Parents of 6-year-old who drowned in Altadena camp pool speak out

After their 6-year old daughter drowned at an Altadena summer camp, Doug Forbes and Elena Matyas were left with many questions. They’ve found some answers but no relief, they said. Meanwhile, the camp’s management said the situation is under evaluation.

By Bradley Bermont | bbermont@scng.com |

PUBLISHED: August 13, 2019 at 5:46 pm | UPDATED: August 14, 2019 at 11:03 am

Instead of shopping for school supplies last week, Pasadena parents Doug Forbes and Elena Matyas searched for answers in a Los Angeles County Coroner’s report.

They hoped that they would find something that indicated their daughter’s death was unavoidable; praying that 6-year-old Roxie would have passed away, even if she were safe at home.

That might have assuaged some of the guilt they feel about sending their daughter to Altadena-based Summerkids Camp where she drowned June 28.

Six weeks after losing their only child, the coroner’s report brought answers but no relief. It wasn’t an unexpected medical malady that killed their daughter, Matyas said. Her death was classified as a “near drowning” because Roxie died the next day, but for the parents, it translates to negligence.

Representatives from the camp declined to be interviewed for this article. In a statement, the camp’s management said the situation is under evaluation.

“We entrusted this camp with the care of our child,” Matyas said. “That’s our guilt.”

“(Summerkids) failed,” Forbes said. “We can safely say they failed.”

The family waited to speak publicly until they were certain about the cause of death. They provided parts of the coroner’s report to this news group, alongside statements the family gathered from paramedics and firefighters.

Before camp even started, Roxie’s parents told the staff about their daughter’s disability. She was developmentally delayed, though doctors told the family she would live a normal life; things would just happen a little later for her compared to other kids, Forbes said.

Her gait was affected; she walked a little slower, ran a little less gracefully, jumped a little shorter, her parents said.

Despite private swimming lessons, Roxie wasn’t a fish in the water. On the first day, the camp tested all the campers’ swimming abilities. Roxie was designated a “nonswimmer,” Forbes said.

They told the camp’s assistant director, Jaimi Harrison, about Roxie’s disability, documents from the coroner’s office confirmed. On the second day of camp, Matyas asked the camp’s director, Cara DiMassa, about pool safety. She assured the family they would keep a close watch on their daughter.

Camp knew she wasn’t a good swimmer

Less than an hour after dropping Roxie off at the camp on June 28, Forbes received a phone call.

There were 30 campers, supervised by four counselors who were on lifeguard duty that day — all Red Cross-certified, camp officials told parents — but none saw Roxie floating face-down in the camp’s pool that morning, according to the coroner’s report.

The American Lifeguard Association recommends at least two lifeguards be on duty at all times; once there are more than 50 swimmers in a pool, the organization suggests adding an additional lifeguard for every 25 swimmers.

It was another counselor, outside of the pool area, who peered through the chain-link fence and saw a little girl unresponsive in the shallow end of the pool, according to a detective’s report given to the coroner’s office. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has an active investigation into the case, according to homicide Detective Steve Blagg. This is typical for drowning incidents, especially those involving children.

In a written statement, camp officials said they were fully cooperating with the investigation.

Roxie wasn’t wearing any kind of a flotation device, the coroner’s report said, referencing a conversation with a detective who interviewed camp staff on the scene.

The lifeguard who was assigned to that area was distracted by another crying child, the coroner’s report said. It isn’t clear exactly how long it took anyone to notice that Roxie was in trouble.

The camp doesn’t have surveillance cameras in the pool area, the parents said, and reports from camp officials were inconsistent, according to the coroner’s report.

Some counselors told the Los Angeles County Fire Department she was “in trouble for approximately 15 to 20 seconds,” and a few minutes earlier, they told first responders it was more like 30 seconds, according to reports from both the fire department and ambulance operators.

But when Forbes asked Associate Deputy Medical Examiner Julie Huss-Bawab for her professional opinion, she told him it “was more in the line of minutes,” not seconds, based on the state of the girl’s body, Forbes said.

A spokeswoman for the agency confirmed that Huss-Bawab spoke with the family, but said the conversation was private. Huss-Bawab declined to comment for this story.

Pulling Roxie from the water, counselors performed CPR for a few minutes, unable to resuscitate her even after using a defibrillator. When the paramedics and firefighters arrived a few minutes later, the color had already drained from Roxie’s face; the medical professionals couldn’t find a pulse, according to both firefighters and ambulance reports.

It took 40 minutes of chest compressions, a shot of epinephrine and another round of defibrilation before they were able to restart her heart. But it was already too late.

“She was gone and never came back,” Forbes said.

Roxie passed away the next day when doctors recommended the family take her off life support.

Emails and statements

DiMassa, whose family owns the facility, refused to answers questions for this article. She provided a written statement to this news group saying, “This was the first such incident at our camp in more than 40 years of operation, and we continue to thoroughly evaluate what occurred.”

It’s similar to the statement the camp provided reporters last month when initially asked for comment on Roxie’s death.

The first email from the camp, addressed to all parents, popped into Forbes’ inbox while they were still in the hospital. It described the incident and said a counselor had spoken to Roxie 10 to 15 seconds before they pulled her from the water.

A second email came 30 minutes later, the family said. It was similar but had a brief disclaimer at the top, which said counselors hadn’t told the other children what happened and moved them to a safe location. It ended with: “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.”

On Monday, three days after Roxie’s death, campers were back at Summerkids.

It’s unclear if the counselors overseeing the pool at the time of the 6-year-old’s death returned to their lifeguarding positions.

Camp administrators told parents in an email they closed the pool while they reviewed their swimming policies.  

The Los Angeles County Health Department ordered the pool closed after learning about Roxie’s death on the news, a spokesman for the agency confirmed. This is a typical response after any fatal drowning, but officials found nine separate Health Code violations which ranged from improper chlorination levels and failing to keep the pool clean to missing signage and equipment issues, such as a gate that didn’t close properly.

On the same day county officials gave them permission to reopen the pool, the camp sent out an email that read: “After careful consideration, we have decided to reopen our pool next week with some adjustments to our swim procedures.”

In the new procedures, nonswimmers would only be allowed in the pool during swim lessons. They also introduced individual bracelets for each camper, which would let counselors identify a child’s swimming ability at a glance.

According to the World Health Organization, drowning is the second most common cause of unintentional injury-related death for children ages 1 to 14. Automobile accidents are first.

A call for accountability

None of these changes quelled Forbes and Matyas’ concerns.

“Summerkids’ counselors admitted (to county investigators) that they looked away from Roxie and other nonswimmers,” Forbes said and the detective’s statement to the coroner’s office backs this assertion. “You never, ever look away from a child that doesn’t swim.”

The family has retained a lawyer and is considering legal action against the camp.

“With (Roxie), it was Christmas morning, every single morning,” Matyas said. She and Forbes would hear her daughter’s footsteps outside of their bedroom door every morning.

“Kids are always up before you want to be,” she said.

Their whole lives were built around their daughter.

“There’s no more cereal to pour, no more lunch to make, no more getting backpacks ready for school,” Matyas said through tears. It was always loud when Roxie was home. She would run through the house, ride her scooter through the hallways and crash into the furniture.

“We now face this colossal quiet,” Forbes said. “Her outrageous, infectious laugh — gone.”

They’ve felt isolated lately. No one knows what to do when you lose a child, he said.

“We’re branded ‘those people’ now,” Matyas said, acknowledging that they’re likely going to lose some friendships over this. “Just please don’t make me the dead girl’s mom in the grocery store that you walk away from,” she said.

In California, overnight camps as well as day camps like Summerkids are loosely regulated. Unlike day care operations, which require a specific license to operate, there is no similar process or oversight committee that governs day camp operations.

While organizations such as the American Camp Association provide some oversight and a basic standard for camps to meet before they can be accredited, joining the organization is voluntary.

Summerkids is not accredited by the American Camp Association.

Forbes and Matyas say they’re going to dedicate themselves to building a nonprofit to fight for increased regulation of camps across the state. They hope to eventually lobby the state Legislature to set basic requirements for all summer camps.

They say the new laws should be called “Roxie’s Rules.”