Blood tests from a construction worker who collapsed Wednesday outside a building owned by Yale University led emergency crews to discover potentially lethal levels of carbon monoxide inside.
Another 13 people were hospitalized, but the discovery may have prevented a much larger catastrophe, officials said.
“A disaster was averted here,” said Rick Fontana, New Haven’s director of emergency operations. “We could have had a lot more sick people or a lot more deaths if this had gone on longer.”
Emergency crews initially thought they were responding to a “regular medical call” Wednesday morning when they took the unconscious man to the hospital, Fontana said.
However, an hour and a half later, the hospital informed them that the worker had extremely high levels of carbon monoxide in his bloodstream.
Crews then returned to the scene and found 13 people in the building with elevated levels of carbon monoxide and complaining of headaches.
New Haven first responders work outside a building where 14 people fell ill due to carbon monoxide poisoning on Jan. 17, 2024. AP The university-owned building is located a couple of blocks from Yale’s New Haven campus . WFSB 3
It was later determined that construction workers had been using a propane-powered saw to cut concrete inside the structure.
Although it was being ventilated, Fontana said the fumes were not coming out of the building.
Of the 14 people who were hospitalized, nine were construction workers and five were members of the Yale Security Department, which is located on the same campus, a spokesman for Mayor Justin Elicker said.
The man found lying outside the building, which is a couple of blocks from the Yale campus in New Haven, was taken to the hyperbaric chamber at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, New York, where he was in critical condition, Fontana said.
It was determined that construction workers had been using a propane-powered saw to cut concrete inside the structure. WFSB 3 Of the 14 people who were hospitalized, nine were construction workers and five were members of the Yale Security Department, which is located on the same campus. AP
He said another worker was also in “pretty serious condition,” but he was not sure where he was taken.
“That carbon monoxide, it’s not like you can smell it, see it or feel it,” he said. “Everyone thought it was being ventilated properly until we were notified of this group of people.”
Fontana said a typical home carbon monoxide detector sounds an alarm when it detects 35 parts per million. In this situation, there were 350 parts per million, or 10 times the allowable level.
Inhaling carbon monoxide fumes prevents the body from properly using oxygen and can damage organs, including the heart and brain.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the incident.
The man found lying outside the building, which is a couple of blocks from the Yale campus in New Haven, was taken to the hyperbaric chamber at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, New York, in critical condition. AP Inhaling carbon monoxide fumes prevents the body from properly using oxygen and can damage organs, including the heart and brain. WFSB 3
A Yale spokesperson said in an email that it took about half an hour for carbon monoxide levels in the building to reach a safe level.
Yale responders also checked adjacent areas but did not detect any gas.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn