Posted on 02/22/2014 8:51:41 PM PST by BenLurkin
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) One person is dead and at least two dozen others were rushed to area hospitals for apparent carbon monoxide poisoning at a mall on Long Island Saturday evening.
As CBS 2′s Hazel Sanchez reported, police said 55-year-old Steven Nelson, the manager of the Legal Sea Foods restaurant located at the Walt Whitman Shops in Huntington Station, was killed by the odorless gas.
total of 28 people were also rushed to area hospitals and treated for elevated levels of carbon monoxide, 1010 WINS reported.
The original call was that a woman had fallen and had a head injury. Thats possibly as a result of the carbon monoxide. That ultimately was not the person who died. That was someone else. But thats what started the response of the emergency personel, Suffolk County Police Lt. Jack Fitzpatrick told Sanchez.
A spokesperson for Huntington Hospital said 10 of those sickened were rushed there and that others were triaged at the scene, 1010 WINS reported.
Fitzpatrick said four of those affected were ambulatory workers and three were police officers who responded to the scene, WCBS 880′s Sophia Hall reported.
Police said the leak originated in the basement of Panera Bread, possibly due to a faulty heating system, Sanchez reported.
The Panera Bread as well as the neighboring Cheesecake Factory were evacuated as a precaution.
Kathy Sella and Ashley Harper were at the Cheesecake Factory when the wait staff told the entire restaurant to get out, Sanchez reported.
We were sitting at the bar, we are having a glass of wine. And then somebody came up to us I think it was one of the waitresses and she said that you had to leave, Sella said.
Shes like everyone has to evacuate the building and were like whats the matter and she says theres a gas leak, Harper added.
Most of those sickened have since been treated and released. Those who remain hospitalized are expect to make a full recovery.
Breaking bump
Awful.
The problem with CO is that there actually is no safe limit and one never actually recovers from inhaling it yes there is the official safe limit but the reality is that the more you ingest, the more damage is done .and any damage done is permanent. So, inhale a little and do a little permanent damage, inhale a lot and do a lot of damage.
Where would it come from in a mall?
Someone let out a big one?
What permanent damage? CO binds permanently to hemoglobin, but as red cells are replaced, the carboxyhemoglobin is gotten rid of, so what permanent damage are you talking about?
Hhmmmm...reminds me of an episode of “24”
Shes like everyone has to evacuate the building and were like whats the matter and she says theres a gas leak, Harper added.
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Wellesley grad no doubt
The problem is that even a slight lack of oxygen results in a brain injury
. General cognitive ability, headaches, propensity to be distracted/disorganized/inability to multi-task etc. Then there are related physical symptoms which are things like inability to keep ones balance, vertigo
for men, the inability to maintain an erection. By no means a complete list but it is in these areas that problems arise.
First, there is always a "safe limit" for anything. If you don't understand that, you don't understand the "fineness" of the granularity of matter.
Second, small amounts of CO will NOT do any permanent damage to the human body. Larger amounts may. (I would call death permanent damage. Brain damage is also possible but certainly NOT inevitable.)
Third, the effects of CO are not cumulative over large spans of time. They may be cumulative over short spans of time.
Fourth, the binding of CO to hemoglobin IS a reversible reaction, but it does take a while for it to occur.
CO is very toxic. If I recall correctly, the lethal dose 50% (LD50) is 1% for one minute.
I have some experience in this area as my brother was seriously exposed to CO a few years ago. I feel that CO is such an underrated danger that this past year, I purchased 50 CO detectors that are about the size of a key chain. I gave them away to all my family members and employees. I picked the one I did because it gives readings in trace amounts as opposed to just giving an alarm. My employees could be exposed to CO in the factories where they do work or even in hotel rooms... yes, this past year there has been quite a few incidents of high CO levels in hotel rooms due to pool heaters etc not working properly.
an a malling tragedy
he furthered "despite the fact my yacht is firmly anchored in sea ice, the beaches are open"
and additionally from the "Frosty Gator" in Tampa...
It has been more than 12 years since my son got carbon monoxide poisoning, he realized before he passed out what was going on and was able to crawl to a place where someone would see him and call for help. A co-worker who was with him said that his heart was jumping out of his chest.
The ambulance crew gave him oxygen and he was in the hospital for around 30 minutes before he came to and told them what was wrong they checked and said that he had what should be a lethal dose He recovered quickly and as far as I know has had no permanent damage. The Dr. said that he had the heart of a horse because he shouldn’t have survived.
Some years later he had to have a hernia operation and the medical staff was amazed that his heart rate was only 40 beats per minute and when he was in the recovery room the alarm was constantly going off, they thought he was a marathon runner or something.
What I said too, but don't expect anyone on this forum to ever admit they're wrong.
I worked at a big company in Dallas in the 1980s. I would arrive in the morning feeling fine, but after a while I would feel crappy, and I wasn’t the only one. A team of us were assigned to figure out what the problem might be.
The result: it turned out that the main air intake for the building was located OVER THE LOADING DOCK. The big rigs would show up at the loading dock and leave their engines running, filling the building with unhealthy stuff.
Workable solution: no engines may be left running at the loading dock.
What were the architects thinking? Or did their building have air intakes over the loading dock too, so they couldn’t think?
This is horrible. When the EPA mandates CO2 sequestration and thus has several reservoirs that can be used against the population when the feds desires there will be an even worse tragedy that could have been avoided if we simply would stand up to our own government.
So sad. You trust the air in public places. Poor thing.
At home I think I am totally safe - right, if your windows are always open and no heating is used?
Here's a link with a bit more detail.... http://www.wowktv.com/story/24796783/carbon-monoxide-detected-at-ny-mall-eatery-1-dead Not sure what 'faulty heating system' means but it could be as simple as a cracked flue pipe or heat exchanger.
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