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SALT LAKE CITY — Utah State University has agreed to caution students about how to keep others safe while slacklining as part of a settlement reached in a wrongful-death lawsuit lodged by the family of a college student who was killed in August 2013, a university official said Friday.
The parents of Eric Anderson said they are pleased that the lawsuit has raised awareness about the dangers of slacklining — walking on a flat nylon webbing or rope anchored between trees, rock formations or other natural features — and prompted policy changes.
Anderson was riding his bike down a hill while wearing sunglasses in the early evening on the first day of school when he slammed into a chest-high slackline tied between two trees, said his father, Carvel Anderson.
"There's no chance he could have seen it," Carvel Anderson said. "We're not trying to eliminate slacklining. We just want to be a little more cautious about this."
Financial terms of the settlement, signed on April 26, are confidential, said family attorney Ricky Shelton and Utah State spokesman Tim Vitale. The family was asking for $2 million in damages.
USU has agreed to include safety information about slacklines during orientation and on its website. The university will also provide free cones to help mark slacklines on campus, Vitale said.
"It was just an exceptionally tragic situation at so many levels," he said. "We welcome making these changes."
The Herald Journal newspaper in Logan first reported the settlement.
Eric Anderson was a trumpet player in the university marching band who went from being a shy teenager to coming into his own after serving a Mormon mission in Michigan and going to study music at Utah State University, Carvel Anderson said.
His mother, Gayle Anderson, said nothing can fill the void left by his death, but she was pleased the school took action.
"I feel very much at peace because it's raised a lot of awareness about this whole safety issue with slack lines," she said.
The lawsuit said the three students who put up the slackline should have taken it down when they finished, and that university did not put up any barriers to protect cyclists or pedestrians from slacklines.
The three students were dismissed from the lawsuit.
Carvel Anderson said he and his wife never blamed the students and feel terrible for them as well. He said the three students came to their house in West Jordan after their son's funeral and apologized, and spent an hour with the family.
"We hugged and we cried and we chatted," Carvel Anderson said.
State attorneys representing the university said in a 2014 court filing that the incident may have been caused by the slackline not being properly marked but also mentioned that Eric Anderson was riding his bike fast with defective brakes.
"A convergence of factors caused a terrible, terrible tragedy," Vitale said. "We will implement these safety measures and hope the incident doesn't repeat itself."
