A mother from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, is using her heartbreaking experience to spread an urgent message to other parents. Cassandra Free lost her son Andrew in a terrible boating accident on June 6. Months later, the mom shared that the cause of her child’s death wasn’t a fatal plunge off their boat — it was CO poisoning and it happened in a way most parents would never dream about when taking their kids out for a day in the sun.
Speaking with CafeMom, Free says her family was having a typical summer day on the water.
The mom of three — to Jonathan, 15; Blake, 13; and Andy, “forever 9” — says her kids started out the day tubing while she, husband Brett, and a friend manned the boat on Lake Eufaula in Eufaula, Oklahoma.
“The kids jumped in between riders and took turns,” she says. “They started out at the front, but because of the sun, the adults shifted into the shade of the Bimini top, an open-air canvas canopy on the front of the boat, and the boys moved to the back.”
Then the kids hit their wakeboards and spent the rest of the day wakesurfing.
There were times the kids had to hop off their wakeboards and they needed to drive the boat slowly across “no-wake zones,” but the boys spent most of their day behind the boat.
“It took a good long while to get back to the dock,” Free recalls. “Andy crawled onto the back of the boat, Blake laid out completely on the back seat, and John sat on the deck taking equipment.”
Of course, her boys weren’t being “particularly helpful” so her husband had to yell at them to get their butts up and help out.
But then, Andy fell off their boat and “didn’t struggle.” At first, they thought he was being “defiant,” but soon it became clear that he needed help. Free’s husband and a helpful stranger dove in and were able to grab him, but by then it was too late.
“He was recovered, but he never took another breath,” his mom shares.
It might have seemed like Andy’s death was the result of drowning, but there were signs something else was going on.
“At the hospital, our older sons were insistent that their heads were killing them. Dizziness, nausea,” Free recalls. At the time it all seemed like markers of a day spent in the sun, mixed with grief.
“My husband took them outside while I waited for the medical examiner and then he came back in and said that he wanted to admit them for tests,” Free remembers. “Blood tests revealed the CO poisoning, and the medical examiner was notified to run tests on Andy.”
As the family waited for Andy's autopsy, local news outlets started to report that the boy fell and drowned.
In a post on Facebook from August 28, more than two months after Andy died, Free was ready to set the record straight.
“We did not dispute [previous reports] without having our own concrete evidence, but we knew that this wasn’t what happened,” she wrote in her post. “He wasn’t on the dock. His brothers were treated that night at St. Francis for Acute Carbon Monoxide poisoning. Andrew has been swimming since he was 2 years old — he was a STRONG swimmer — and yet, he didn’t even struggle.”
Andy’s autopsy revealed that he had high (72%) levels of COHb, or carboxyhemoglobin, “a stable complex of carbon monoxide that forms in red blood cells when carbon monoxide is inhaled,” according to MedScape, which meant that he died from carbon monoxide poisoning, not drowning.
Many people think you can only get CO2 poisoning indoors, but all three of Free's kids got CO2 poisoning from being behind the boat all day.
“Boats, even moving, create a backdraft of exhaust,” the mom explained in her post. “That’s right. Exactly what I’ve typed: carbon monoxide exits the rear of the boat and drafts right back into the back of the boat. Backseat riders are especially vulnerable at low speeds and in long no-wake zones like the one we had to cross to return to the docks."
It’s called “open-air carbon monoxide poisoning.”
“Our little Andy, our Dude, was probably slowly dying that afternoon/evening and we didn’t know it,” Free explained. “He would’ve been tired. His head would’ve started to hurt. Sounds like too much sun after a long, physically draining day of wakeboarding, wake surfing, and tubing.
“Had he not fallen over, had he made it into the car, even if he wouldn’t have passed at the lake, he would’ve been so severely brain-damaged that he likely would’ve passed away in his sleep on the way home,” she added. “Even if he would’ve gone immediately to the ER at that time, he still would’ve died.”
More than 10,000 people have shared Free’s post, and the mom tells us that she wanted to tell others her son’s story because many boaters are unaware of the risks.
“Inboard boats can accumulate lethal levels [of carbon monoxide] in minutes,” she tells us. “Boat owners will spend up to and even in excess of $100,000 for a boat. We trust our boats the way that we trust our cars, for the most part.”
The mom says that this information isn’t widely known.
“Unless you know of the risk, unless you or someone you know has been affected, you don’t know to look for this. It is not included in all boater safety classes,” she says.
“Most states do not require that adult operators take boater safety anyway,” she adds. “This is frustrating.”
She holds boat manufacturers and the U.S. Coast Guard responsible for keeping this information from the public.
“There should’ve been huge reforms to the boating industry,” she tells CafeMom. “I want reform because, even if your boat is safe, the boat next to you might not be and its emissions can harm you and your passengers. It will be complicated, but it’s long overdue.”
Until these reforms happen, Free will keep sharing her son’s story so other parents will keep their kids safe.
“I will never forgive myself for what was out of my control, which is why I will continue to spread his story,” she explains. She and her husband still doesn’t know if there will be other long-term effects for her other sons, who also had CO2 poisoning.
Between Free, her husband, and a friend who was with them, they have years and years of boating experience — and none of them knew that CO2 poisoning outside was possible.
“Our family was destroyed,” she says. "We can never be whole in this life, ever again. Andy was the most amazing child. His future was huge. And it was stolen from him and stolen from his family. He was my baby and my best friend.”
The mom says she hopes that by spreading awareness, others will join her in the push for safer exhaust laws.
“No one is exempt from the danger,” she says. “But, if people are aware, if people started looking at safer exhaust options, such as Fresh Air Exhaust, if people make their kids ride in the front of a boat or boated for shorter periods of time with fresh air breaks, people would be safer. All water accesses should have posted warnings of the dangers.
