A 32-year-old man died in an apparent accidental drowning, according to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office, at Wild Waves Theme Park over the weekend.
The medical examiner’s office identified the man as Vijayarengan Srinivasan. The police report of the incident said Srinivasan worked as a programmer in Bellevue, was originally from India and moved to Washington “about two weeks” before his death.
“At approximately 5:30 p.m. Saturday evening, our lifeguards pulled a 33-year-old male from the Activity Pool,” Wild Waves representatives said in a statement released Saturday night. “Lifeguards and first responder teams immediately administered CPR and 911 was called. At 5:33 p.m., South King Fire and Rescue crews arrived on scene and continued rescue efforts. Unfortunately, the man did not regain consciousness.”
According to the police report on the incident, investigators found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. The report said lifeguards discovered the man’s body by accident, explaining that the lifeguard on duty originally jumped into the water to retrieve prescription glasses and “discovered an Indian male laying face up on the bottom of the pool.”
The report detailed additional incidents where a female lifeguard thought “she saw a blob, but when she jumped in, she could not locate it.” After that, the report notes that a group of children approached a lifeguard to report they’d seen “a body at the bottom of the pool,” but the lifeguard thought the kids were “pranking him” and dismissed the accounts.
In a statement received Monday, Wild Waves representatives said they “take safety extremely seriously and have made our entire team available to investigators, including Federal Way Police, Washington State Department of Health, and Ellis and Associates who oversee our lifeguard training, as they review the incident.
“We are actively reviewing the facts as they become available including all of our safety protocols, reports from officials and the actions taken by our staff.”
Wild Waves representatives declined further comment. According to a KIRO 7 report, witnesses Saturday criticized the theme park’s lifeguards as “slow to react” to the incident.
