Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Personal Injury Law Blogs -> Des Moines Personal Injury Lawyer

Personal Injury Law

: Des Moines Personal Injury Lawyer

Iowa News: More on Furnaces and Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

By Steve Lombardi

This morning I reported on this story: Fort Dodge, Iowa at the Travel Inn pool five children were playing in the pool when they experienced carbon monoxide poisoning. The Assistant Fort Dodge Fire Captain reported the levels of carbon monoxide were 14 times higher than normal. A faulty furnace is to be blame.

This is an update with a few helpful links to explain more about carbon monoxide poisoning, how to protect yourself and hopefully if you haven't had your furnace serviced this year, to get you off your duff to call the furnace guy to do it.

What one has to wonder is when the furnace at the hotel in Fort Dodge had its last maintenance check up. It’s important to keep furnaces clean or carbon monoxide can come into the building.

This story is covered by ABC-5 or WOI-TV, NBC-7 or KWWL, WHO, the Globe Gazette, ABC-9 News, NBC-13 WHO, the AP and The Messenger

You can get free advice on homeowner safety and maintenance advice for homeowners online at several different web sites.

How does carbon monoxide gas kill a person?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKIrbq2pWvw

Carbon Monoxide – Home Inspection Tips – buying or selling your house.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMYeI3pfVrw

What likely happened and how can management protect the customers?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0SLbw5L1qI

National Furnace Heating & AC – keep the area surrounding the furnace clean and unobstructed, keep the burner area clean and maintain the furnace on a regular basis.

Sempra Energy – Carbon monoxide safety sheet.

What are the signs of CO poisoning? • Flu-like symptoms, such as headaches, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath and mental confusion.

Landlords and business owners, like hotel operators have a duty to maintain their building systems. If they try and cut corners by saving on maintenance it can result in faulty equipment operating in ways that cause injury or death to customers or hotel - motel guests. The very same thing can happen in your home. The proper way to run a business is to use systems for maintenance rather than maintenance by crisis. It's not always the fault of the building owner or operator. Some vendors, HVAC companies that do maintenance do a lousy job or fail to do what they were hired to do. Other times it's the fault of the manufacturer in producing and selling faulty products. I have no idea what the situation is in Fort Dodge, but the Iowa's government will likely determine the situation. For all I know they run a tight ship and do all of their maintenance. It could just be faulty equipment that was installed. To know what went wrong the Iowa State Fire Marshall will probably investigate and issue a report concluding where the systems failed and who or what is at fault.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Steve Lombardi

Full post as published by Des Moines Personal Injury Lawyer on February 03, 2009 (boomark / email).