Charleston Hotel Faces Second Suit Over Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

Holiday Inn Express Hotel and Suites is facing a second lawsuit stemming from a carbon monoxide leak that killed one man and allegedly injured another in  South Charleston, W.Va., according to the Charleston Daily Mail.

http://www.dailymail.com/News/201204120100

Bain Edmondson, 49, was overcome by carbon monoxide and was found unresponsive in the hotel Jan. 31. He and his wife Dawn have filed suit against Holiday Inn Express. The suit charges that Edmondson suffered “neuronal cell death, cognitive impairment and pulmonary and cardiac damage,” according to the Daily Mail.

The Edmondsons are seeking compensatory and punitive damages from not only the hotel but a long list of companies.

The widow of the man, William Moran, who died of carbon monoxide poisoning at the hotel during the same incident is already suing. She filed a lawsuit in March, the local newspaper reported.

Moran and Edmondson were both working in Charleston for Rosciti Construction Group. They were sharing a room at the Holiday Inn Express when carbon monoxide leaked from a pool heater on the first floor into their fifth-floor room. The Daily Mail reported that Moran was pronounced dead at the scene, while Edmondson was taken to a local hospital to undergo treatment in a hyperbaric chamber.

Two workers at the hotel were also treated for carbon monoxide poisoning.

According to the Daily Mail, the defendants named in the Edmondsons’ suit include: Pikes Inc., which  operated or  managed the South Charleston Holiday Inn Express Hotel and Suites; Holiday Hospitality Franchising Inc., the company that franchises Holiday Inn Express hotels; and InterContinental Hotels Group Resources Inc., which owns stock in the subsidiary companies.

The defendants, the local paper reported, also include: InterContinental Hotels Group Resources PLC; InterContinental Hotels Corp.;  Six Continents Hotels Inc.; and JP Mechanical Inc., a Charleston company that worked on the hotel pool heater.

The Edmondsons are also suing Premier Pools of Huntington, W.Va.,  its owner Karen Combs, and her husband Steve, who worked the hotel pool heater before the fatal carbon monoxide poisoning incident.

The couple also named Manisha Patel, the hotel general manager, as a defendant in its lawsuit, which was filed in Kanawha County Circuit Court.