Parents of Summer Camp Drowning Victim File Suit Against Camp, Family Owners

Six-year-old Pasadenan Roxie Forbes, a non-swimmer, drowned at the Altadena-based Summerkids Camp last June 28.

She was briefly resuscitated, but removed from life support the following day. Now her parents, Doug Forbes and Elena Matyas, have filed a lawsuit against the Summerkids Camp and its owners—eight members of the DiMassa family—and a number of others, including a licensed MD on the camp staff.

The suit, filed in Superior Court November 5, also names at least four other employees employed by Summercamp Kids.

The suit alleges that the camp’s “negligent hiring, retention, supervision and training” practices led to the wrongful death of their only child. The parents are demanding a jury trial.

According to the complaint, Forbes and Matyas are asking the court for an as-yet-undetermined sum, but called for additional “exemplary and punitive damages to make an example of and punish” the camp and its owners.

Roxie entered the camp pool June 28 at about 9:25 a.m., accompanied by her “counselor buddy,” Daniel H. “Hank” Rainey, said the complaint.

“Defendants,” claims the complaint, “knew it was unsafe for Roxie to have full access to the pool, but the Summerkids Camp staff including counselors and lifeguards did nothing to actually restrict Roxie to the steps or shallow end. Rather than safeguard Roxie, Rainey and Joseph Natalizio were distracted and preoccupied with other campers prior to the tragic drowning.”

“About ten to fifteen minutes after Roxie entered the swimming pool,” the complaint continued, “Robert Antonucci, a counselor who was working with other campers about thirty to forty-five feet outside the gate of the swimming pool was the first person to finally notice Roxie floating face down in the pool. When Robert Antonucci saw Roxie, she was floating approximately twenty feet away from the steps in four to four-and-a-half feet of water.”

“Roxie Mirabelle Forbes tragically perished,” said the complaint, “not as a result of some unforeseen or unstoppable cause, but as a direct result of the grossly negligent and willful misconduct of the defendants.”

In detailing the tragic events, the complaint notes that, “Seemingly unfazed by the circumstances surrounding the death of Roxie, the Summerkids Camp remained open throughout the day of her drowning, and did not modify its operations except to close the pool area at the direction of the County of Los Angeles until nine violations were resolved.

Certain DiMassa family members went to Huntington Hospital, said the complaint, which alleges that Cara Dimassa “entered the trauma room without permission and told plaintiffs that Roxie was at fault for her own drowning.”

“This willful, inappropriate conduct caused great emotional harm to plaintiffs,” said the complaint.

In an interview with Pasadena Now following Roxie’s death, Doug Forbes said, “One preventable drowning death is too many and we’re going to continue to use the right language,” said Forbes. “It’s not an ‘accident.’ The DiMassa family [the camp’s owners] continues to call it an ‘incident’ as if they were victimized. This was a preventable drowning death.”

Citing World Health Organization statistics, Forbes said that when it comes to children aged one-through-four, drowning is the number one cause of death outside of birth defects. In the one-through-14 age category, drowning is the second most common cause of unintentional death after car accidents.

“Is that staggering enough?” he asked.

Along with the legal action, Forbes and Matyas said their priority is to push for legislation that protects camp goers and raises awareness of parents about drowning prevention.

“We never thought we would be sitting here today. We chose a summer camp for Roxie where we assumed she would be safe,” said Matyas in August.

But, Forbes questioned, “How is it that parents just send their kids to camps without saying, ‘Hmm, are they licensed?’” he asked “‘Are they certified? What oversight do they have? Who’s really accountable here? How much actual experience do these counselors have?’”

“That’s where we failed as parents,” said Forbes. ‘We did not do that front-end due diligence on this camp.”
A heartbroken Forbes posited that parents may unwittingly trust too fully as they put their children’s fate in the hands of “17-year-olds who can’t vote and can barely drive.”

According to Forbes, there were four counselors at the pool when Roxie drowned.

“And they double as lifeguards,” he alleged. “They put on their nice lifeguard caps and all of a sudden they’re lifeguards.”
According to the county coroner investigator who handled Roxie’s case, she may have been face down in the shallows for many minutes.

“We can’t get into the minutiae of this, but the facts are that they were derelict in their duty as per the reports from a detective, coroner, [and] investigator,” said Forbes.

Along with the legal action, Forbes and Matya have formed a foundation named after their daughter’s beloved Scrappy Cat doll.
“She called it ‘Meow-Meow’ and, so we are starting the Meow-Meow Foundation,” said Forbes. “And the primary purpose will be to promote water safety initiatives, but it’s also about changing the rules.”

The new foundation aims to educate every California family on the dangers of unregulated swimming pools at summer camps, and to eliminate preventable drownings.

In California, day camps are not under any obligation to report to a governing body, according to Forbes.

“It’s unconscionable that daycare facilities have to report, but summer camps do not,” he said.

Forbes and Matyas are working with State Senator Anthony Portantino on a bill that would address this gap in current legal regulations.

Summerkids representatives have declined to be interviewed.