Nocatee mothers believe water park source of kids' sickness, testing confirms park not the source

ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. — State test results confirm Splash Park was not the source of illness, according to the Nocatee community manager.

The Tolomatio community Development District said it takes precautions to sanitize all furniture, railings, equipment and pool decks each day, and the water is tested every hour by certified pool operators.

The water sampes taken from the pools are sent to an independent lab for testing.

ORIGINAL STORY: 

Mothers living in Nocatee believe their kids may have gotten sick from swimming at a local water park.

"We're at the pool very often throughout the summer, that's our second home away from home," explains Holly Simoneau, who lives in Nocatee.

TRENDING: 

But this week, Simoneau says she won't be taking her kids to the water park after she claims her 4-year-old and 77 other kids fell ill after playing in the pool.

"We have a very large moms' group on Facebook and I noticed there was a couple of similarities. There's a post that said ‘Has anybody's child gotten sick?' and there's a lot of responses saying ‘yes, yes my child and we were at the pool."

According to Simoneau, there's been 78 cases of kids getting sick just in the matter of three days.

"They had the same symptoms. Vomiting in the middle of the night, they were at the pool on the same day in the same time frame, and the onset of symptoms were the same."

Nocatee Community Manager David Ray doesn't believe their water is the source for the outbreak. But to ease the minds of the families concerned, they've already sanitized the entire park from handrails to pool decks.

"Additionally, we hired an independent lab to come in and take samples of the water to send out for testing."

Important steps that are giving Simoneau and other moms a sigh of relief.

"Hopefully it is ruled out and we all just have a big lesson learned that not to bring sick children in the future," explains Simoneau.

Ray tells Action News Jax they are expecting to get the results from the water tests back on Friday.

For a list of inspections, click here.

STAY UPDATED: Download the Action News Jax app for live updates on breaking stories

Cox Media Group