Posted April 16, 2020

Sharing this sweet photo of of the namesakes of this Foundation, Daryl and Shirley Jenkins, back when they were high school sweethearts in the 1950s. Seven years ago today they both lost their lives to carbon monoxide poisoning in a hotel room while they were on vacation. This year they would have celebrated their 80th birthdays and 60 years of marriage…just a few of many joys we’ve missed sharing with them.

Carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning is 100% preventable if you have an alarm to alert you to its presence. 30 years ago technology, remarkably, provided that for us. For a relatively small expense, you can safeguard your family by installing CO alarms in your home. We get regular reminders from our fire and life safety agencies to make sure our homes are safeguarded with these lifesaving devices, on every level and near all sleeping areas.

Unfortunately, we seldom hear about the lack of safeguards when we leave home…and the very real fact that there are no universal requirements for hotels and other businesses to take the same measures by installing CO detection systems to protect us when we visit and stay in their buildings. This means that not only are we inadvertently putting ourselves and our families at risk by not being aware (would anyone knowingly choose to sleep unprotected from a toxic gas in any hotel?), we are also not being warned to carry our own alarm when we travel.

Public health protection in this country might not be what you think it is – never has this been more collectively apparent than right now. You can be poisoned by CO in any building. Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security just because you’ve installed CO alarms in your home. Don’t take the safety of your indoor air for granted no matter where you are, especially in places where you sleep.

We might not currently have the public health protections we deserve, but we have access to factual information and the ability to share it to prompt change and to help protect each other until those changes are made.

Knowledge can save your life. Sharing it can save someone else’s life.

Visit our website to read more about Daryl and Shirley’s story and how to stay CO safe when traveling https://thejenkinsfoundation.com/hotel-co-incidents/

To read more about existing CO requirements in hotels and other public buildings, visit https://www.ncsl.org/…/carbon-monoxide-detectors-state-stat…)