The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a $14.5 million settlement for Emma Zhou, who was paralyzed from the waist down in 2016 when she was struck by a 100-pound tree limb in San Francisco’s Washington Square Park.

On Aug. 12, 2016, Zhou was with her two children in the park’s playground, which was bordered by several Canary Island pine trees, when a limb fell off of a 50-foot tree maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department. The heavy limb fractured her skull and severed her spinal cord.

In November 2016, she filed a lawsuit in which her lawyers accused the parks department of maintaining the trees in a way that allowed large, weakly attached branches to grow back. Zhou’s lawyers also asserted that the city was aware of previous reports that branches had fallen in the park.

The Canary Island pines were recently removed from Washington Square after being damaged by a contractor during the rebuilding of the playground.

Trisha Thadani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TrishaThadani