meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Post Reports

The hidden truth about Red Cross lifeguards

Post Reports

The Washington Post

Daily News, Politics, News

4.45.1K Ratings

🗓️ 17 July 2023

⏱️ 23 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Red Cross’s lifeguard certification program is considered the gold standard in water safety, but an investigation into the nonprofit reveals alleged gaps in its oversight of lifeguard training. 


Read more:


In 2019, Doug Forbes and his wife left their 6-year-old daughter, Roxie, at Summerkids Camp, an idyllic day camp in the Los Angeles area. Less than an hour later, they got a phone call from the camp director. Roxie was being transported to a nearby hospital. The next day, Roxie was pronounced dead; she had drowned.


Forbes would spend the next four years trying to understand how his daughter’s tragic death could have happened. What he – and The Post’s corporate accountability reporter, Doug MacMillan, discovered – is a series of loopholes in the Red Cross’s lifeguard training program that allegedly allows lifeguard trainees to go rogue and skip lifesaving training protocols.


Today, Doug MacMillan takes us inside The Post’s investigation of the Red Cross, the story of a father who lost his daughter to drowning, and why one whistleblower from inside the organization says he doesn’t trust lifeguards to protect his children.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Before we start a warning, this story contains details about the death of a young child.

0:07.8

Do you come in here?

0:10.6

Is it hard to come in here?

0:11.6

I come in here every day.

0:13.0

I'm my closer in here.

0:14.2

I'm standing with Doug Forbes in the small child's bedroom where he's gathered all of

0:18.7

his daughter, Roxy's most prized possessions.

0:21.7

These are all things that she loved and that had purpose and meaning in her life.

0:26.7

There's a brightly colored desk with the words today as the day carved into it.

0:31.0

There's a photo of Roxy hugging her best friend and there's a collection of children's books

0:35.6

that Roxy loved.

0:37.2

She loved this one.

0:38.2

She loved I Stink.

0:40.2

It was about a trash.

0:43.2

That's more of my genre.

0:44.6

Yeah, there you go.

0:45.6

And we were just, her laugh was infectious.

0:49.2

Doug pulls up a video to show me.

0:51.2

It's Roxy on a swing set, laughing like crazy.

0:54.3

This was actually the last video I have of her.

1:01.0

So I guess coming into her room reminds me of really good things, but it also reminds

1:06.8

me how empty and quiet it is.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Washington Post, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Washington Post and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.