ADULTS FAILED TO PAY ATTENTION.
AND ROXIE DROWNED.
Roxie went to camp one day. And she never came home. Documents and interviews prove that she was neglected at her camp pool and drowned because of it. Read this article about how we drowned with her that day. Instead of the owners and counselors embracing this preventable outcome as a teachable moment in which they held themselves accountable and enlightened the community on how future preventable drownings could be avoided, they chose the opposite path. They chose not to provide the facts and the circumstances, including how other children were traumatized. Our foundation offers the following information to help illustrate the importance of due diligence.
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE FACILITY
They did not employ a dedicated aquatics supervisor but presented their counselors as experienced and capable American Red Cross-certified lifeguards.
They did not employ a dedicated health supervisor but chose to position one of the family members, who happens to be an emergency room doctor, as the facility’s care provider.
The Assistant Director “retired” soon after Roxie’s preventable drowning.
The full-time staff was comprised of only two-people, but the facility presented itself as providing more.
Approximately two and a half dozen 15 to 27-year-olds serve as counselors. The most senior counselor was the lead lifeguard at the pool. He violated the camp’s own lifeguard procedures by admitting to stepping away from the lifeguard chair as Roxie drowned.
After receiving a consumer complaint, The California Department of Social Services Community Care Licensing division determined that the facility was actually a child care facility, not a summer day camp. Yet, the facility continued to operate in defiance of the law. The owners operated a winter camp under false pretenses and were cited again as an illegal operation.
The California Attorney General has since filed a lawsuit against the facility in order to prevent them from opening due to their violations and their lack of child care licensing. That lawsuit is ongoing.
The facility has since been presented with three other lawsuits including discrimination, wrongful termination and wrongful death.
The facility offers swimming, rock wall climbing, archery, hikes along the Angeles National Forest and other rigorous, “high-risk” activities. Certifications and qualifications for running these activities is now under investigation.
The owners said they have a $1 million dollar insurance policy, an extremely limited value to place on children, especially when exposing them to high-risk activities.
POOL AND LIFEGUARDS
The facility hires young adults (15+), most of whom do not possess any lifeguard experience. The owners expect these counselors to certify as lifeguards after they are hired. According to water safety professionals, this is a highly dubious expectation.
For years, the facility has contracted the same person to certify the facility’s counselors as lifeguards.
According to ARC documents and an ARC representative, the person who certifies the counselors is not a certified ARC lifeguard or water safety instructor and may not be a valid lifeguard instructor. In fact, this person self-certified as a lifeguard instructor, which is a violation of ARC policies and possibly an act of fraud.
Yet, according to American Red Cross (ARC) documents, this person does the vast majority of certification assessments for the facility’s counselors at their own private camp pool, instead of a valid aquatics facility such as the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center, Rosemead Aquatics Center or YMCA.
The counselor-lifeguard who was primarily in charge of Roxie and in the pool with her when she drowned had been certified the week before the summer program began by this same certifying person.
The facility owner told homicide detectives that her pool occupancy is 75. This was not true. According to state pool occupancy requirements, based on the size of the their pool, maximum occupancy is 60. The owner subsequently switched her pool occupancy sign from 75 to 60.
Meow Meow Foundation asked numerous parents if they knew the experience level of the facility’s lifeguard-counselors or if they ever requested to see ARC certificates. All said, “No.”
Meow Meow Foundation asked multiple parents if they sent their children back to the facility after Roxie drowned. All but one said, “Yes.”
This little girl is jumping off the facility pool deck into 3 feet of water and about a foot away from the steps and railing. A “counselor-lifeguard” watches her without doing anything. The American Red Cross (ARC) prohibits this activity, especially in water under 5 feet deep.
This little boy jumps off the facility pool deck into three feet of water, which is prohibited by the American Red Cross. The ARC prohibits running and jumping off of a pool deck.
This little boy dives head-first into 3-feet of water at the facility. The American Red Cross recommends a minimum depth of 9-feet. Again, the ARC prohibits diving at all into water under 5 feet deep. Roxie drowned in this area by the buoy line. The pool is quite small.
This little boy also runs and jumps off the facility pool deck into three feet of water and lands inches from another boy.
ROXIE’S PREVENTABLE DROWNING
This is a photo from the lifeguard chair which shows just how small the shallow end of the pool is and just how easy it is to watch children. Roxie was assigned to the steps area in the upper right corner of the photo. She wound up floating face-down, 15 feet away near the buoy line without being noticed.
At 9:40 A.M., the facility’s Assistant Director called to notify that Roxie was being rushed to Huntington Hospital but did not offer an explanation as to why before she hung up.
By 11:40 A.M., Roxie was placed on life support due to drowning. Doctors said her chances of any “meaningful recovery” were essentially null and void.
By 1:15 P.M., the facility owner emailed Elena and Doug to advise about an email she wanted to send to all parents which said, “Approximately 30 children and 4 Red Cross-certified lifeguards were at the pool.” This statement contradicted numerous other subsequent taped statements from counselors.
The owner said, “The children were all in their designated spots: steps, shallow end or the deep end. The lifeguards were in their positions: the chair, the steps, and on the sides of the pool.” This statement contradicted numerous other subsequent taped statements from counselors.
The owner said, “The counselor in the shallow end of the pool had just spoken to the child involved, who was in the steps area. Approximately 10 to 15 seconds later one of our counselors spotted her floating on the surface of the water near the steps. This statement contradicts all other counselors who were purportedly on the scene. One of the counselors admitted that the group neglected Roxie for up to five minutes. Yet, she said that such a period of neglect was “not long.”
The Los Angeles County coroner said the period of neglect in the pool might not be as much as 10 minutes but “in the line of minutes.”
The lead paramedic said Roxie was dead at the pool, which would have implied that she was neglected for minutes. Abundant research proves that brain death settles at approximately six minutes. Roxie’s brain was dead and her heart in full cardiac arrest, meaning it was not beating.
The facility owner said, “A lifeguard grabbed her and started CPR, while another called 911. We also used our camp Automated External Defibrillator (AED).“
This statement is grossly misleading. A counselor 35-40 feet outside the pool fence was the person who saw Roxie floating dead in the water. He said he screamed to the other guards who then pulled Roxie out. Not one of the purported 4-5 counselors inside the pool saw Roxie floating dead for minutes. The pool is quite small as seen in the above photo.
By 1:47 P.M., the owner again emailed Doug and Elena and other parents and said, “Please do not plan to pick up your child early. We have kept the day as normal as possible, which we feel is in the best interest of all the campers and counselors.“
The owner kept the camp open after Roxie’s preventable drowning and never closed down thereafter. As she said, they wanted to keep the day “normal.” Yet, they denied parents the opportunity to pick up their children in the wake of an extraordinarily traumatic event. Multiple parents have since come forward to explain how traumatized their children were and still are in some instances.
According to documents and interviews, three of the counselor-lifeguards at the pool ran from the scene, including the most senior counselor who is 27 years old.
According to documents and interviews, the owner chose to remain in her office while Roxie lay dead on the pool deck. She said she did so, because it was part of the programming.
The owner did not include in multiple correspondence to parents that the county health department shut down the pool for nine violations.
According to one of the counselors at the pool when Roxie drowned, the owner did not retrain or test any counselor after the drowning.
The owner did not offer swimming/water safety lessons to children Roxie’s age, yet for some reason she did offer such lessons to children 3-4 years of age.
Six days after Roxie’s preventable drowning, the owner changed swim policies to offer swim lessons to children Roxie’s age. She also disallowed non-swimmers in the pool unless they wanted swim lessons.
The owner never told parents about the factual circumstances surrounding Roxie’s drowning. She avoided all questions about her role in the drowning.
To date, multiple people have come forward to say that the owner instead told parents that Roxie died due to a medical condition or that she had a heart condition. Every medical report and every doctor’s explanation cited that Roxie died from a preventable drowning.
Accounts and documents prove that the owner chose to mislead the greater Los Angeles community in the wake of what should have been a teachable moment.
We must learn from even the most horrific events—accountability is not an option.