A hidden hazard, a boy's death
By Jocelyn Wiener
Bee Staff Writer
Anthony Farr
When 11-year-old Anthony Farr disappeared into Folsom Lake while bodysurfing behind a ski boat on the evening of May 28, his father, Mike, thought his child was the victim of a freak accident.
Then a relative told Farr, 27, about carbon monoxide poisoning. He immediately started researching.
What he found surprised and angered him: In recent years, dozens of deaths have been linked to carbon monoxide poisonings on or near ski boats. Most of the victims have been children. Many, like Anthony, were bodysurfing, also called "teak surfing" for the teak swim boards behind the boat.
When the results of Anthony's autopsy came back earlier last week, they confirmed what Farr and others had suspected: Anthony drowned after being overcome by carbon monoxide and losing consciousness.
A little over a week ago, a Southern California law firm, Welebir and McCune, announced a class-action lawsuit against several ski boat companies, including small, high-end companies such as Calabria -- which made the boat Anthony was surfing from -- and industry giant MasterCraft. The case was prompted not by Anthony's death, but by the death of 15-year-old Stacey Beckett of Ontario, who died while "teak surfing" behind a MasterCraft ski boat in Mexico.
The suit alleges that ski boat manufacturers have shirked their responibility to warn the public and to engineer away the danger.
"These inboard ski boats -- because of the fact that propellers were set so far underneath the hull and because the swim steps are on the back -- are creating an area where the boating public is likely to be when the boat is operating," said David Wright, an attorney with Welebir and McCune.
According to a study released by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH, in March, carbon monoxide has led to at least 93 deaths in and around boats since 1990. However, because many drowning victims are never tested for carbon monoxide, experts believe the number is much higher. People have died while swimming near idling engines, resting on swim decks, even sitting onboard.
The afternoon Anthony died, he, his father, four other adults and three other children had taken advantage of the 100-degree weather to go wakeboarding in the Rattlesnake Bar section of the lake.
Around 7:30 p.m., as the group made its way back to shore, Anthony climbed into the water and grabbed the right-hand side of the swim deck, as he had done perhaps 50 times before.
Six-year-old Hannah, a family friend, held on next to him. An 11-year-old classmate, Brady, held on to the other side. Only Hannah wore a life jacket. Her father, Josh, stood at the back of the slow-moving boat, watching.
After five minutes, without so much as a splash, Anthony slipped beneath the water.
Four adults immediately dived in to look for the boy. Within 60 seconds, they called 911. The next morning, divers scoured the lake. After nearly four hours, they recovered Anthony's body.
Carbon monoxide molecules starve the body of oxygen by binding to red blood cells. Normal symptoms of exposure include headaches, nausea and vomiting. At the high concentrations behind ski boats, however, the body does not experience these early symptoms.
"It goes straight to unconsciousness, and you don't have a prayer," said Robert Baron a Phoenix emergency room physician and medical director at Glen Canyon Recreation Area, which includes Lake Powell, where a spate of drownings prompted an exhaustive inquirey by NIOSH.
The ceiling set by the EPA for carbon monoxide exposure while outside for one hour is 35 parts per million. At 6,4000 parts per million, according to a NIOSH report, a person will die in about 10 minutes.
Because it is a clear, odorless gas, many people find it difficult to believe carbon monoxide can be present in such high concentrations outdoors. In fact, air streams cause carbon monoxide to accumulate in "burbles" behind boats' swim decks. NIOSH has measured carbon monoxide levels behind ski boats in the thousands and tens of thousands of parts per million.
Manufacturers stress that drownings often have been linked to misuse.
"Really, it's common knowledge that you stay away from that platform with the engine running," said John Dorton, president and CEO of MasterCraft. "The boat was never designed for that activity."
"Somebody hanging onto a boat without a life jacket on is more of a time bomb," said a spokesperson for Calabria, who would not give his name.
Scott Nakaji, sector superintendent at Folsom Lake, said it is unclear how prevalent "teak surfing" is locally, but added that boaters potentially could be cited both for negligent operation and allowing a person under 12 to be on a boat without a life preserver.
Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District Capt. Patrick Ellis, who often takes his own boat out, says he regularly sees teak surfers on Folsom Lake.
Mike Farr feels terrible that his son wasn't wearing a life preserve -- a common practice in teak surfing because life jackets create drag -- but says he never would have let anyone stay behind the boat if he had been aware of the carbon monoxide danger. Nowhere on the boat were there warning stickers, he said, and in the three years he and Anthony had been "teak surfing," Farr never heard anything about carbon monoxide.
Dorton, Mastercraft's CEO, said he first learned about teak surfing in 2001. Since then, he said, MasterCraft has been placing warning stickers on all new ski boats.
"We've got plans in place to get the word out to all of our owners," he said.
"If this is becoming any sort of fad or any sort of activity or sport, we would do anything that we could to get the point across," the spokesperson for Calabria said.
Even education, however, may not be enough. Jane McCammon, director of the NIOSH Denver field office, said awareness campaigns at Lake Powell have had little impact on the number of drownings related to "teak surfing."
Most people close to the problem say the best long-term solution is technical.
"It has to be a change in technology, cleaner-burning engines," said Dr. Baron. "You have to cut off the poison at its source."
Engineers believe such a change is feasible.
Scott Earnest, an engineer with the Division of Applied Research and Technolgy at NIOSH, noted that most automobile engines have catalytic converters and are fuel-injected, while most ski boat engines have no similar controls.
"I could go out in my car that I drove in today and measure carbon monoxide concentration, and it might be a few hundred parts per million," he said. "If I were to do that on a lot of these boats, it might be anywhere from 10 to 100 times higher."
"There's no question from an engineering standpoint it's feasible to lower concentrations," he added.
To this end, a two-day conference in Annapolis, Md., in April focused on viable solutions to carbon monoxide-related drownings. The conference drew representatives from NIOSH, the National Marine Manufacturers Association and the Coast Guard as well as some boat and engine manufacturers.
This month, 800 people attended Anthony's funeral in El Dorado Hills. Anthony had moved several times in the past few years, and classmates from the three elementary schools he had attended presented his family with letters praising Anthony's "prize-winning hair," his athletic ability, his kindness and his willingness to try Vegemite at the countryfest.
"I feel like I'm trapped in a hot-air balloon where only bad stuff happens," wrote one friend. "You probably feel like that, too."
"He didn't deserve this," wrote another. "If I could switch places with him, I would."
Anthony's mother, Richell Johnson, 28, has covered her bedroom with photographs of her oldest son. She and her husband, Kevin, have 8-year-old twins. Andrew is furious about his brother's death. His sister, Alexis, is trying to console their mother.
"You've had a turn," Alexis said the other day. "Maybe God wants a turn. Look around you, Mom. He's all around you, Mom."
Starting today, family and fiends will help Mike Farr and his wife, Amy, pass out fliers on the dangers of carbon monoxide to boaters on Folsom Lake.
"For right now, it makes me feel better to try to do something positive and save somebody else," Farr said. "No matter what, my son's not going to be here. Hopefully, he didn't die for nothing."
Sacramento Metropolitan Fire Capt. Patrick Ellis measures carbon monoxide levels at the rear of a boat on Folsom Lake. The readings Wednesday indicated a concentration many times the lethal level. Family members of Anthony Farr, who died while bodysurfing at the lake, plan to warn boaters of the danger.