Why are Carbon Monoxide Detectors important for where people don’t sleep?

FAQ: Why are carbon monoxide Detectors important for where  people don’t sleep?

Short Answer: Because you can get poisoned anywhere there is carbon monoxide indoors and you may not realize it until it is too late to call for help.

From our recent carbon monoxide video podcast between Brain Injury Law Group attorneys, Griffith Winthrop and Gordon Johnson:

Gordon Johnson: Why do we need carbon monoxide detectors in places that people don’t sleep?

Griff Winthrop: Well, like we just said. Just because you don’t sleep there doesn’t mean that there isn’t a gas fired appliance somewhere nearby that is heating that establishment or heating, as in this case, the swimming pool next door.

Gordon Johnson: [00:23:55] The sleep issue is a very important one. When society began to better understand carbon monoxide prevention and awareness. 20 years ago we were fighting to get carbon monoxide detectors everywhere someone slept. And so that started largely with apartment complexes and I think almost everywhere now homes and apartment complexes are required to have carbon monoxide detectors.

But the problem with not having carbon monoxide detectors in places where people don’t sleep is that the symptoms of carbon monoxide are indistinguishable from a number of other disease processes. Even and especially the flu, so that one person getting sick by themselves isn’t going to evacuate, they’re more likely to just say, I don’t feel good and climb into bed and go to sleep. So if you are being poisoned by carbon monoxide and you are not aware of it, the worst thing you can do is sit down and close your eyes because you’ll never wake up.

Now, any place that you can breathe carbon monoxide indoors requires a detector. Now, we don’t see as many deaths in places like office buildings and schools, churches. The reason is that somewhere along the line, when it goes from one person being sick to two people being sick, to everybody feeling lousy-someone realizes that there has to be an environmental emergency, or at least they call 911 and the EMTs do the math.

In every mass poisoning we’ve had, it isn’t the first person who gets sick who basically puts everybody on notice. It’s when the second or the third and the multiple people get sick that the connections are made.

Carbon monoxide detectors have to be everywhere that there’s a risk of it being indoors.

FAQ: Why do you need a carbon monoxide alarm in a place with no fuel burning appliances?

Because there is still a risk of carbon monoxide poisoning from a portable engine, like a generator, a gas fired saw or a motor vehicle. See our other posts on the risks of such engines. See also the Proposed Rule for Portable Electric Generators.