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Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
National
Stephanie Zimmermann

Peace Corps settles negligence lawsuit with suburban Chicago family for $750,000

Peace Corps the Peace Corps Chicago Lawsuit Malaria University of Illinois Chicago Anthony Vazquez East Africa
Julie and Bill Heiderman display a portrait of their daughter Bernice at their home in suburban Inverness in 2020. A settlement was announced Tuesday in their federal lawsuit alleging negligence. (Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times)

A suburban Chicago family won a $750,000 settlement Tuesday from the Peace Corps after their daughter died in 2018 of undiagnosed malaria while serving in East Africa.

Bernice Heiderman, 24, of Inverness, was volunteering in the island nation of Comoros, when 18 months into her tour she sought medical attention for what turned out to be classic symptoms of malaria — signs that a local Peace Corps doctor and the agency’s director of medical programs in Washington, D.C., apparently missed.

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