CO deaths

BobC

Another tragic event apparently caused because there were no working CO detectors in the home. From what I've heard since it was the heating system.

Bob

Father, Son Found Dead Inside Massachusetts Home; High CO Levels Detected
The bodies of Joseph Lopes, 41, and his 9-year-old son Collin were found inside their Acushnet home Wednesday morning

By Kaitlin Flanigan and Kathryn Sotnik


A 9-year-old boy and his dad are dead after an apparent carbon monoxide leak in Acushnet, Massachusetts. (Published Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2016)
High levels of carbon monoxide were detected as the bodies of a father and his 9-year-old son were found inside their Acushnet, Massachusetts, home after firefighters were called for a well-being check, official confirm.
Authorities in Acushnet say they received a call from a woman trying to reach her ex-husband, identified as 41-year-old Joseph Lopes, and her son, Collin, living at 3 Buttonwood Lane just after 8 a.m. Wednesday.
When officers initially arrived to check on the house, they a car in the driveway and nothing amiss outside. However, when officers called Acushnet Elementary School, they found out Collin was not there.
Police and fire officials went back to the Buttonwood Lane home around 10:30 a.m. and detected carbon monoxide levels that indicated it was unsafe for them to enter the house. Eventually they found two bodies inside, whom were later identified as 41-year-old Joseph Lopes and his son Collin.
Father, Son Found Dead in Home

A 9-year-old boy and his dad are dead after an apparent carbon monoxide leak in Acushnet, Massachusetts. (Published Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2016)
Police say two dogs, one dead and one very ill, were also found inside the home.
Later in the day, Jason Lopes, Joseph's brother, spoke to necn.
"It's hard to fathom, hard to grasp, I'm waiting for him to come out of the house," he said.
Lopes said his nephew loved to play outside. Joseph worked as a carpenter and coached his son's sports teams.

Two bodies were found inside an Acushnet, Massachusetts, home on Wednesday after firefighters were called for a well-being check and high levels of carbon monoxide were detected. (Published Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2016)
"My brother worked really, really hard every day. That's one thing I always admired about him, he worked hard for his kids and his family."
​Neighbor Ben Bergeron said he knew something was wrong when he didn't see Collin outside playing like he normally would.
"He wasn't outside playing so I thought that was kind of unusual," Bergeron said. "I'm really, really sorry they had to go through this."
​
​The source of the CO is still not known, but the deaths are not suspicious according to the Bristol County District Attorneys Office.
"The carbon monoxide detectors typically sound at 30 parts per million. We had parts per millions in the thousands," said Acushnet Fire Chief Kevin Gallagher.
​
The home was vented by Acushnet Fire, and afterwards the Bristol district attorney and State Fire Marshal's office will start their investigation, which is still ongoing.
In a statement, Acushnet Superintendent of Schools Dr. Steven Donovan said crisis counselors will be at Acushnet Elementary School to help with students and staff "dealing with this tragic situation." The school will also be communicating with parents about the case.

NY_Rob

Sad, and preventable!
I didn't see in the article above mention of "no working CO detectors" or just "no CO detectors" in the home?

A quick related story...
My buddy is in the local FD, he's been in over 30 years- he's seen a lot of things that could have prevented.
A friend of his just purchased a home last summer- as a house warming gift my FD friend gave them two top of the line CO detectors. On the first cold night since they moved in- my FD buddy got an angry call from the wife/homeowner "these CO detectors you got us suck... they keep going off!" "we took them outside and they stopped, as soon as we brought them back inside they went off again.... they must be defective". My buddy asked "how is everyone feeling"... the wife said it was only her and her 14yo daughter at home- she felt fine and the daughter just went upstairs to bed because she had just gotten a headache and felt a little nauseous! My buddy told her to get out now... he called their local FD for them.
It turned out the flue pipe had come apart in the crawlspace and was spewing raw exhaust right into the basement.
... and the wife is a nurse at a local hospital....

KC_Jones

NY_Rob said:

S
A quick related story...
My buddy is in the local FD, he's been in over 30 years- he's seen a lot of things that could have prevented.
A friend of his just purchased a home last summer- as a house warming gift my FD friend gave them two top of the line CO detectors. On the first cold night since they moved in- my FD buddy got an angry call from the wife/homeowner "these CO detectors you got us suck... they keep going off!" "we took them outside and they stopped, as soon as we brought them back inside they went off again.... they must be defective". My buddy asked "how is everyone feeling"... the wife said it was only her and her 14yo daughter at home- she felt fine and the daughter just went upstairs to bed because she had just gotten a headache and felt a little nauseous! My buddy told her to get out now... he called their local FD for them.
It turned out the flue pipe had come apart in the crawlspace and was spewing raw exhaust right into the basement.
... and the wife is a nurse at a local hospital....

Apparently she needs more education?! Sometimes it's because people just don't know what to do. Who does one call when the CO detector goes off? My wife asked me this. I said you call no one, you get the hell out of the house and we worry about who to call later treat it the same as fire since both can kill you. Protect life first.

ChrisJ

KC_Jones said:

NY_Rob said:

S
A quick related story...
My buddy is in the local FD, he's been in over 30 years- he's seen a lot of things that could have prevented.
A friend of his just purchased a home last summer- as a house warming gift my FD friend gave them two top of the line CO detectors. On the first cold night since they moved in- my FD buddy got an angry call from the wife/homeowner "these CO detectors you got us suck... they keep going off!" "we took them outside and they stopped, as soon as we brought them back inside they went off again.... they must be defective". My buddy asked "how is everyone feeling"... the wife said it was only her and her 14yo daughter at home- she felt fine and the daughter just went upstairs to bed because she had just gotten a headache and felt a little nauseous! My buddy told her to get out now... he called their local FD for them.
It turned out the flue pipe had come apart in the crawlspace and was spewing raw exhaust right into the basement.
... and the wife is a nurse at a local hospital....

Apparently she needs more education?! Sometimes it's because people just don't know what to do. Who does one call when the CO detector goes off? My wife asked me this. I said you call no one, you get the hell out of the house and we worry about who to call later treat it the same as fire since both can kill you. Protect life first.

I behave a little differently
I grab the alarm and walk outside with it and everyone else.

If it continues, I'd start to question the alarm. I've had too many of them go off for no reason, and just keep going off. This is why I insist on having multiple alarms in the house.

I guess if you only have one alarm you could call the fire department?

NY_Rob

Having just one CO alarm is just asking for someone to ignore/disable it. You need at least two just to troubleshoot.

The other thing to keep in mind is that different house layouts will show different results with a CO incident.
- We had a fireplace backdraft issue last winter on a night with documented 50+mph wind gusts. The downstairs CO detector sounded at 2am.... the upstairs (where the bedrooms are) CO alarm sounded almost exactly an hour later at 3am.

SWEI

Assuming the alarm was working correctly, that house could have been at 60 PPM for days without it going off.