Nine People Get Carbon Monoxide Poisoning At Hackensack, N.J., Home

Sometimes it’s a good thing when relatives stop over, uninvited. Here’s a case in point.

Three Hackensack, N.J., residents escaped death from carbon monoxide poisoning Monday when visiting relatives stopped by their house to pay a call on them, according to The Record.

http://www.northjersey.com/news/9_treated_for_carbon_monoxide_poisoning_in_Hackensack.html

A married couple and their 14-year-old son — after being made ill from the lethal fumes coming from a furnace — were taken to Hackensack University Medical Center in serious conditon, The Record reported.

They were found unconscious at their home at roughly noon by relatives who were in Hackensack to attend a wedding, according to the newspaper.

The carbon monoxide levels were so high that the four relatives who discovered the family, as well as the two police offcers who responded to the call, also had to be transported to the hospital, The Record reported. Those six had developed some of the signs of carbon monoxide poisoning, including nausea and headaches.

The married couple that was found by their relatives were transferred to Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, so they could be treated in a hyperbaric chamber. Their son was still at Hackensack University Medical Center.

The police officers and relatives who found the unconscious trio were all treated and released. Those relativies, two adults and two children, had only been in the house for less than an hour, and the police for a half hour, when they got sick.

The visiting relatives had been staying in a local hotel while they attended a wedding last weekend, according to The Record.

Authorities said that they detected a carbon monoxide level of 1,000 parts per million at one point in the home, the newspaper reported.

The deadly fumes apparently came from a damaged flue, which is supposed to funnel exhaust out of the house. But authorities said that flue had rotted and wasn’t properly venting the exhaust.