A toddler who suffered second- and third-degree burns on his feet at a splash pad in Kingston continues to receive treatment at Hotel Dieu Hospital.

Thomas Donnelly severely burned his feet when he ran across an in-ground metal access door at the Shannon Park splash pad on Sunday afternoon.

His mother, Amanda Insley, said Thomas had “layers of dead skin” scraped away during a Tuesday treatment.

“He is supposed to take things very easy and put as little weight on the right foot as possible,” Insley said on Tuesday. “No walking is best, but she said she knows he’s a toddler and that’s hard to do. They are unsure of the permanent nerve damage, because of how young he is. It’s hard to tell since they can’t communicate.”

A staff member with the City of Kingston said the city is looking at ways to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Sheila Kidd, commissioner of transportation and public works for the City of Kingston, said during an interview on Tuesday that as a temporary measure, city staff have painted the metal door yellow and placed a wooden barrier on top of the door to prevent people from walking on it.

That happened Monday morning.

“That’s obviously a very temporary solution,” she said. “For now that’s the best I have. We’re also exploring what we can do on a more permanent basis. There are options we’ve discussed, but we haven’t settled on one.”

A paint that is less heat-conducting could be an option, she said.

“We want to test something and make sure that the solution we put in is the solution that works. I don’t know what the answer is, today.”

Within the city’s nine splash pads, five have in-ground doors that could be accessed by foot, some closer to the splash pad surface than others. At the Memorial Centre splash pad, the doors are paved similarly to the surrounding surface. The other four locations are metal, some painted and some not. At the City Park splash pad, one series of access doors has a low concrete wall built around it, with another unwalled door nearby.

Kidd said her staff members have been out to examine other splash pads to make sure similar hazards as the one presented at Shannon Park won’t be a risk to park users.

“My staff tell me that this design at this park was one of the earliest parks that we installed a splash pad,” she said of Shannon Park.

Kidd said the safety of everyone who uses the city’s parks is a “priority for the city.”

“There’s no question about that,” she said. “We inspect the splash pads every morning before the water turns on, to make sure that there is no debris or broken glass left overnight. We do everything that we can in that way to protect people from cuts.

“In this situation, we do feel very, very terrible and we will take action to try to address anything we can to protect users. There is signage posted strongly urging the use of water shoes, but even at that we certainly respect that sometimes it will be followed and sometimes it won’t.”

mbalogh@postmedia.com