Family says student found in bottom of Lake Stevens pool has died
Jun 10, 2013, 10:57 AM | Updated: 5:28 pm
A student who was pulled from the bottom of a pool at Lake Stevens high School last week died on Sunday after he was removed from life support. (Nifasha family)
(Nifasha family)
A student who was pulled from the bottom of a pool at Lake Stevens High School last month died on Sunday after he was removed from life support, according to his family.
Fedrick Nifasha, a special needs student, was found unconscious in the pool on May 31 and has been in a coma since. An attorney for the family says physicians told them it appeared Nifasha had been underwater for a considerable amount of time.
The attorney says Nifasha was at the pool as part of a field trip. The family wants to know why Nifasha was allowed to participate in the outing.
“Fedrick was a special-needs student who could not swim, something his program knew,” says Seattle attorney Sim Osborn. “What makes this even more distressing is that Fedrick had very limited English language skills, making him more dependent on those charged with caring for him.”
“Our preliminary investigation tells us that the only reason they discovered Fedrick at the bottom of the pool was because the school staff noticed a student missing when they prepared to leave the school,” adds Osborn.
A Lake Stevens School District spokeswoman disputes that.
“The facts, as we understand them are that this accident happened at the beginning of class,” said Jayme Taylor. She declined to discuss other details of the ongoing investigation but did say the district is saddened by the news of the student’s death.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Fedrick’s family and we certainly were very troubled to hear that news,” said Taylor.
Nifasha and his family immigrated to the U.S. after spending years in a Tanzania refugee camp. They had fled Burundi.
Osborn says Nifasha’s parents never signed a permission slip for the field trip to the pool.
“Our hearts are broken by the loss of such a wonderful son and brother,” says Emmnuel Dismis, Nifasha’s father. “He’d already been through many challenges in his life and was looking forward to a bright future in the U.S. It seems so senseless that he could have been taken from us at such a young age.”
