3 taken to hospital after carbon monoxide leak at Vancouver home
Paramedics originally called out for man suffering chest pains
Three people are in hospital and six others are recovering after they were poisoned by carbon monoxide at a home in South Vancouver.
Paramedics and fire crews were called to the house in the 6100 block of Tyne Street after someone reported chest pains around 11:30 p.m. PT Tuesday. Firefighters went in first with paramedics close behind.
When the paramedics got inside, carbon monoxide detectors worn on their vests started going off.
"As soon as they entered the house, they backed out," Dave Rosenlund, battalion chief with Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services, said Wednesday morning.
"Fire crews got everybody out of the house and got everybody into the ambulance … very lucky."
The man who was suffering chest pains and two children were taken to hospital. Rosenlund couldn't confirm their conditions.
The battalion chief said it's believed the "plugged-up" exhaust pipe of a hot water heat exchanger was somehow causing gas to leak back into the home. There weren't any carbon monoxide detectors in the house — which, Rosenlund said, people need to have installed.
The gas is found in the fumes produced by burning fuel. Symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning can include headache, dizziness, weakness, nausea, vomiting, chest pain and confusion.
Breathing in too much carbon monoxide can kill a person in minutes, as the gas replaces oxygen in the blood.
Rash of poisonings
Last month, at least 21 people were sent to Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) for carbon monoxide poisoning. Thirteen were working in the same Vancouver office and five were poisoned at their home in Barriere, B.C.
On Boxing Day, a mother and her five-year-old and three-year-old children were overcome by the colourless, odourless gas seeping into the woman's car in Abbotsford, B.C.
VGH is the only hospital in the province with a hyperbaric chamber used to treat the poisoning.
All 21 people were later discharged from hospital.
With files from Jodi Muzylowski