Staff file photo / Renee Barnett helped her then-4-year-old daughter cross the Ring Trek at the community park in St. Elmo in 2016. A child was injured in the area in June 2019, leading to a lawsuit that was recently settled with the city of Chattanooga.Chattanooga has reached a $45,000 settlement in a lawsuit brought by a man whose son was injured at the St. Elmo Community Playground in June 2019.
According to the lawsuit, Jeffery Hilkert took his two children to play at the park shortly before noon on June 3, 2019. Hilkert said his oldest son was playing in an area of the playground known as the “Ring Trek” when he fell from a “partially submerged tire” and hit the ground, which Hilkert said caused severe fractures to his arm.
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Hilkert took his son to an emergency room, where he said the injuries required orthopedic surgery.
Photographs taken a day after the incident show the area below the “Ring Trek” did not have any “resilient ground covering” – soft ground covering like sand, mulch or rubber mats that provide for soft landings when children fall. The area was therefore was not suitable for children to play on, the lawsuit claimed.