Breaking Down the Door

Max Kipfer’s story

Part of the CO Experience Project series                                    Posted 7-29-2023                                                            by Lyrysa Smith

Dick Cummings (left) and Max Kipfer two months after Max’s CO poisoning. Max has saved Dick’s pivotal voicemail on his cell phone: “Max, it’s Dick. We’re breaking down your door.” (photo courtesy of Max Kipfer)

Date and location of poisoning: 9-17-2014, Hampton Inn – Chantilly, Virginia

We’ve all said it at some point. “The one time I didn’t, the one and only time…it happened to me.” Usually, it’s something small, insignificant, or quickly chuckled about and life goes on. For Max Kipfer, the “one time he didn’t” almost killed him.

Max routinely traveled a lot with his job – more than 100 nights a year in hotel rooms. This trip was unusual though because it was a short drive from his home in North Carolina and a short stay, just two nights away. Max packed a small duffle bag, drove a few hours, and checked into Room 508 at the Hampton Inn Dulles Airport South in Virginia on the evening of September 17, 2014. Max had arranged to meet a longtime friend, Dick Cummings, who lived nearby, for breakfast. Max was looking forward to catching up with his golfing buddy the next morning.

Max went to bed around 9:30 pm but awoke around midnight with a headache and feeling nauseous and dizzy. He thought, “food poisoning.” He drank some water and went back to bed. Max called his wife, Bridget, around 6:30 am and told her he didn’t feel well. She told him to call the front desk and he thinks he at least tried to.

Soon, Max is five minutes, then 10 minutes late, for his 9:00 am breakfast appointment. Dick, waiting at the IHOP restaurant, considers leaving, figuring he got the date or place wrong, but something tells him, “Don’t go home.” He knew Max was punctual and responsible. Something was wrong. Dick called Max. The phone is picked up, then cuts out. Dick called again, and got the same result. Dick called a third time and Max’s garbled voice said he was sick and couldn’t move. Dick told him to call the front desk but Max’s response was incoherent. Dick yelled into the phone, “Where are you?” and heard one mumbled phrase from Max, “Hotel on Route 50.”

Dick drove along Route 50 looking frantically but didn’t see a hotel. At a traffic light, Dick asked a truck driver through their open windows if he knew of a hotel on the road. The driver looked around and shook his head no. At the next light, the truck driver got Dick’s attention and said, pointing upwards through his windshield, “That may be your hotel over there.” Dick saw a sign at the top of seven-story building. It just so happened the hotel’s sign on Route 50 was taken down due to road construction.

Dick stormed into the hotel and told the staff a very sick man needed help immediately. A minute later, the hotel manager, two maintenance men, and Dick were breaking down the triple-locked door to Room 508. Dick called Max again and heard his phone ring inside. Max didn’t pick up this time. Dick left a message, “Max, it’s Dick. We’re breaking down your door.”

They burst in and found Max on the floor barely alive, still clutching his cell phone. Moments later, the EMT crew arrived and got Max into the ambulance and to the nearest emergency room. Dick followed (he would later say, “tailgated”) the ambulance to the hospital.

Meanwhile, Max’s wife, Bridget, had been working for weeks to get a date with a close friend, Janet. Finally, the date was made. Janet had just arrived when Bridget got a call from the hospital in Virginia. Bridget was upset, scared, and wanted to get to Max as fast as possible. Janet drove Bridget for five hours from North Carolina to the hospital in Virginia. Not exactly the visit they had planned, but Bridget was grateful to have her good friend at her side.

It took a while for the ER doctors to learn that Max, age 57, did not have a stroke or a heart attack. Several hours after Max arrived at the hospital, the fire department had the gas company call the hospital. They told Max’s doctors to test his blood for CO poisoning. Max’s carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) level was over 30%, and had probably been around 35-40% at the moment the hotel door was crashed open. A level of over 40% is often lethal. Max had been breathing CO poisoned air for at least 12 hours. Once the CO poisoning diagnosis was made, Max received hours of hyperbaric oxygen treatments, which accelerates the removal of CO from blood and saturates the body’s tissues and organs with oxygen.

Max Kipfer in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber during one of his many treatments (photo courtesy of Max Kipfer)

Later, Max learned that the hospital emergency department is required to immediately contact and inform the fire department when anyone is found unconscious. The fire department and gas company scoured the hotel and traced the CO leak to a faulty water heater.

Just nine months earlier, during a quiet evening at home in January, Max and Bridget had watched an ABC News 20/20 program about a CO poisoning event in North Carolina. The story told how a couple in their 70s, Daryl and Shirley Jenkins, had died overnight in a hotel room. The hotel had no CO detection, so the husband and wife’s causes of death were each called heart attacks, initially. The police investigators and medical examiners requested blood toxicology reports, but did not expedite the tests to learn if CO was involved in the Jenkins’s deaths. The hotel took the room the Jenkins were in out of rotation but then opted to reopen the room again about seven weeks after the Jenkins’s deaths. The same room was rented to a woman and her 11-year-old son, Jeannie and Jeffrey Williams. They too were poisoned by CO. Jeffrey was dead within hours of being in the room. Jeannie was found the next afternoon unconscious on the bathroom floor. She was hospitalized and suffered permanent injury — and the loss of her son.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/north-carolina-best-western-room-225-open-deaths/story?id=21564280

“Bridget and I sat on the couch and cried as we watched that program,” Max recalled. “It really hit us hard.” That night Bridget and Max agreed they would go out the next day and get CO detectors to travel with – and they did. Bridget also had a job that had her traveling quite a bit. “For all the next trips we took, we always had our CO detectors in every hotel room, wherever we traveled.” Except the one time…

“The quick work at the Hampton hotel was critical because future guests were not harmed by carbon monoxide. Sadly, this has not always happened in other cases,” Max says, quietly. “There are some aspects to my story, though, that no one knows or asks about and yet they’re huge and ongoing.”

So we asked Max about them. For this is an unappreciated and mostly unheard part of each and every CO poisoning story. Whether it results in a victim’s death or ongoing brain injury or other trauma – the story of CO poisoning is not a one-person, one-time event. CO poisoning impacts the victim and also all the family members, loved ones, friends, and colleagues of that victim – all of them, for the rest of their lives.

What’s important for us to know about what happened to you?

Because my story is extreme and Dick saved my life – my story is very flashy and remarkable. Rightly so. I’m alive to tell it! But a big and important story people don’t know and should know includes Bridget and me, and the how and why of how we overcame CO poisoning.

Right, yes. I want to hear that story.

To start, I learned to understand through therapy that three people saved my life: my friend, Dick, my wife, Bridget, and me.

Ok. Please tell me about each.

Dick Cummings is a longtime friend. He was a marine, then CIA, then an accountant. Who did I need in that moment? Someone who is trained to be suspicious and has worked at it for years! Perfect. So that morning, Dick is thinking, “Something’s not right, Max in trouble.” We’d been friends for years. Many meals together and lots of golf, all with good conversations. Dick feels he was chosen that day. That feels like divine intervention. Why? Because Dick saved my life! It’s overwhelming! And for me, there was trauma with that. It was pressure. I’m alive! And I have a second chance at life, so now I have to be perfect. I was driving Bridget crazy trying to be perfect. My PTSD would kick in when I thought about it and I’d go down the rabbit hole and get stuck in a bad spiral.

Then there’s Bridget. I was recovered, walking around, starting to work again, and feeling OK. But she witnessed over and over again and understood the trauma I was having before I did, or before I could admit it to myself. It was Bridget who suggested I get therapy. She said, “This isn’t working. Just because you appear fine and you’re moving around the room, doesn’t mean you’re healed. You’re very different in so many ways.” And I’d say, “Look, this happened and this is the guy you got now. That’s it!” I was ready to blame my CO poisoning for everything. Like, “Leave me alone, I’m a victim!” But Bridget said, “No, you’re not a victim, and you need an attitude adjustment.”

She was right. Counseling was necessary. I went to therapy on my own first. Then Bridget went to therapy with me, in part to make sure I was giving accurate answers, which a lot of times I wasn’t. She could understand me and what was happening to me more than I could myself. It was good for us both to be there.

I learned in therapy to tell my story as often as I need to. It helps me to spread the message and to help others, and that’s been important for me. Also, it’s good for me now to stop thinking about what happened and how it effects my life daily. It helps me to put it out of mind completely and I need to let it go of it for a while. I want to move forward with it as part of my life, not dominating my life. It is what is.

It was because of therapy that I learned that I also helped to save my own life and that’s been super important to me. The therapist said, “Max, you’re in great shape, you’re healthy, and a very responsible person. So give yourself some credit for being healthy and trustworthy and nurturing your relationships with Bridget, and Dick, and your family. Give yourself credit, too, for being alive today.” I needed to hear that. I have worked over decades to be healthy and happy. I’m 6’8”, 210lbs., trim and fit. I worked for years to care for my relationships and myself. So now I understand that I helped to save myself before the CO poisoning, along with Dick during the event, and along with Bridget after. And now, I’m saving myself with her help still. My love for Bridget is immense and incredible, and my desire to give back is bigger than it’s ever been.

This all makes so much sense when you say it.

You know, this level of detail of my story — most people don’t hear. They know a bit about CO poisoning suicides, accidents, and so on. And “the amazing part” of my story… well, most people know: Dick saved my life with his remarkable choices and some fortunate coincidences — and it starts and stops there. He was the hero in the moment. But the ongoing story of my CO poisoning is more, much more, for me and my loved ones. Bridget is my hero every day. She lives with and fights through it every day, and pushes me, stays with me, and loves me.

And it’s ongoing. I’m a lot better and therapy was key to recognizing my PTSD and learning how to cope with my stress and emotions. But another big challenge for us, a big decision, was I was asked if I wanted to do more comprehensive tests with doctors and lots of follow-ups to see if and what the later impacts from CO poisoning would be, using my situation as a way to identify and measure them. I decided no. I didn’t want further testing. I didn’t want to know. I felt like I’d always be waiting for the other shoe to drop. Also that I’d anticipate problems, or blame everything on my CO poisoning. I didn’t want to have expectations about my future. I’ll get there eventually, and maybe not in the ways I thought. However, for her own good reasons, Bridget wanted me to do more testing. She wanted to have a playbook or some guidance of any kind so she could know what to expect and what to do. It was a very emotional decision for each of us. Most of all, we both wanted to go back to our normal life before CO poisoning – at least as much as possible. We’re still coming to grips with that part of story.

What do you want others to know about what happened?

I want everyone to think of CO detection the same way you think of smoke detectors and fire detection. Right now, today, you walk into a building and you don’t know the status of your safety. Every time you walk indoors you are at risk. They say, “Oh, they’re false positives with CO detectors, we have insurance, they’re not that necessary.” It’s crazy! It’s like the lurking bogeyman – you can’t see him so he’s not really there. No! It’s a real thing and we need to be aware and have protection in advance. We buy home, car, and health insurance – and you may never need it, right? But just in case. It matters. It’s especially difficult at hotels because the thing you’re there to do is to sleep – which is the most dangerous thing you can do when surrounded by CO gas! Bottom line: There should be CO detectors in every hotel room, and really, in every indoor space where we spend any time.

Exactly. Well said. So, how are you feeling now? Physically, mentally, emotionally?

I had PTSD therapy for two years and I believe I’m emotionally OK today. I’m starting to experience physical challenges that I can’t find other reasons for. I have neuropathy in my feet, but I don’t have diabetes. So is this neurological condition from the CO poisoning incident? Maybe it’s related, or maybe it’s not. Would this have happened anyway at this time in my life? We’ll never know. And truthfully, doctors are not that familiar with CO poisoning victims and later impacts that might come along. For now, I’m playing pickleball, which helps with my feet a lot and it’s fun.

Mentally and emotionally, I think there’s changes. I feel positively about myself these days, but a lot of negative experiences are part of my story. I was a very logical, practical business man, and I’m more emotional now. I’m more gentle and kind — even when I’m supposed to “win” in a business transaction. I think I’m a better person than before and I believe Bridget would agree. That’s something I got but didn’t expect.

Bridget and others would tell you that I’m different, too. She’s mentioned that I have more empathy than before, even towards her 92-year-old mother.  She has also mentioned being surprised by my vulnerability and compassion.  I don’t necessarily see it, but she says it so I guess it’s true.  I know I cherish relationships now more than ever.  I never had an adult “best-friend,” and now I have several.

This experience went to my core though, and that’s hard. For me, learning that I’m not invincible was tough.  It required getting over my anger first, which, ironically, was the result of me being scared almost to death. We must all accept the fact that everyone has something. And this is mine. Can I tell you a story?

Yes! Please do.

Well, Bridget and I were walking together on Topsail Island and we stopped at the doorway of a small beach gift shop and saw this handcrafted sign hanging right in front of us. It said: Life doesn’t have to be perfect to be wonderful. We both started to cry. It was there for us to see. It’s true that with Bridget’s help and through therapy, I’ve realized that my life isn’t perfect, but it is wonderful. We bought the sign, of course, and gave it to our therapist so she can show it to others.

Oh, that’s a great story. Thanks for sharing that.

My story lives on in so many ways. I keep telling my story because it helps me and I want people to know that CO poisoning is a real thing. It’s not mainstream but it’s so important. Really, I pinch myself every day, I shouldn’t be this lucky. My life is so fortunate and I will pursue happiness, but in a different way now. I will give back every chance I can. It’s a lot of work and effort, but I’m living the best life I can.

That’s life wisdom. Thanks, Max. Anything else?

I want others to know that whatever their challenge, they are not alone. We all have something, as I said. But you should know that others have walked this struggle and gained confidence and strength, and they have come full circle. So will you.

The two friends wear matching bracelets with linking hands (photo courtesy of Max Kipfer)

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