By Andrew L. Wang and Emma Graves Fitzsimmons
Chicago Tribune (Illinois)
Copyright 2006 Chicago Tribune
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
Seventeen people from two locations were treated for carbon-monoxide exposure Sunday, and experts said the incidents point to the need to have gas-burning appliances checked at the start of each heating season.
Shortly before 3 p.m., Chicago firefighters responded to the Beth-El All Nations Church, 1532-34 W. 63rd St., because churchgoers inside the building after Sunday services were feeling ill.
Fourteen people were in the church at the time, Fire Department spokeswoman Eve Rodriguez said. One person refused treatment, but the rest were taken to area hospitals in stable condition, she said.
University of Chicago Hospitals received four adults and two children. The adults were expected to be released Sunday night, but the children were going to be admitted for observation, hospital spokesman John Easton said.
Two people were taken to Holy Cross Hospital and two to St. Bernard Hospital. All were expected to be released, hospital nursing supervisors said.
One adult and two children were in Provident Hospital in stable condition and undergoing tests Sunday night, emergency room personnel said.
About an hour earlier, firefighters responded to a 911 call from a home in the 7800 block of South Greenwood Avenue, where they found Anna Nettles, 42, and her daughter, Geronda Etian, 16, unresponsive.
Nettles’ mother, Lottie Adams, and Adams’ boyfriend, Johnny Towers, both in their 80s, also suffered from carbon-monoxide poisoning, Fire Department officials and family members said.
Nettles and Towers were taken to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge and Etian and Adams to Jackson Park Hospital.
Etian and Adams were listed in stable condition and were expected to be discharged late Sunday.
Official conditions for Nettles and Towers were not available, but Adams’ son, Jerome Phillips, 54, said they appeared to be doing well.
Peoples Energy inspectors found that a faulty chimney was to blame. Phillips said that the home had smoke detectors but not carbon-monoxide detectors and that his mother hadn’t cleaned the chimney in more than a decade because she didn’t have the money.
“Everybody was complaining about headaches,” Phillips said. "[Towers] couldn’t breathe--he seemed like he was having a heart attack.”
The church’s problem was caused by a stove and a furnace in the basement.
Peoples Gas spokeswoman Elizabeth Castro said church members were cooking with all four stove burners Sunday afternoon, and each burner was not combusting properly. The furnace, which also was burning improperly, sucked the carbon-monoxide laden air from the basement, added more and pumped it to the ground floor.
A few hours after the Fire Department was called, doors and windows of two-story stone building remained open to air out the interior. A Peoples Gas crew was on the scene inspecting the building.
Rodriguez said there was no indication that the church had carbon-monoxide detectors.
Gas service has been shut off to the family’s home, and the church until the problems have been fixed.
Sunday’s incident at the church appeared to be the largest single case of carbon monoxide poisoning in the city since 1995, when a faulty furnace sent a South Side family of 14 to the hospital.
The incidents underscore the importance of inspecting heating appliances when cold weather arrives, Fire Department and Peoples Gas officials said.
“At this time of year, when people are turning on heating units, it is important to check them,” Fire Department Deputy District Chief Rudy Rinas said.
Carbon monoxide, a colorless and odorless gas, can be lethal in high concentrations. It does not activate smoke detectors, and often its victims mistake the symptoms of poisoning — nausea, difficulty breathing — for the flu.