By Ryan Robinson
The Intelligencer Journal/New Era
LANCASTER, Pa. — Four people suffered carbon monoxide poisoning in a Lancaster city home Tuesday morning, investigators said.
A woman on the first floor was able - barely - to stagger to a phone and call 911.
If she hadn’t, all four in the home at 32 Green St. could have met a tragic fate.
“They would have died in their beds,” city fire bureau Battalion Chief Brian Klugh said. “Whether they had minutes or an hour, I don’t know.
“The carbon monoxide level would have only gotten worse. They were very lucky.”
It was expected that all four would be released from the hospital Tuesday night, according to a family member who asked that she and the others not be identified.
“They’re fine, alert and talking about the experience,” she said. “It was horrific. We are thankful it all turned out well.”
Medics and firefighters raced to the home just after 8 a.m. The woman who had called 911 was so stricken by the odorless gas that she did not know if she should come to the door, Klugh said.
A firefighter asked her if she could come to the door, and she staggered over to him and fell in his arms, Klugh said.
Firefighters in oxygen masks rescued another adult and two teenage children from the second floor of the home, he said.
“They were at the point where they could not self-rescue,” Klugh said. “They were incapacitated and in a lot of trouble.”
An issue with the home’s heating system caused the high levels of carbon monoxide, Klugh said.
The CO was measured at up to 1090 parts per million, he said; healthy adults can be killed in three hours of exposure at 800 ppm, he said, and they can lose consciousness in two hours at that level.
“We had to be on air to go in or we would have collapsed,” Klugh said of the firefighters.
Klugh did not provide the names or exact ages of the four people.
He did not know how long the four had been in the house, he said.
Three of the four belong to a family, and the fourth is a family friend, Klugh said.
All four were taken to Lancaster General Hospital for treatment, according to Bob May, executive director of Lancaster EMS.
They were expected to be released from the hospital after getting oxygen treatment in a hyperbaric chamber, Klugh said.
It is unclear when they will be allowed to reoccupy the home, he said. Housing officials were considering condemning the home if it could not safely produce heat and hot water.
The home had smoke detectors, but they do not detect CO gas, he said.
Klugh urges residents to get all fuel-fired appliances serviced by a licensed professional once a year to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning.
Copyright 2010 Lancaster Newspapers, Inc.