Roxie died at Summerkids Camp. Circumstances were shocking.
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Summerkids camp owners are responsible for the preventable drowning death of 6-year-old Roxie Forbes. They admitted this at trial, six and a half years after Roxie’s parents, Doug Forbes and Elena Matyas, filed their wrongful death lawsuit.
Elena subsequently suffered severe depression, suicidal ideation and was diagnosed with terminal cancer only a year after Roxie’s death. Her broken heart and broken body led to her death March 4, 2022. Elena’s dying words to Doug were, “Get as much justice for Roxie as possible.”
Doug fights for justice, facts and truth about summer camp harm so that other families do not have to endure what he does. After Roxie’s horrific death, Doug completed grad studies in journalism so that he could pursue this mission. The following represents just some of what Doug’s fight has looked like during the nearly seven-year battle he has endured to ensure that the truth about Summerkids Camp owners finds its way to the public.
Since trial transcripts are publicly available, Doug is allowed to display them in their entirety. Where Doug is otherwise precluded from mentioning the actual names of Summerkids owners or employees, he refers to them through their camp titles.
The camp burned down in the 2025 Eaton Fire shortly after a series of settlement hearings in which Doug refused to settle and demanded a trial.
Roxie, Age 2.
No child should ever drown under supervision. No child should ever die at a summer camp unless due to exceptional, unpreventable circumstances.
Why did Roxie drown? How could she possibly die such a violent death at Summerkids? Why did Doug’s trial take place six and a half years after Roxie’s death in the Summerkids camp pool? Why did the camp owners delay the trial six times instead of holding themselves accountable? Why have they never apologized for Roxie’s death in nearly seven years?
Incidentally, the camp-owning family sent another very young child camper to the hospital with a very serious injury weeks after Roxie died under their supervision.
Summerkids camp owners include a father and mother who were former local city college professors, a daughter who was a former Los Angeles Times writer and a brother who is an emergency room doctor. The daughter was the camp director at the time of Roxie’s death.
For years, if not decades, the camp-operating family facilitated the fraudulent lifeguard certification of its counselors, according to federal court transcripts, legal filings and admissions. Those counselors were in charge of children as young as three in the relatively small Summerkids swimming pool. The camp owners’ very own children attended Summerkids where they swam in the pool under the supervision of fake lifeguards.
The camp owners delayed the trial six times, according to publicly available court documents. The trial commenced on January 13, 2026. Doug and Elena filed the lawsuit November 5, 2019.
The family also attempted to blame Roxie, a 6-year-old child, for her own drowning death, according to their court filings.
We have included the following excerpts from federal trial transcripts and other sources to illustrate how facts matter. Summer camp harm has been a perennial issue in America for many decades. Such harm has horrific ripple effects. Sadly, camp owner-operators, including those of Summerkids, prioritize public relations, denials and coverups instead of accountability and support of severely aggrieved families.
CLICK ANY OF THE FOLLOWING IMAGES TO ENLARGE
At the federal trial, Doug’s attorney asks the Summerkids camp director-owner about accountability.
Roxie, Age 3.
Camp owner-director originally said child safety was not her number one priority.
Despite what she said at trial, which was six and a half years after Roxie drowned in her summer camp pool, the Summerkids director said something entirely different while under sworn deposition testimony in 2020. Doug’s prior attorney had asked the camp director-owner if child safety was her number one priority, She refused to say that it was. In fact, Doug’s attorney gave her a second chance to amend her answer. She refused.
Were the Summerkids camp director-owner to have told Doug and Elena — who spent thousands of dollars for this woman and her staff to supervise Roxie — that safety of children was not her top priority, Doug and Elena would never have enrolled Roxie in Summerkids Camp. According to the California Department of Education, choosing quality care that is in a healthy and safe environment should be a parent’s number one priority. This belief is widely held by youth-serving and child care organizations nationwide.
Doug’s attorney plays this deposition testimony at trial.
At trial, Doug’s attorney reminds the camp director-owner about how she originally said safety was not her number one priority. The attorney subsequently asks more questions about safety. The camp director is suddenly more accountable.
Doug’s attorney asks the judge if she can read the camp director-owner’s original deposition testimony, which contradicts her above answer at trial. The judge grants the request and Doug’s attorney reads the original testimony.
Doug’s attorney asks additional questions that confirm the camp director-owner’s responsibilities regarding safety.
The camp director-owner said she and her family established a safety committee. Doug’s attorney asked whether that committee monitored their counselors at the pool, especially since it was the activity with the greatest risk. The director-owner attempted to either lie or mislead at trial, but Doug’s attorney referred back to her original deposition testimony.
Roxie, Age 3.
Documents show very young children were at risk for decades.
Swimming is widely accepted as the most popular summer camp activity. It was no different at Summerkids where children as young as three used the pool.
This is why it is shocking that, for decades, Summerkids camp owners were responsible for the fraudulent certification of camp counselors as American Red Cross lifeguards and water safety instructors, according to an abundance of publicly available court documents, transcripts and admissions. The camp-owning family also actively promoted to thousands of parents that the counselors were legitimately certified, despite knowing they were not.
The camp owners pocketed an estimated $5,000 each year, at the risk of knowingly endangering thousands of children and causing Roxie’s death, according to court transcripts and supporting evidence.
This invoice shows how the fraudulent instructor Andrew Cervantes invoiced Summerkids at $100 per counselor, which is less than one third of the regular lifeguarding program fee, according to the Red Cross pricing sheet. Cervantes was able to make an easy couple thousand dollars in a day while Summerkids owners were able to pocket extra money.
2006-2014:
The camp-owning family hired a gentleman named Kasey Bell in 2006 before they hired Andrew Cervantes from 2014-2019. Mr. Bell told the camp owners he would provide some safety instruction to counselors, however, he made it clear that he would not be able to legitimately train and certify the counselors as Red Cross lifeguards.
Nonetheless, the camp owners intentionally retained Mr. Bell for eight years, knowing that upwards of 100 counselors at their pool were not legitimately trained or certified lifeguards. Those counselors were in charge of thousands of children during that period. Misleading thousands of parents by advertising to parents that the counselors were properly trained and certified lifeguards constituted a fraudulent act, according to numerous court filings and exhibits.
Summerkids did not legitimately train and certify half, if any, of its counselors as lifeguards, and they offered no proof that counselors legitimately received basic first aid and CPR training. The camp director-owner admitted to their intentional behavior at the federal trial.
One of the counselors illegitimately certified as a lifeguard was the supervisor at the pool when he and the other fake lifeguards neglected Roxie to death. This is a communication between this counselor and Kasey Bell after the Summerkids owner [who is referred to as “him” and “he”] hired Andrew Cervantes to replace Bell. The Summerkids counselor ironically said the lifeguards “sucked” even though he was also a fraud. Note that Bell says he is happy that the insurance company might actually be forcing the camp owners to legitimately certify counselors as lifeguards.
2014-2019:
As mentioned, like the majority of summer camps with aquatics activities, swimming was the most popular activity at Summerkids. The Summerkids pool was a primary catalyst for persuading parents to enroll their children in Summerkids.
The camp owners hired a man named Andrew Cervantes who fraudulently certified himself as a Red Cross lifeguard and instructor while working for Summerkids. The camp owners intentionally chose not to run a background check on him. They never cared to check his training records. They never attended a single training session. In fact, they never actually interviewed Cervantes. As a Red Cross Training Provider, the Summerkids camp owners had thereby violated their contract on multiple counts.
The camp owners worked with Cervantes to cut the required Red Cross lifeguard and water safety training by 75%, which means the owners were able to pocket more money for themselves by reducing training time. Cervantes had access to the Red Cross certification system, which enabled the camp owners to obtain certifications for their counselors via fraudulent means, according to an abundance of documents and testimony.
Doug Forbes conducted an investigation that unearthed this fraudulent certification scheme. He shared his findings with the top legal officers of the Red Cross who swiftly established a lifetime ban that prevented Summerkids owners from performing any Red Cross training at their camp.
The Red Cross also banned Cervantes for life and revoked every Summerkids counselor’s lifeguard and water safety certification.
The camp owners misled thousands of parents, which constituted fraud, according to court filings. Based on Doug’s investigation and federal court filings, the judge allowed Doug to pursue fraud claims against the Summerkids owners.
Cervantes fraudulently certified himself as a Red Cross lifeguard during the years he worked for Summerkids. You can see that he assigned himself as the lifeguard recipient and the instructor. A Red Cross lifeguard instructor must must first be a legitimately certified lifeguard, which he was not. Therefore the 100+ Summerkids counselors that he and the camp owners certified were frauds.
This was what Doug and Elena and thousands of other parents read on the Summerkids camp website. The camp owners entirely misled parents, because the owners and Cervantes had fraudulently certified the counselors as lifeguards.
The camp director-owner lied during her sworn deposition testimony, which was information that Doug’s attorney shared during the federal trial. The camp director said she did not know the requirements to become a Red Cross lifeguard.
During the trial, the camp owner admitted that she did, in fact, receive lifeguard training requirements from a Red Cross representative.
The Red Cross requires testing of candidates before they can pursue lifeguard certification testing. The Red Cross also requires a skills test and 80% on a written examination before candidates can become certified lifeguards. The camp owners and Cervantes did not provide any testing, which are serious violations. These acts constitute fraud, because the camp owners and Cervantes certified the counselors as lifeguards without testing them.
Despite knowing Red Cross lifeguard certification requirements, the camp director-owner intentionally cut the training by upwards of 75%. She tells Cervantes to be at the camp for “lifeguard training” on one Saturday for 8 hours total, including lunch and other breaks. Red Cross training is 27+ hours with pool testing and a written examination. The camp director and her father violated Red Cross policies for years.
Here is testimony from just one of the fraudulently certified lifeguard counselors that neglected Roxie to death at the Summerkids pool. The counselor says “training” was as little as six hours, which constitutes less than 25% of the required training. Also, Cervantes did not actually “train,” according to what the Red Cross considers training.
Roxie, Age 4.
Documents show camp counselors were also at risk for decades.
Here are just a few emails from former Summerkids counselors who discuss the trauma they experienced under the supervision of the camp-owning family.
The camp director-owner chose to hole up in her office and call her own parents who were part owners of the camp with her and her doctor-brother. She chose not to call Roxie’s parents as Roxie lay dead at her pool.
According to records, the director chose to hole up in her office for upwards of 15 minutes. She called her mother and father. She chose to not call Roxie’s parents as Roxie lay dying then dead on her pool deck.
She refused to help her ill-trained counselors in the “chaotic” scene. She refused to ask her counselors — whom she helped fraudulently certify as lifeguards — how Roxie could have drowned. She refused to help manage the traumatized children. She refused to make herself available to first responders at a critical moment of care.
She said she “was not there,” but that is a lie. She was there at the camp, 20 seconds away from the pool. She chose not to go help anyone in any way. Numerous documents and testimony assert that such an act is both shocking and deeply unsettling for an owner of a child care business. Note that she also refused to say Roxie’s name.
The camp director-owner and her family prevented parents from picking up their traumatized children.
The family emailed thousands of parents shortly after the preventable drowning. They told parents not to pick up their children early, because they wanted to “keep the day as normal as possible,” despite the fact that children as young as four witnessed Roxie, a 6-year-old child, violently die. The camp owners said it was in the “best interest of the [children] and counselors,” without asking parents what they wanted for their own children.
The camp owners disallowed these parents from comforting their own children immediately after a horrific, devastating death of a fellow child. Consequently, some of those children suffered ongoing trauma and required trauma counseling.
Why did the camp-owning family prevent hundreds of parents from picking up traumatized children and other children who were near the scene? Why did the camp-owning family refuse to immediately interact with sheriffs and EMS? Why did the camp-owning family believe that a child's violent, preventable death was not enough to close the camp… not even that day? Not even for an hour?
How in the world could the camp-owning family believe this could be a “normal” rest of the day?
Despite what the camp owners claim in the below email, other witnesses, including first responders, said that the children in the pool were not immediately removed from the pool. In fact, one of the counselors said that she walked the children directly by Roxie as she lay dead on the pool deck.
Note: the camp director sent Doug and Elena a first draft of the below email prior to sending it to thousands of parents. She wanted Doug and Elena to review her almost entirely untrue public relations message while Doug and Elena were debating whether to remove Roxie from life support. This was a barbaric act.
Two Suspected Child Abuse Reports were immediately filed because the police incident report cited suspicious circumstances.
The first responding deputy issued a Suspected Child Abuse Report later that day. Another party issued a similar report soon thereafter. EMS noted suspicious if not dubious counselor statements in their reports.
The camp director and family issued a series of emails to thousands of parents in which they made false statements. They also prevented Roxie’s parents from getting any answers.
The camp owners continued to claim all of their counselors were certified American Red Cross lifeguards. They said the counselors only looked away from Roxie for 10-15 seconds. Not only is it impossible to die from drowning in that time period, but one of the fraudulently certified counselors said she did not pay attention to Roxie for five minutes. Red Cross policy is to keep every young child within an arm’s length and in constant view at all times.
Within 48 hours of Roxie’s death, the camp director-owner removed Doug and Elena from the parent portal, the mailing list and all communications related to the camp and Roxie’s death. Yet, she refused to return Doug and Elena’s $3000 camp tuition check until Doug gave her an ultimatum three months later in September.
Doug made numerous requests for the camp director to refund their tuition check. She refused. He made a final attempt months after Roxie drowned to death at Summerkids. She refused to respond. Doug enlisted the services of an attorney who finally acquired the refund three months later. Think about that… she refused to refund tuition money for a child who drowned in her camp pool.
None of the fake lifeguards noticed Roxie had drowned and was floating atop the pool. This drowning process could have lasted more than six minutes, according to an aquatics expert who testified at trial.
The camp owner-director originally told thousands of parents that Roxie was spotted within 10-15 seconds after which her counselors immediately removed from her from the pool. This was a lie. Her counselors contradicted that statement. Experts contradicted that statement. There has never been a recorded drowning that lasted such a limited period of time.
The camp owner-director intentionally failed to tell parents that not one of the four fraudulently certified counselors at the pool noticed Roxie floating dead. A counselor outside of the pool allegedly spotted Roxie floating dead. His story is also extremely hard to believe, considering he was allegedly helping with other activities upwards of 45 feet outside of the pool and somehow he spotted Roxie floating next to the edge of the pool beneath a basketball hoop on the deck. Nobody could explain how he could see Roxie when the other counselors said they were within 5-10 feet of Roxie.
Doug’s attorney asked the camp director if this account was accurate.
This is Doug’s attorney asking a doctor who was also the U.S. Coast Guard’s Chief Medical Officer about the time period of Roxie’s drowning process.
Photo from the lifeguard chair at the small Summerkids camp pool. A counselor was supposed to watch Roxie at the steps area in the upper right. She wound up floating face-down, 20 feet away near the buoy line.
This pool is not much larger than a good-sized backyard pool. Yet, not one of the 4 or 5 counselors who were supposed to be watching children spotted Roxie drowning or floating dead in the small shallow end.
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health cited Summerkids and the DiMassa family for nine pool violations, including the incorrect pool occupancy sign. The camp owning family posted a sign for 75 swimmers when it was supposed to be 60. Former counselors have said that the pool was always overcrowded and chaotic.
Camp founder-father admits he violated Red Cross policy.
Facilities such as public pools and camps can become American Red Cross Licensed Training Providers (LTP). The Red Cross requires LTPs to follow specific standards and practices in exchange for being able to conduct lifeguard, water safety, CPR and other training at their facilities. The LTP facilities can also earn income from those trainings by paying the Red Cross a small fee per training candidate.
The camp founder-father admitted that he signed a contract which said he was responsible for his Red Cross instructors. Therefore, in this case, he and the instructor coordinated to fraudulently certify Summerkids counselors as lifeguards and water safety instructors.
Camp founder-father admits he did not urge his daughter to call Doug and Elena whose daughter was dying. Instead he continued talk to his own daughter holed up in her office.
He had every opportunity to tell his 50-year-old camp director-daughter to immediately call Doug and Elena instead of talking to him, but he chose not to. This behavior between the two is no less than despicable.
Camp founder-father says he did not have his doctor-son on the camp safety committee!
This is the same son that was supposed to be giving up his ER shifts during the summer so he could be at the camp on a regular basis, according to the family. So, the person most qualified for health and safety is not involved in health and safety. Again, the doctor’s presence at camp was a big reason Doug and Elena chose the camp… especially because they believed that every larger camp with higher risk activities would have a health and safety specialist on-site.
Camp founder-father says he agrees with his daughter that life jackets are dangerous for children who cannot swim!
Homicide detectives asked his daughter, the camp director, if children could wear life jackets at the Summerkids pool.
“No, we don't do those because we believe that those give kids a false sense of security in the pool. Ironically. Yeah.”
And then she laughed on the tape recording in front of the detectives. She laughed about the fact that she did not provide a life jacket for Roxie and Roxie drowned.
What you are about to read from the trial transcript said by the father is a bald-faced lie. There is not a stitch of evidence to support his assertion that children who wear life jackets during training drown at very high rates. Not only is it the exact opposite, but in fact, this is one of the most disgraceful things said during this trial. And there were many. The camp-owner family’s very own expert witness entirely disagreed with them and has his own Note & Float life jacket program for children.
Camp founder-father says his counselors were not at fault for Roxie’s drowning, yet he admits they were distracted.
Children don’t drown themselves. They do not drown under proper adult supervision. Even if there were a medical emergency, which there was not in this case, an adult can rescue a child and treat the issue accordingly. This statement from this man illustrates exactly how little he cared to invest in proper professional training and certification to protect extremely young children in his camp pool, including his very own grandchildren!
Properly trained lifeguards are not distracted. Distractions lead to catastrophes like this one. The Red Cross and other lifeguard instruction organizations do not accept such excuses. These Summerkids counselors were not lifeguards. They were fake lifeguards, because the father and his daughter would not invest the proper money and the proper time to properly protect our most precious cargo.
Camp founder-father says they would never hold back a tuition refund. But they did, long after Roxie drowned to death 9 days into camp.
He and his daughter, the director, held the check for three months until Doug gave them an ultimatum. So either he is lying or his daughter did not tell him that she refused to refund the tuition. This is even more inhumane behavior.
After nearly 7 years, camp founder-father finally admits he was responsible.
Not once did he think it would be appropriate to tell Doug and Elena that he was responsible for Roxie’s death, until he virtually had no choice during trial. The agony that Doug endured from not hearing this accountability for nearly seven years is one thing, but knowing his wife died so young and depressed before hearing this admission is simply barbaric.
Assistant camp director participated in aiding the camp owners and did not know how to read an AED or assess CPR.
According to documents, the assistant director obeyed the camp owner family for a decade. When the camp director-owner told her to stay quiet after Roxie’s drowning death, she did just that. Documents show that the assistant director participated in acts which supported the camp owner family in its efforts to withhold the circumstances of the drowning from the public. She also said that the camp director-owner muzzled all of her counselors from saying anything about the drowning or contacting Doug and Elena to express condolences.
By participating in these acts, the camp-director-owner and her assistant camp director thereby prevented Doug and Elena from getting the answers they deserved as parents whose very young child died under dubious circumstances at their camp. This coverup was inhumane. After 10 years working for Summerkids, the assistant director quit after Roxie died.
Prior to working at Summerkids, she did not have any experience working at a camp. She worked at a ball manufacturing plant and was a self-described lunch lady. That said, she told homicide detectives, “I do all the medical,” meaning she handled all of the medical interventions at a camp that served upwards of 900 children during a summer. She had zero medical experience other than some questionable CPR instruction.
The assistant camp director admitted to misinterpreting the AED (automated external defibrillator) machine. She actually neglected to bring the AED to the pool, wasting invaluable, lifesaving time.
She failed to order pediatric AED pads and therefore attached adult pads to Roxie, wasting more time in a life and death situation. She did not know how to properly assess or aid in proper CPR. And her CPR/First Aid/AED certification, along with 12 other Summerkids staffers and the camp director-owner, were questionable at best, according to court documents. Their CPR instructor told the camp director he would “get you guys out quick,” meaning he would rush through training that had lifesaving impact on children. Incidentally, the CPR instructor’s very own daughter was in the pool when Roxie drowned.
He settled out of Court with Doug and Elena.
The assistant director twice told homicide detectives — without them asking — that Roxie was “so frail.” She never mentioned how resilient Roxie was, having overcome earlier health challenges and how she was in gymnastics, ballet and constantly on the go. The assistant director also told detectives that Roxie “was not a hardy child,” like her two children. That was an insult in and of itself. But, she also never clarified that her sons were grown adults. She repeatedly told detectives information that deflected from her own apparent negligence.
The assistant director, a 60+-year-old woman, says that the camp director-owner told her not to even inquire about Roxie. She followed that order without any question.
This is what the assistant camp director told homicide detectives after the counselors at the pool had neglected Roxie to death and failed to execute proper CPR, according to aquatics experts and the counselors’ own admissions.
“I assessed the situation while I was doing CPR. The counselors, they were doing what we trained them to do. Incredibly proud of how they handled themselves.”
This is what the assistant camp director told homicide detectives about how she interpreted the reading of the automated external defibrillator (AED). When an AED says “No shock advised,” it means the victim, in this case Roxie who was no longer breathing and does not have a heartbeat, is clinically dead at that point.
“It said no shock, continue compressions, which I think at this point in my mind, I thought it was a good thing.”
Summerkids counselors were remorseless during trial. Their stories about Roxie’s drowning were inconsistent, improbable.
Roxie’s buddy group counselor lied about where he was when he finally saw Roxie floating all but dead. Although he was supposed to be within an arm’s length of learning swimmers and non-swimmers, he was not. He also failed to administer proper CPR and admitted that he repeatedly “tipped” Roxie when performing deeply flawed CPR that did not revive her. He did not know any of the CPR terms in his homicide interview.
He also proudly posted a photo of himself with his friends urinating on a local black-owned restaurant. He proudly posted fake driver’s licenses for himself and his friends. His mother, who works as a media relations specialist for USC, complained to a homicide detective that her son was the victim in the pool when Roxie drowned. She repeatedly laughed as she described the horrific event in which Roxie drowned to death. His father, a veteran Los Angeles Times reporter, has remained eerily silent. The Los Angeles Times refused to cover the unprecedented federal trial or any of the shocking discoveries that Doug Forbes revealed through his investigation.
Roxie’s buddy counselor says he briefly tended to Roxie — before she drowned — near the pool steps closest to the entry gate.
Therefore, he originally claimed he briefly tended to Roxie beneath arrow A in this diagram.
Therefore, he claims that he subsequently tended to a crying child under where arrow B is in this diagram.
Another counselor subsequently claimed he spotted Roxie floating beneath arrow C. Yet, that counselor said he was upwards of 45 feet outside of the pool near the tree. How could he see Roxie floating behind the basketball hoop near the pool wall? He allegedly screamed to all the counselors inside the pool area, including Roxie’s buddy counselor who had not spotted Roxie until being alerted. Roxie’s buddy counselor says he didn’t hear the counselor scream.
There is no possible way to do one hop from Arrow B to Arrow C, which is at least 30 feet. There is no possible way to avoid children in order to get to Arrow C, since Roxie’s buddy counselor and other counselors admitted up to 30 children were in the shallow end. At trial, Roxie’s buddy counselor also said he was in the middle of the pool not the steps near Arrow B. Therefore, the logical conclusion is that he lied about where he was and what happened.
He claimed in sworn (under oath) testimony that he had received Red Cross lifeguard certification through the YMCA some years before he worked for Summerkids. He could not provide that certification. He could not provide specifics to most questions about that certification. There is no record that he ever received that certification. He did say that Red Cross training for his YMCA lifeguard certification required less time than the time it took to certify through Summerkids.
Doug’s attorney asked him about that time he spent with Andrew Cervantes at Summerkids for lifeguard training…
The Red Cross requires at least 27 hours for lifeguard training and certification. That means he received, at most, 25% of the required lifeguard training at Summerkids. That also means he would have received less at the YMCA, if he wasn’t lying.
While at Summerkids, he was at USC studying finance, a field of study that focuses on numbers and risk. This is further evidence that he would have known that you don’t get certified for a high-risk lifesaving job in less than one day.
Here is Roxie’s buddy counselor talking about how he performed CPR. His actions violated American Red Cross CPR processes. The immediate application of rescue breaths, before anything else, is critical for a pediatric drowning victim. He didn’t perform them. By not doing so, he could have further suffocated Roxie to death.
He repeatedly “tipped” Roxie, falsely assuming “gravity” was just going to extract the extreme amounts of vomit stuck in her system after being neglected for an extended period. He uses the word “pumping” when it’s actually called “compressions.” He says “blow” instead of “rescue breaths.” This ignorance further illustrates how little he actually knew or cared about legitimate training.
“Then before we tried to blow, we tried to, me and Natalie flipped her and tried to like get out all the vomit.”
He also makes excuses for not keeping these 4, 5 and 6-year-old learning swimmers and non-swimmers within an arm’s reach which, again, violates Red Cross policy and is a deadly error. He also failed to read critical parts of the Red Cross training manual. Nonetheless, his mother, a media relations specialist for USC, told a homicide detective that her son was actually a victim in Roxie’s drowning. Although he neglected Roxie to death, she said he was blameless and “the fun one in the pool.” She laughed throughout her phone call with the homicide detective.
Here is the Red Cross lifeguard manual that addresses how dangerous it can be for non-swimmers or learning swimmers to be beyond an arm’s reach of adult supervisors.
It also mentions how children who crawl hand over hand on the pool wall/coping are evidencing signs of concerning behavior, often because they are under duress. The below photo of Roxie in the Summerkids pool depicts that exact situation. Doug spoke to a lifelong water safety expert who said that the photo of Roxie indicates she had been forced into water that might have been above her mouth—she was not tall. The expert believes she was holding on in an attempt at safety. Instead of helping her to safety, however, someone at Summerkids actually took photos as another child jams her into the wall!
Illustrating a lack of basic decency, Roxie’s buddy counselor is on the left in this offensive photo in which he and his friends urinate on a black-owned restaurant in Silver Lake, CA.
The senior counselor — who was the supervisor in charge of the pool and who described himself as management — abandoned his lifeguard chair while Roxie was drowning, unbeknownst to him. This was in direct violation of camp rules and American Red Cross rules. He also abandoned the scene when Roxie was dying on the pool deck, leaving CPR to counselors 10 years younger with little experience. He was utterly defiant and remorseless during his trial testimony. He is now a doctor.
The following testimony is the same guy who was texting back and forth with former Summerkids instructor Kasey Bell (see above). Here he admits to not being certified as a lifeguard from 2010-2014 when Kasey Bell merely offered Summerkids counselors some water safety instruction. Nonetheless, he was in charge of children as young as three at the pool, while not an actual lifeguard. He knew it and the camp owners knew it, despite telling parents that the counselors were legitimate lifeguards.
Doug had his trial attorney ask if he knew the Red Cross lifeguard training requirements in order to be certified. He claims to not have known the requirements until the week of the trial, 12 years after first being fraudulently certified as a Red Cross lifeguard. His response is absurd, if not outrageous.
First, he has been a defendant for nearly 7 years. Hundreds of legal documents, in which he is named, repeatedly and clearly state the lifeguard training requirements. Second, to think that he, an aspiring medical practitioner, would not know the requirements for a lifesaving job is no less than absurd. Not to mention, medical boards ordinarily want or need to know if someone is involved in a lawsuit, espcially involving a wrongful death, let alone the wrongful death of a child. Finally, the American Red Cross requires lifeguard candidates to pass strict swimming prerequisites before they can even be allowed to train, just like passing tests before one can enter college or, for that matter, medical school.
Here he admits to never receiving any kind of testing before he receives his certification. The Red Cross requires pre-testing and final pool testing and a written examination that a candidate must pass with 80%. Yet, he never challenged anything. We are to believe that he never thought this was odd or wrong for a lifesaving role.
Summerkids camp had a policy which stipulated that the lifeguard in the lifeguard chair remains in that chair at all times. The Red Cross has a similar policy.
It’s important to realize the following, The counselors at the pool and the camp director delivered a story to homicide detectives and to attorneys that a child at the pool suffered a bee sting, and that’s what distracted them from Roxie. Firstly, real lifeguards always have a backup plan if something like that occurs. They could have easily extracted all children from the pool while they were allegedly treating a child with a bee sting and while a replacement lifeguard arrived. They did neither of those two things, because all of them were fake lifeguards who did not know what they were doing, including this guy who offered feeble, overtly nonsensical responses to many questions.
Also, the assistant camp director said she never heard him radio to the office about a bee sting at the pool even though she was sitting, with her walkie talkie right near the camp director in the office at all times when this bee sting allegedly occurred. And finally, he, an aspiring doctor, mistreated this child with the alleged bee sting by not reviewing medical records, checking with the parents or applying true Red Cross first aid protocols to determine potential harm. Therefore, based on inconsistent stories from the counselors and staff, it is nearly impossible to believe that a bee sting even took place.
Most importantly, this senior counselor admits to abandoning his lifeguard chair and does not replace himself. He was utterly disdainful at trial when asked about this. And he, once again, lied by stating that he read the Red Cross manual so man times when he previously said he only read some sections that he thought might pertain to him.
He admits to abandoning the chaotic scene despite being the most senior counselor.
He said he abandoned the scene because the two young , inexperienced counselors were doing a good job at CPR. But then he said he wasn’t able to assess if they were doing a good job because he wasn’t able to see it; yet another inconsistency in his many inconsistent stories.
Despite knowing he was not a certified lifeguard for years, knowing he violated camp and Red Cross policies related to abandoning his lifeguard post, knowing he failed to properly supervise the other counselors at the pool, knowing that Roxie drowned under his watch as the senior counselor on duty without him even noticing and knowing he abandoned the chaotic scene as the most senior counselor after Roxie drowned, here is his final calloused reply to whether he thought, in any way, he was responsible for neglecting Roxie to death. He cannot even bring himself to use the word “drowning” and instead says “thing that happened.” It’s as if he wants us to believe Roxie decided to drown herself.
The following testimony is from the fake lifeguard counselor who was in the shallow end where Roxie was. She was a minor at the time - 17 years old. She was also on Adderall, which is a mood and attention deficit management drug. And while we support appropriate treatment for behavioral health challenges, Adderall use can pose side effects including sleep deprivation and reckless decision-making, which is a concern when responsible for the safety of dozens of very young children in a high-risk environment.
The Summerkids handbook mentioned that working while impaired by the use of a legal drug “may endanger the safety of the employee or some other person” or “substantially interfere with the employee's job performance.”
At trial, she conveniently claims to forget how much time she spent on lifeguard training. Like the other counselors who were deposed not long after Roxie drowned, she had admitted to spending very limited time understanding lifeguard skills and knowledge.
In fact, she spent less than 25% of the required time overall. Only 3-4 hours of that time were in a pool, she was never tested, and she didn’t remember much, because it wasn’t formal training whatsoever. Nonetheless, like the others, she was never concerned about what should have been obvious — this was not lifeguard training, and she was not prepared to manage young children in an aquatics environment.
She claimed she interacted with Roxie and subsequently did not notice her for upwards of five minutes until Roxie was floating dead atop the water.
Then she says Roxie was floating dead a mere 10 feet from her. Yet, somehow she did not notice Roxie at all even though she claims to have been scanning back and forth.
Doug was present during her deposition. After a short break, it was readily apparent that her testimony changed. It is quite possible that her attorney Margaret “Peggy” Holm (the attorney for all Summerkids defendants) had told her to answer by stating “I don’t recall,” which is a common refrain if someone wants to avoid revealing damaging information.
However, Doug had told his attorneys that compared to the other counselors’ stories, and based on his detailed assessment of the pool and of her interviews with homicide detectives, he believed it was possible that this counselor might not have been at the pool or was in and out, which would be a shocking lie and signal a much more substantial coverup by the camp. In fact, a former Summerkids counselor had recently told Doug that Summerkids rarely had more than two counselors at the pool at one time, and those counselors were often socializing or otherwise distracted.
Therefore, Doug had his attorneys ask this counselor if she ever left the pool. Obviously, if she had not, the answer would be a simple “No.” Her answer was anything but simple. And this was not too long after Roxie had died, so recollection should not have been challenging.
The counselor who was in charge of monitoring the deep end admitted playing with 4, 5 and 6-year-old children instead of lifeguarding. She was throwing diving sticks into 8-foot deep waters and having these extremely young children fetch them from the bottom. She failed to see Roxie drowning only 5-10 feet away, which means Roxie was floating dead far from where she was supposed to be watched at an arm’s length in the shallow end.
Again, however, the only people who truly know what happened and why are the counselors at the pool, the camp director and the assistant director, all of whom provided stories which were both untrue, according to myriad legal documents, or conflicted with the other stories.
She understood that she would be in charge of children as young as three. She understood that pools are high-risk environments. She understood that a lack of supervision or flawed supervision could lead to a drowning. And she knows she received only a fraction of required Red Cross lifeguard training.
She admits to playing with children while she was supposed to be guarding their lives. After all, she was a fake lifeguard. Real lifeguards know better. Extensive, proper training, testing and certification inform real lifeguards that they must never play with children or anyone while on duty. Lifeguarding requires 100% attention at all times.
Despite her admissions, she still said, at trial, that it was OK to play with children and ignore her number one responsibility, which is constant, uninterrupted surveillance. Her lack of surveillance clearly contributed to the worst possible outcome… Roxie’s horrific drowning death.
When the lead counselor abandoned his chair, which violates the camp’s policy and the Red Cross’s policy, she failed to either occupy the chair and radio for someone to take her place on the deck OR to extract children from the pool until they improved the surveillance... OR both. In fact, she kept playing with little children in the deep end. It’s astonishing to hear her say that her actions were in no way inappropriate let alone lethal.
When Roxie’s buddy counselor extracted Roxie from the pool. he and this counselor and another counselor attempted to commence CPR. Their CPR efforts were shockingly flawed if not deadly.
Roxie had faint heart rhythm at first. After a couple of minutes of flawed CPR, Roxie suffered complete cardiac arrest, essentially laying dead on the pool deck when first responders arrived. Roxie’s buddy counselor failed to provide initial rescue breaths while this counselor “cradled” Roxie’s head which directly violates CPR practice. Cradling the head can further suffocate a victim already gasping for any air. Also, Roxie was expelling an extraordinary amount of vomit, which signals that she had drowned for an extensive period of time.
In addition to properly administered sets of rescue breaths and compressions. rescuers need to consistently perform mouth sweeps to remove vomit or any obstruction from the airway. These counselors and the assistant director had no idea how to properly perform those sweeps. Flapping lips is not only an absurd act, it does nothing to clear an obstructed airway.
Doug has always maintained that these counselors actually finished the job of ending Roxie’s like on the deck. Incidentally, real Red Cross lifeguard training includes CPR, AED and First Aid training, which these counselors clearly failed to understand and execute.
Unlike Roxie’s buddy counselor and the other counselors, at least she admits that children who could not swim or were learning to swim, let alone very young children in general, should always remain within an arm’s length of an adult. If any of these counselors had bothered to read the Red Cross lifeguard manual, they would have known that to begin with.
Also unlike any of the other defiant, remorseless counselors, this young woman evidenced some accountability, remorse and genuine sadness. And the truth is, although she was absolutely negligent, she was the least culpable because she was apparently in the deep end and not in charge of managing the non-swimmers and learning swimmers in the shallow end.
One of the family members who is a Summerkids co-owner is also an emergency room doctor who was supposed to be at the camp “on a regular basis.”
He was on vacation when Roxie drowned to death. Doug found out he was rarely at the camp in the past.
Roxie’s parents chose this camp in large part because he and his camp-owning family had promised that he, a professional healthcare provider, was going to be on site. They also promised to employ professional lifeguards. Neither promise was true. The doctor-brother was in Hawaii when Roxie drowned. And, again, the lifeguards were frauds.
This was only the second week of camp. He and his camp-owning family stipulated in writing and communications, before Summerkids commenced activity, that he would rearrange his ER shifts to be at Summerkids on a regular basis, which clearly implied consistent medical supervision from a professional.
Multiple documents made it clear that he was rarely if ever at Summerkids during 2019 and the year before. The camp-owning family removed his name from the Summerkids website after the drowning. He would have been the only truly qualified person to administer CPR and AED treatment to Roxie and potentially save her life… if he had been there.
The camp director — his sister — attempted to mislead the jury at trial regarding her doctor-brother’s promised role at the camp, but she failed, according to the following:
The camp owner-director chose not to conduct an investigation into how Roxie could possibly drown in her pool.
A 6-year-old girl died in the Summerkids camp swimming pool under the alleged supervision of multiple counselors. How can it be that the camp director-owner did not believe it was imperative to conduct her own internal investigation into this horrific death? According to a multitude of court filings and testimony, she attempted to bury the story, cover up the facts and keep the camp open as if Roxie drowned from some other circumstance, which was not the case, according to the medical examiner’s written report, all of Roxie’s doctors and other experts.
Doug’s attorney asks the camp owner-director if she questioned one of her fake lifeguards who neglected Roxie to death. Doug’s attorney also asks the camp owner-director if she sought help from her doctor-brother who is a co-owner and was supposed to be onsite.
The camp owners’ attorneys repeatedly attempted to muzzle Doug Forbes and his now-deceased wife in order to prevent the truth from being shared.
While certain information is privileged, other information is not. The camp owners’ attorneys has made numerous attempts to threaten Doug Forbes and his now deceased wife Elena Matyas so that certain damning information that Forbes - a journalist - has uncovered on his own remains quiet. This information is on this website solely to help parents and guardians understand the lengths to which some operations will go to prevent facts from being aired. Doug has traveled the nation to explore summer camp harm. He has found that eerily similar circumstances bind camps that not only commit harm but also administer aggressive coverup campaigns.
According to documents, first responders, Summerkids staffers and parents said that Summerkids was in utter “chaos” when Roxie was found dead. Parents said their children at the pool were traumatized. First responders said the children were still on the pool deck when while Summerkids staffers were violently administering faulty rescue treatment. Summerkids counselor Faith Porter admitted that she even walked the children directly past Roxie who lay dead on the deck.
Parents demanded answers. The camp-owning family refused to admit that Roxie even drowned. The camp director-owner said she needed more information, even after having thousands of documents, including medical reports from multiple sources and a dozen depositions at her fingertips. Every first responder and medical document has concluded that Roxie drowned and not because of any medical condition. The camp director-owner’s own staff has admitted to neglecting Roxie, despite knowing she was a learning swimmer like other children in the pool.
This website is availed to help caregivers make informed decisions about recreational child care facilities like Summerkids — otherwise known as camps — and aquatics-related activities. It also helps caregivers understand that facilities that do commit harm should be held accountable.
The camp owners hired a man named Andrew Cervantes to help conduct the fraudulent lifeguard certification.
As mentioned, Cervantes had fraudulently certified himself to become an instructor. The camp-owning family did not interview him. They did not run a background check on him. They did not check his certification history. Doug Forbes spent only 24-hours investigating him and was able to determine he was a fraud. Doug interviewed Cervantes at length, on-camera. Excerpts of that interview will soon appear on this website. It is nothing less than unsettling as much as it is utterly stunning to hear the truth laid bare. Stay tuned.
The heroic first responders arrived at Summerkids to find a chaotic scene and a child who was beyond saving.
One of the first responder EMS-firefighters said Roxie’s condition never changed from the moment he arrived to the moment he left the hospital. She was dead and she was not going to recover.
As a gesture of deep, abiding appreciation for trying to save Roxie’s life, Doug and Elena hand-delivered gifts to his fire station a month after Roxie drowned to death. This man said he had never witnessed such an appalling aftermath of a drowning in his career. He explained how dramatically it affected the entire fire station and even his own family — he had two young children at the time. In fact, he approached Doug and Elena after his deposition and cried about the experience.
This first responder had explained to Doug not long after Roxie drowned that he had asked the counselors direct questions while on the scene and he immediately knew and said to Doug that they flat-out lied to him about the circumstances, which was similar to their answers for the homicide detectives. This man had tended to at least six previous drownings, including a child drowning not long before Roxie’s drowning. He said that child had to be airlifted to a hospital because her condition was so dire. However, she lived. He said Roxie’s drowning was far worse, with virtually no chance of her surviving. He was right.
SUMMARY
Multiple sources say that the camp-owning family purposefully never legitimately trained or certified counselors as lifeguards or water safety instructors for at least 20 years if not for the entire 3+ decades they had a pool.
Only weeks after Roxie died of wholly preventable drowning at Summerkids due to a fraudulent lifeguard certification scheme, another child Roxie’s age had to be rushed to the hospital with a very serious injury. Records show that approximately 8 other harm incidents occurred at Summerkids in relatively recent years.
Not one medical document, first responder or doctor has cited Roxie’s cause of death as anything other than drowning.
The camp-owning family refuses to tell families the correct cause of death or the circumstances that caused Roxie’s death.
Roxie drowned due to a fraudulent lifeguard certification scheme enabled by the camp-owning family. The director and her father orchestrated the scheme to save a few thousand dollars on training at the risk of harming children as young as three, according to a multitide of legal filings/transcripts.
Roxie’s parents demanded that the Red Cross ban Summerkids from training and certifying any employee in any health and safety capacity. The Red Cross agreed.
Roxie’s parents demanded that the Red Cross ban the “instructor” Andrew Cervantes. The Red Cross agreed.
Roxie’s parents demanded that the the Red Cross revoke all related Summerkids lifeguard and water safety instructor certifications. The Red Cross agreed.
The camp-owning director repeatedly perjured herself in her deposition and at trial, according to transcripts.
The counselors admitted to participating in the fraudulent lifeguard certification scheme by not questioning the extremely abbreviated and erroneous instruction, let alone no testing.
Emerging evidence draws concerns that at least one counselor might not have been at the pool during all times.
Former assistant camp director admitted to numerous acts that helped cover up facts from the public and also conducted derelict CPR and AED administration.
Multiple parties, including Summerkids staff and first responders, said that Summerkids was in absolute chaos with no clear execution of an emergency action plan.
The camp-owning family did not employ a dedicated health supervisor but, instead, chose to falsely position their family member-doctor as the facility’s care provider. Multiple sources confirmed that the doctor-brother was rarely if ever on site as promised.
Roxie’s parents chose this camp, in large part, because the camp-owning family said they would keep Roxie safe with professional, certified lifeguards and because the website promised to have the doctor-brother on-site.
The camp-owning family reopened the pool within days of Roxie’s drowning and kept the fraudulently certified fake lifeguards on duty without any training or investigation.