Los Angeles County Camp Prioritized Profits Over Safety

Children at risk for decades

According to public documents, the camp owners arranged for a lifeguard instructor to certify counselors as lifeguards and water safety instructors with as little as 25% of required training and no required testing, all of which contributed to the drowning death of 6-year-old Roxie Forbes.

Multiple sources who formerly worked at the camp confirmed that the camp chose to facilitate illegitimate lifeguard certification for at least two decades, despite putting children as young as three in their camp pool.

A thorough investigation estimates that the illegitimate certification of counselors as lifeguards saved the camp owners $5,000-$7,000 each year in exchange for endangering young lives and ending Roxie’s.

RECOMMENDATION: Parents/caregivers who send their children to camp should demand to review aquatics program policies (including camper swimming evaluations), ask whether their have been aquatics-related injuries, meet with the lifeguard supervisor and request to see aquatics program supervision in action at least one time before committing children to participate in aquatics activities under the supervision of people they do not know, especially when those people are usually young counselors who might not yet be adults themselves.

Camp owner remained in office

According to documents, the sole camp owner on site the day Roxie drowned remained in the office for approximately 10-15 minutes after being notified that Roxie lay dead on the pool deck. The camp owner called their mother and father but did not call Roxie’s parents.

The camp owner did not assist counselors with traumatized children at the scene. The camp owner never asked the counselors fraudulently certified as lifeguards how Roxie could have drowned.

Multiple first responders and camp staff said the scene of Roxie’s drowning was “chaotic.” Counselors marched children directly by Roxie’s dead body. the Assistant Camp Director was screaming instructions throughout the camp. Counselors were running from the scene, including the senior-most counselor who was at the pool and in charge of the pool.

RECOMMENDATION: It is imperative for parents to understand that these acts do not conform with proper Emergency Action Plans, which mandate immediate parent notification, immediate engagement between camp operators and first responders, and immediate camp operator support for traumatized children and staff. Make sure you review the camp’s Emergency Action Plan before committing your child to a camp. And, if the camp does not have a thorough EAP, do not consider that camp.

Parents can’t pick up children

The camp owner emailed thousands of parents, including Roxie’s, a few hours after the drowning. The owner prevented parents from picking up children early, because the owner wanted to “keep the day as normal as possible,” despite the fact that a child had died under horrific circumstances.

Dozens of children, some as young as four, witnessed Roxie die at the pool. The owner disallowed parents from immediately providing critical comfort to their children. Some of those children suffered trauma, including to the present day, according to their admissions to Roxie’s parents.

The camp owner has not publicly explained reasons for preventing parents from picking up traumatized children and refusing to immediately interact with sheriffs and EMS.

Emails and press statements include numerous lies

The camp owner said the counselors were certified lifeguards. According to multiple records, the owner knew they were illegitimately certified. The owner actually told the lifeguard trainer to spend less than one day with the counselors. The counselors admitted they spent as few as 6 hours with the trainer. Lifeguard training is 27 hours plus breaks. Most training sessions span at least 3-4 days. The trainer admitted that he and the camp never provided the counselors with mandatory prerequisite testing nor post-training skills and written tests.

The owner never requested proof that the counselors were trained or tested. In fact, the owner never spent any time checking in on training, which occurred on the camp site.

The owner said all of the children were in their proper positions in the pool. According to multiple admissions, Roxie was floating dead nowhere near where counselors were supposed to closely watch her and other children who were still learning how to swim. In fact, according to accounts, she was close to the deep end. However, these accounts come from the counselors who neglected Roxie. The camp owner said there were no surveillance cameras.

The owner said that the counselor in the shallow end of the pool had just spoken to Roxie. According to a counselor at the shallow end of the pool, she did not speak with or notice Roxie for upwards of five minutes.

The owner said 10-15 seconds later, counselors spotted Roxie floating face-down in the pool. Experts understand that children and adults do not drown in 10-15 seconds. Drowning is a process. The coroner’s report ruled out all possibilities of a medical event and deemed the death a drowning. EMS personnel said the drowning was severe. Roxie was anoxic (without oxygen) in full cardiac arrest, the severity of which, according to experts, would imply a drowning process of upwards of 6-10 minutes.

The camp owner failed to disclose that none of the allegedly four counselors fraudulently certified as lifeguards failed to notice Roxie floating dead. Apparently, a counselor 30-45 feet outside of the pool noticed her.

The camp owner said they used the automated external defibrillator. She did not disclose that the AED prompt was not only misinterpreted but it said that Roxie could not be shocked because of her cardiac arrest.

The camp owner did not disclose that counselors who were illegitimately certified as lifeguards failed to perform proper CPR, failed to provide immediate rescue breaths, failed to properly remove vomitus from Roxie’s mouth, failed to properly position Roxie’s head and neck, and more.

The camp owner said they were conducting “a thorough process to evaluate what occurred.” According to multiple admissions, including the camp owner’s, they did not conduct any evaluation of the drowning. In fact, the camp owner also mandated that nobody speak about the drowning.

The camp owner described Roxie’s drowning as an “incident” and told parents not to contact Roxie’s parents. In fact, the owner said, “Our thoughts and prayers are with the camper's family, who has requested privacy during this difficult time.” Roxie’s parents never requested privacy, because they immediately demanded answers. They would never allow the camp to serve as spokesperson for their child’s interests.

Assistant Camp Director Jaimi Harrison participated in aiding the DiMassas and did not know how to read an AED or assess CPR

According to documents, Harrison obeyed the DiMassa family and carried out their orders. Harrison participated in acts which supported the DiMassa family in its efforts to withhold circumstances of the drowning from the public. According to records, she misinterpreted the AED (automated external defibrillator) machine, she failed to attached pediatric AED pads and she did not know how to assess or aid in proper CPR. According to the American Heart Association, Harrison’s CPR/first aid/automated external defibrillator (AED) training did not meet requirements. Her certifications, along with 12 other Summerkids staffers including Cara DiMassa’s, were apparently issued without the full training.

Cara’s doctor-brother Giancarlo was supposed to be at the camp, but he was not and Cara lied about his role.

Giancarlo DiMassa, an ER doctor, was in Hawaii when Roxie drowned, according to documents. This was only the second week of operation. He and the DiMassa 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. The DiMassa family removed his name from the Summerkids website after the drowning.

The counselors at the pool knew they did not have required lifeguard training but accepted the certifications.

Summerkids counselors Daniel “Hank” Rainey, Faith Porter, Natalie DelCastillo, Joseph Natalizio and Dillon Beacerraf-Gajda said they were at the pool when Roxie drowned. They posed as lifeguards, despite the fact that Summerkids camp Director Cara DiMassa perpetrated a scheme that fraudulently certified them without required training or any testing, according to admissions and documents. These counselors were in charge of critical lifesaving roles — roles in which children as young as three were in their care. The DiMassas avidly promoted such certifications to unknowing families who trusted them with their young lives. The lifeguard certification organization subsequently revoked the fraudulent certifications after Doug Forbes alerted them about DiMassa’s scheme.

An instructor fraudulently certified himself and others. The DiMassas knew about all of it.

Andrew Cervantes was the Summerkids lifeguard instructor who colluded with Cara DiMassa to fraudulently certify upwards of 100 counselors as lifeguards and water safety instructors. According to records, Cervantes fraudulently certified himself on repeated occasions over a number of years. The lifeguard certification organization banned Cervantes after Doug Forbes alerted them about the Cervantes scheme.

The DiMassa’s attorneys have repeatedly attempted to muzzle Doug Forbes in order to prevent the truth from being shared.

While certain information is privileged, other information is not. The DiMassa’s attorneys (which means the DiMassas too) have 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 DiMassas refused to admit that Roxie even drowned. Cara DiMassa said she needs 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. DiMassa’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.

SUMMARY

• Multiple sources say that the DiMassa family purposefully never properly certified counselors as lifeguards in at least 20 years if 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 DiMassa 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 DiMassa family. Cara DiMassa and her father orchestrated the scheme to save a few thousand dollars on training at the risk of harming children as young as three.

• Roxie’s parents demanded that the lifeguard certification company ban Summerkids from training and certifying any employee in any health and safety capacity. The company complied.

• Roxie’s parents demanded that the lifeguard certification company ban its representative Andrew Cervantes. The company complied.

• Roxie’s parents demanded that the the lifeguard certification company revoke all related Summerkids lifeguard and water safety instructor certifications. The company complied

• Publicly available documents show that Cara DiMassa repeatedly perjured herself.

• Publicly available documents prove that counselors Hank Rainey, Faith Porter and Natalie Del Castillo admitted to participating in the fraudulent lifeguard certification scheme.

• Emerging evidence draws concerns that counselor Faith Porter might not have been at the pool during all times.

• Publicly available documents show that lifeguard trainer Andrew Cervantes admitted to executing the fraud scheme.

• Former assistant director Jaimi Harrison admitted to numerous acts of complicity and derelict CPR and AED.

• Multiple parties, including Summerkids staff and first responders, said that Summerkids was in chaos with no clear execution of an emergency action plan.

• Cara DiMassa, Harrison and the counselors admitted to a lack of required training and testing for a complex, high-risk child care environment that managed up to 900 children each summer.

• The DiMassa family did not employ a dedicated health supervisor but chose to position family member Giancarlo DiMassa, who happens to be a part time emergency room doctor, as the facility’s care provider. Multiple sources confirmed that Giancarlo was not on site as promised.

• Roxie’s parents chose this camp, in large part, because the DiMassa’s said they would keep Roxie safe and because the website said, "Giancarlo oversees health and safety, the Summer Challenge, and is a zany addition to campfire. Each summer, he rearranges his ER shifts so that he can be with us on a regular basis.” Giancarlo was in Hawaii the day Roxie drowned, less than two weeks into camp season. The DiMassas lied about his presence at the camp.

• Summerkids hired assistant director Maya Kogan who had no professional child care experience or related recreational facility experience. She left after one year. New assistant director Carrie Meadows has no camp experience other than being a Summerkids camp parent. It appears the DiMassas did not have an Assistant Director in 2024.