Texas Mayor After Child's Death From Amoeba: 'We Screwed Up'

Update: The parents of a 3-year-old Texas boy who died of a brain-eating amoeba found in water samples from an Arlington splash pad he visited are suing the city. Tariq Williams and Kayla Mitchell are seeking at least $1 million in a wrongful death lawsuit alleging negligence at Don Misenhimer Park. Bakari Williams visited the park twice in late August and once in early September before dying Sept. 11 of an infection caused by the Naegleria fowleri amoeba. Water quality test readings were recorded on only 36 of the 100 days the splash pad was operating this summer, reports the Dallas Morning News. Arlington Mayor Jim Ross admits "we screwed up," per WFAA. Our original story from Sept. 29, 2021, follows:

A Texas child is dead from a brain-eating amoeba, and now several local splash pads are shut down over fears on the amoeba's origins. Per a release cited by CNN, Tarrant County Public Health and the City of Arlington were informed on Sept. 5 that the child, whose identity is being withheld for privacy reasons, had been hospitalized with primary amebic meningoencephalitis. The illness is a rare infection caused by Naegleria fowleri, a microscopic organism that can be found in warm lakes, rivers, and puddles, as well as in untreated swimming pools, municipal water, and soil, among other sources.

Per the release, a Tarrant County Public Health Probe narrowed down possible sources of the amoeba to the child's home or Arlington's Don Misenhimer Park, which features a splash pad for kids. By Sept. 24, water samples taken from that splash pad were found to have the presence of N. fowleri, and it was "determined the Arlington site was the likely source of the child's exposure." The child died Sept. 11.

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The CDC notes the organism gets into a patient's body after water gets up their nose. From there, the amoeba heads up the nose to the brain, where it then feeds on brain tissue. The agency stresses you can't get infected by drinking contaminated water. Arlington officials shuttered the Don Misenhimer splash pad, as well as the city's other public splash pads, at least through the end of 2021 "out of an abundance of caution." City officials will be conducting an investigation of the splash pads' equipment, as well as maintenance and water quality inspection protocols, in which "gaps" were found, per Deputy City Manager Lemuel Randolph. (More brain-eating amoeba stories.)