Carbon Monoxide Poisoning-Is Your Family Safe?

If you have fuel burning appliances in your home, you owe it to your family to have CO detectors installed. Carbon monoxide detectors are great devices to use when fuel-burning appliances are used in the home. They can be very useful for keeping watch on the CO levels in the home.
Carbon monoxide (CO) can be a sneaky killer, it’s colorless, odorless, poisonous gas that forms from incomplete combustion of fuels, such as natural or liquefied petroleum gas, oil, wood or coal.
• 170 people on average in the United States die every year from CO produced by non-automotive consumer products. These products include malfunctioning fuel-burning appliances such as ranges, water heaters, furnaces and room heaters; engine-powered equipment such as portable generators; fireplaces; and charcoal that is burned in homes and other enclosed areas.
What are the symptoms of CO poisoning?
Because CO is odorless, colorless, and otherwise undetectable to the human senses, people may not know that they are being exposed. The initial symptoms of low to moderate CO poisoning are similar to the flu, but without the fever.
They include:
Headache
Fatigue
Shortness of breath
Nausea
Dizziness
High level CO poisoning results in progressively more severe symptoms, including:
Mental confusion
Vomiting
Loss of muscular coordination
Loss of consciousness
Ultimately death
The severity of the symptom is related to both the CO level and the duration of exposure. For slowly developing CO problems within the home, occupants and/or physicians can mistake mild to moderate CO poisoning symptoms for the flu, which sometimes results in tragic deaths. For rapidly developing, high level CO exposures, the victims can rapidly become mentally confused, and can lose muscle control without having first experienced milder symptoms; they will likely die if not rescued.
•Many experts believe that CO poisoning statistics understate the problem. Because the symptoms of CO poisoning mimic a range of common health ailments, it is likely that a large number of mild to mid-level exposures are never identified, diagnosed, or accounted for in any way in carbon monoxide statistics.
•Out of all reported non-fire carbon-monoxide incidents, 89% or almost nine out of 10 of them take place in a home.
Handling a CO emergency
Let’s say you and your family are home when the CO detector goes off. What do you need to do in a situation when you notice the CO levels rising in your home? A CO detector will sound in the same way as a smoke alarm alerting residents to evacuate the premises. A detector with a low level indicator is recommended because it is more sensitive to any rise in CO, no matter how slight. It can best prevent residents from developing carbon monoxide poisoning.
If the alarm signal sounds do not try to find the source of the CO:
Immediately move outside to fresh air.
Call your emergency services, fire department, or 911.
After calling 911, do a head count to check that all persons are accounted for. DO NOT reenter the premises until the emergency services responders have given you permission. You could lose consciousness and die if you go in the home.
If the source of the CO is determined to be a malfunctioning appliance, DO NOT operate that appliance until it has been properly serviced by trained personnel.

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