal of preventing another death like that of their "sweet, beautiful and innocent child." "We want to make certain that what happened to our son, our family, does not happen again," Mitchell said at a Thursday press conference, per the Star-Telegram. "He did not deserve to die in the manner that he did." "At this point, I'm nervous of water, period," said Williams. "That's not something that's specific to Arlington." He added "I trust the protocols." But "trusting people to take responsibility and trusting their employees to take what’s being handed to them and actually implement it? That's a different thing." (More brain-eating amoeba stories.)