A teenage boy is dead while at least 14 other people have been hospitalized because of apparent carbon monoxide poisoning, where the victims were found unconscious around the indoor pool of a hotel in Michigan.
According to the police, the carbon monoxide leak that happened Saturday, April 1, can be attributed to a broken pool heater.
Details Of Apparent Carbon Monoxide Poisoning
The 14 victims were brought to different local hospitals in Niles, a town situated north of the Indiana state line.
The police department identified the dead as 13-year-old Bryan Douglas Watts. Eight other children, on the other hand, were transported to South Bend, Indiana’s Memorial Hospital, with three already released by Saturday evening and the remaining ones reported to be fine by Sunday noon. The five kids found unconscious alongside the pool range from 12 to 14 in age, police added.
Police responded to the hotel at about 10 a.m. ET. When they arrived at the scene, first responders evacuated the children before taking them to nearby hospitals. It was unclear how long the victims were unconscious before they were found by hotel staff.
"When we first went in with our [air] monitors, the monitors went off. All the responders took a little bit more risk, but we had to get those kids out of there and into fresh air for their best chance at survival,” said fire department caption Don Wise in a media briefing.
They went through every hotel floor to evacuate remaining guests or staff, during which a family member of one of the victims alerted them to a child in a first-floor room who was not breathing. The girl in question was able to eventually respond to the officers and walk toward an ambulance, police recounted.
The hotel, which had about 24 rooms booked during the incident, was evacuated and has remained closed for investigation.
Carbon Monoxide Reading: Off The Charts
Police revealed that when they arrived, carbon monoxide levels in the building were 800 parts per million (ppm), way above the 50 ppm maximum set by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration for workplace exposure in healthy adults. U.S. standards, too, dictate only 35 ppm for a one-hour exposure.
A faulty pool heater is blamed for the incident, with the ventilation system, according to the police, having issues such as a malfunctioning exhaust. It is also unclear whether the hotel’s pool area has a carbon monoxide detector.
Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas created when fuel is burned. Too much of it in the air can replace one’s oxygen in red blood cells and lead to tissue damage or even death.
Every year in the United States, more than 400 deaths are blamed on CO poisoning that isn’t linked to fire. More than 20,000 people are brought to the emergency room for this cause.
Families and establishments are thus advised to make sure that fuel-burning vented equipment is vented to the outside in order to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning, as CO is produced when fuel burns incompletely. Safe heating tips can also prevent similar accidents when the temperature drops.
