Tanganyika closes splash park as comments stack up of sick, hospitalized children

Children are getting sick and even hospitalized and families are blaming Tanganyika Wildlife Park’s splash park in Goddard.

The park did not respond to questions from The Eagle.

On Saturday, the park posted on Facebook that its splash park, which opened at the end of the 2020 summer, would be closed because of a filtration system problem and that they are “working diligently to remedy the issue.”

“The splash park is a new adventure for us animal people, and it was an issue we could not foresee,” the post said. “We plan to notify everyone as soon as we have a set date for opening.”

The post has more than 580 comments where people talked about families getting sick and even going to the hospital after visiting the splash park.

Park director Matt Fouts said in a second Facebook post on Sunday that Tanganyika is “not trying to cover anything up” and is working with the Sedgwick County Health Department.

“As a father whose kids have been playing in the splash park regularly and an uncle whose nephew is working in the splash park daily, I understand and share your safety concerns,” Fouts said. “It is in no one’s best interest, including our family-owned businesses, to have people getting sick due to visiting.”

The Sedgwick County Health Department did not respond to The Eagle’s request for information Sunday afternoon.

Fouts said the park was notified by the health department Friday afternoon about illness concerns, prompting the department to ask for water samples. Further discussions on Saturday led Fouts to “voluntarily (and temporarily) close the splash park until I could ensure the safety of our visitors.”

Fouts advised people who became sick or had a family member become ill after visiting Tanganyika to contact their doctor, as well as the health department’s disease reporting email at diseasereport@sedgwick.gov or epidemiology hotline at 316-660-5555.

Cameron Vandusen said his 4-year-old daughter, Kennedy, visited the splash park Friday and started throwing up so badly on Saturday that she was taken to an area hospital. He said other families were there with children who had been at the splash park.

He said the initial Facebook post was eerie.

“That right there just tells me that they know they screwed up,” he said in a phone interview.

Kennedy’s grandmother, Lori Swank, said from Wesley Woodlawn at around 11 p.m. that they were taking a stool sample to test for E. Coli and also doing blood samples.

Swank’s family from Alabama were also at the splash park on Friday. Four of them have diarrhea and were throwing up all day Saturday, she said.

She thought it was food poisoning, but now believes they caught something in the splash park.

Hannah Alkhub said she took her 9-month-old and 6-year-old daughters to the splash park with a friend and her daughter on June 11, when they appeared to be doing repairs on the splash park. Both her daughters started to get sick the next day.

Alkhub said she started to have a cough and sore throat a couple of days ago.

Her oldest, who got a rash on her chest and arms, was diagnosed with fifth disease, which the Center for Disease Control and Prevention calls a “mild rash illness caused by parvovirus B19.”

Alkhub said no tests were done before her daughter was diagnosed. However, she said her friend’s daughter was in the hospital late Saturday night and had been diagnosed with adenovirus, rhinovirus and enterovirus. Two are respiratory, and one is gastrointestinal.

People who commented on the post also demanded more answers from the park.

“This post is incredibly insensitive and unbelievably unprofessional to what’s truly going on,” one person wrote. The person said her nephew is sick after visiting the splash park. “You need to be honest with your members and let them know what’s going on so that they may be able to take measures in figuring out what’s going on with them, if they’re sick.”

This story was originally published June 20, 2021 at 12:15 AM.