His Name Was Drew.

Drew Hughes was thirteen years old. He lived in Emerald Isle, North Carolina. He played football. He was about to start high school. By every account, he was the kind of kid who went all out on sports, on friendships, on life.

In 2013 Drew was injured in an accident and was transported to their local hospital for care. He was alert. He was talking to his Dad. He said he just wanted to go home. At the request of Drew’s father, Drew was then being transferred to a different hospital with resources not available locally. As a precautionary measure Drew was intubated for the transport.

During the transport the tube was dislodged and placed back in his esophagus instead of his trachea. Drew was without oxygen for approximately 30 minutes.

Drew never recovered.

He died the next day. He was thirteen years old.

His family has spent the years since making sure his name means something.

Do It For Drew

The Do It For Drew Foundation was built on a simple idea: honor Drew by living the way he did. Full throttle. Kind to everyone. Present for the people around you. Standing up for what’s right.

That’s the heart of it. But the foundation also carries a harder mission. Bringing awareness to the gaps in emergency care that cost Drew his life, and pushing for better training, better standards, and a culture of accountability that doesn’t treat preventable loss as the cost of doing business.

Drew’s father, David Hughes, has been telling this story for thirteen years. Not because it’s easy. Because he believes that every person who hears it carries a piece of the responsibility to do something about it. He speaks to departments. He shows up. He keeps going.

He Should Be Here

We sat with David recently as part of IntuBlade Chats. He talked about Drew, who he was, what happened, and what the years since have looked like for his family. At the end of the conversation, he said this:

“I honor Drew by telling his story. Because he should be here right now.”

David Hughes, Founder of the Do It For Drew Foundation

That’s not advocacy language. That’s a father. And it’s the reason we wanted to make sure this story reached the people reading this.

Why It Matters

Emergency medicine is full of people who care deeply and work hard. That’s not in question. What is in question, and what David has spent years raising, is whether the systems those people work inside are set up to catch the moments when things go wrong. A team thrown together in a crisis. The absence of waveform capnography, even though it was a requirement. These are systemic failures, not personal ones.

Training consistency. Protocol clarity. Documentation. Accountability. These are not abstract policy issues.

They are the difference between a 13-year-old boy going home and a family spending 21 hours saying goodbye.

Drew deserved better. So does every patient who comes after him.

If this story moved you, the best thing you can do is consider what you can do in your system, on your shift, in your practice to close the gaps that still exist.

Do it for Drew.