Bridget Reed Morawski
WASHINGTON (WMAL) — Two adults and five children were hospitalized in the early hours of Monday morning after overnight carbon monoxide exposure.
Montgomery County Fire and Rescue spokesman Pete Piringer said that the townhouse did not have power, so to keep warm the family lit a charcoal grill on the first floor.
Piringer noted that firefighters will put on their gas masks at levels between 30 to 35 parts per million (ppm). In this household, firefighters registered levels on the second floor at 200 ppm – an amount that could have proven fatal had the occupants not ventilated their home as they waited for emergency services, opening windows and taking the grill outside.
“The danger is your time exposure,” said Piringer. “Typically you will have a family that will go to bed at night, and sometimes they just dont wake up because they’re exposured to that maybe eight to ten hours of sleeping time, and they’re breathing in that carbon monoxide.”
The family was transported to Baltimore Shock Trauma unit for hyperbaric chamber treatment.
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