Jazmin Jefferson, the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) lifeguard who suffered severe brain damage after an incident at Roosevelt Aquatic Center, recently succumbed to her injuries.
She was 21 years old.
On the evening of Dec. 23, Jefferson’s immediate family surrounded her as she took her last breath in the intensive care unit at Howard University Hospital. Her death came three weeks after she was found submerged in the pool at Roosevelt Aquatic Center for several minutes.
According to a Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) incident report, a woman pulled Jefferson out of the pool and performed CPR seven minutes after a medical emergency caused her to fall out of her lifeguard chair and into the water.
Amid their efforts to secure worker’s compensation and transfer Jefferson to a treatment facility, Jefferson’s family continued to ask questions about the other lifeguards’ whereabouts and whether the facility had been fully staffed on the evening of Nov. 29.
Deirdre Harris, Jefferson’s mother, told The Informer that her daughter’s death significantly diminished her faith in District government. As the clock winds down to 2024, she continues to wonder how she will move on without her daughter.
“I am a mother who’s going into the new year with one less daughter,” Harris said. “I am devastated and dismayed that Jazmin is no longer with us because her job failed to keep her safe. I am in disbelief and in the deepest grief I have ever experienced in my life.”
Harris, a former District public school teacher and DPR employee, said that, for nearly a year, she remained faithful that the agency would address her daughter’s concerns about DPR’s personnel shortages and alleged disregard for protocol.
That perspective changed, Harris said, as she awaited outreach from DPR officials and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D). As the Jefferson and Harris families spend the holiday season in a state of bereavement, Harris said she remains adamant about ensuring that DPR rectifies this situation through substantial policy changes.
“Jazmin was in the business of saving lives but no one was there to save her life and that’s a problem,” Harris told The Informer. “It’s insufficient [to say] that she had a medical emergency. The expectation is that her life is saved. She wasn’t being surveilled. There weren’t two lifeguards on deck. Jazmin wasn’t the first to lose her life in District swimming pools but she needs to be last.”
A memorial service for Jefferson is currently in the works. While a workers compensation payment will partially cover funeral costs, family members will not be able to hold the D.C. government liable for Jazmin Jefferson’s death, her father told The Informer.
Jefferson, a fifth-generation Washingtonian and the third of five siblings, started swimming at the age of eight. DPR was her first job in the D.C.government, and the last in a long list of affiliations and programs she was involved in since learning how to swim.
Family members told The Informer that Jefferson had plans to purchase a condominium in the District and re-enroll in college. On Nov. 19, 10 days before her incident at Roosevelt Aquatic Center, she accompanied her mother at a work event in Montgomery County, Maryland.
Jazmin’s death comes just months after a patron fatally drowned at Takoma Park Recreation Pool in Northwest and two people were found unconscious at the bottom of the deep end of the pool at Theodore Hagans Cultural Center in Northeast.
As reported in a previous Informer story, nearly a dozen DPR lifeguards resigned earlier this year, in response to what Jefferson’s one-time manager described as DPR’s penchant for opening pools with less than three on-duty lifeguards.
Earlier this month, DPR officials didn’t acquiesce to a request for the footage from the evening of Nov. 29. The Informer has since submitted a FOIA request.
In a statement, DPR Director Thennie Freeman expressed her condolences to Jefferson’s family and colleagues and community members. She said that administrators will maintain contact with Jefferson’s family and make grief counseling available to DPR staff members.
“Jazmin was a valued employee, exceptional colleague and dear friend,” Freeman said. “She will truly be missed. This shocking and unexpected incident has been felt through the entire agency. There are simply, no words.”
Family members told The Informer that had she not been hospitalized, Jefferson most likely would’ve joined them at the Nov. 30 showing of The Nutcracker at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In the days since Jefferson’s death, family members, like Jade Jefferson, recall struggling to come together as siblings and cousins to celebrate the holidays and an elder patriarch’s birthday.
Jade Jefferson, Jazmin Jefferson’s older sibling, described her late sister as a loyal and hardworking person who often strived to resolve disagreements through conversation. She told The Informer that her sister wanted to work with her colleagues to make changes in DPR and prevent incidents like the one that claimed her life.
“This is an extremely devastating and tragic situation that was quite avoidable,” said Jade Jefferson, 23, as she recounted waiting for her sister to return home on the night of Nov. 29, to no avail. “Jazmin was loved, compassionate and very giving to all that she knew. The bottom line is that this incident needs to result in action and change from the District government, specifically DPR. This was a case of gross negligence. Without policy change, this will happen to a patron or another employee.”
Follow Sam P.K. Collins on Twitter: @SamPKCollins
