By James Halpin and Wesley Loy
Anchorage Daily News
Copyright 2008 Anchorage Daily News
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A family overcome by carbon monoxide poisoning while traveling just south of downtown Wednesday morning was lucky their car slid into a snow bank after its driver and the others passed out, Anchorage police said.
“By the grace of God, they plowed into a snowbank and weren’t coming up on an intersection when the driver passed out,” police Sgt. Andy Jackson said. Additional exposure to the gas would have put the family in greater danger too.
Callers reporting the accident said the Dodge Neon was moving erratically and that the people inside were passed out with the driver’s hands waving shortly before the accident, said Battalion Chief Cleo Hill of the Anchorage Fire Department.
Emergency responders found the mother and several children either unconscious or unresponsive at the scene near C Street and 15th Avenue, Jackson said. “Once they were out in the fresh air, everybody came around,” Jackson said.
All were either taken to a hospital or treated at the scene for dangerously high levels of carbon monoxide.
Police did not identify the victims. Police initially said six people were inside. Wednesday night, police Lt. Paul Honeman said only five members of the family were in the vehicle.
The car had left a Mountain View home and was traveling south down C Street around 9:30 a.m. when the driver lost control just after crossing 15th Avenue, Jackson said.
Police found that the car’s muffler had been damaged some time ago, causing it to vent up under the bumper instead of away from the car, Jackson said.
“The exhaust pipe had been turned, so rather than venting out into the open air, the exhaust pipe itself was actually venting into the trunk which of course was connected to the inside of the vehicle,” Hill said.
It was unclear what had caused the damage to the exhaust pipe, Honeman said. It may have been the result of hitting bumps and snow berms over time, he said.
The vehicle had been parked outside overnight, and it was a “likely possibility” the car had built up the deadly gas while warming up in the morning, Honeman said.
A fire department inspection of the home after the accident did not detect any carbon monoxide there, Hill said.
It’s been about 30 years since Anchorage has seen an accidental vehicle carbon monoxide fatality that took place outdoors, she said, though there have been suicides, indoor injuries and fire-related poisoning deaths in that time.
“It’s a very, very rare thing to happen,” she said. For responding paramedics “to suspect carbon monoxide poisoning that quickly ... probably saved lives.”
According to a report published in 2002 by the American Medical Association, unintentional vehicle-related carbon monoxide deaths have long been in decline nationwide, down to just fewer than one per million people in 1998, the most recent data available.
Stationary vehicles far outstrip moving ones for the number of accidental poisonings, with 208 reported deaths in 1997 occurring in parked vehicles, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. There were 61 deaths in moving vehicles during the same year.
Most recently, a married Air Force couple in Vacaville, Calif., were found dead in their SUV last week of apparent accidental carbon monoxide poisoning, The Associated Press reported. The bodies of 22-year-old Chad Cheswick and 23-year-old Jessica Cheswick were found in their vehicle Friday by their apartment manager.
Police say the ignition of the SUV was on, but it was out of gas when their bodies were discovered.
Carbon monoxide is an odorless and tasteless gas that can rapidly cause a person to pass out and die, said Anchorage traffic Sgt. Matt Bloodgood.
When the gas is inhaled, it bonds to red blood cells faster than the cells absorb oxygen, resulting in the oxygen supply being replaced with the deadly chemical. Symptoms of poisoning can include headaches, dizziness, weakness, nausea, vomiting, chest pain and confusion, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Because those symptoms are often similar to other minor illnesses, poisonings could be under-reported, Bloodgood said.
“How many people driving home from work get a headache?” he said.
Carbon monoxide poisonings usually increase overall during the winter months, particularly because of increased use of space heaters, furnaces and stoves, Bloodgood said. Adequate ventilation is the key to preventing poisonings, he said.
“You could have a well-maintained vehicle and still die from carbon monoxide poisoning,” he said.