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.
“Building owners should be especially concerned about brick chimneys…Inspect the chimneys for loose bricks. If the chimney provides ventilation for a fireplace or appliances such as furnaces or water heaters, make sure it still vents…also encourage building owners to ensure they have a working carbon monoxide detector.”
“Today, U.S. Rep. Angie Craig introduced the Safe Stay Act, which would require the installation of carbon monoxide detectors in each hotel and motel room across the country. This legislation comes after learning that two of her second district constituents were hospitalized with serious illnesses due to near-fatal carbon monoxide levels in their Michigan hotel room.”
“Last year, a Lakeville woman and her son were hospitalized after they were nearly killed by carbon monoxide they breathed in at a Michigan hotel. Seven months later, Leslie Lienemann is still recovering from the acute carbon monoxide poisoning she experienced, and she wants to make sure no one else goes through what she has.”
This is Walt and Molly Weber. On this weekend 25 years ago they headed off to a lodge in Mammoth, CA, for a weekend of fun and skiing. They arrived late in the evening and, looking forward to hitting the slopes early the next morning, requested a wake-up call and crawled into bed. Little did they know these would be the last moments their lives would ever be the same.
They were found unresponsive 36 hours later by hotel staff (because they had missed checkout), still in bed. Walt was pronounced dead by emergency responders, and Molly was barely alive. Both had been poisoned by carbon monoxide (CO) leaking undetected from a broken heater in the room. The hotel had no CO detection installed, so there had been no alert for them to evacuate and no alert to the hotel staff there was a life-threatening problem developing their building. Instead, business had carried on as usual as Walt and Molly lay dying, in desperate need of rescue for almost two full days.
Incredibly, Molly survived, but with such severe injury to her brain she was unable to swallow, speak or walk when she woke up from a coma nine days later. It took weeks for her to comprehend that Walt, the love of her life, was dead. Much of the damage to her brain was irreversible, impacting her personality and preventing her ability to ever live independently again.
Walt and Molly’s story is one among many similar “accidents” that continue to happen in U.S. hotels due to lack of proper CO safeguards, including the installation of CO detection systems, emergency procedures and staff training. Deaths and injuries due to CO are 100% preventable. We are working hard to bring public and industry awareness to this issue and the need for immediate change. You can help by sharing this information with your family and friends and encouraging them to carry their own CO alarm when they travel.
“The utility realized it was sending out the wrong mixture of gas to air to appliances such as boilers, clothes dryers, and stoves, with too much natural gas being sent out into the supply line. That type of mix could lead to carbon monoxide leaking into homes and businesses…” Businesses affected included the Marriott Hotel on Railroad Street.
A unique look at what it’s like to be poisoned by carbon monoxide in your hotel room. Thankfully these victims survived, however their experience highlights some of the many unaddressed questions of CO safety in hotels…namely, who is watching out for us when we check in?
Just published in Preventive Medicine Reports…The Jenkins Foundation’s spreadsheet of hotel CO incidents helps add to 30 years (1989-2018) of published, publicly accessible data regarding CO poisoning in U.S. hotels. Thanks to leading CO researchers Dr. Neil Hampson, Dr. Lindell Weaver, and Kayla Deru, victims of these incidents now have a collective voice in the effort to bring attention to the to lack of universal requirements for CO detection in hotel buildings.
Six years ago today, Daryl and Shirley Jenkins lost their lives to CO poisoning in a hotel room while on vacation in Boone, NC. In memory of them and the thousands of other victims who have been injured and/or died in U.S. hotels of this very preventable cause, we shared a series of four posts on The Jenkins Foundation Facebook page…https://www.facebook.com/thejenkinsfoundation/
An interactive map of the data contained in our spreadsheet of U.S. Hotel/Motel Carbon Monoxide Incidents (1967-to date) can be found at Insight Riskhere.
Thank you to Patrick Smith, PhD, for creating this map – it’s a great resource to see the incident information from a visual perspective. Read More >
European soccer player Ian Turner recounts being poisoned by carbon monoxide in a hotel where a young woman died – hotel had no carbon monoxide alarms:
“Hotel staff found the children lying unresponsive at an indoor pool deck and the breakfast area adjacent to the pool at 10 a.m. ET after noticing their figures through a window…The Fire Department also said it found one of the children in a first-floor room unconscious and not breathing…One hotel worker, along with two Berrien County officers and two Niles city police officers were also treated for exposure to the poisonous gas.”
Bridgewater, NJ – “None of the Days Inn’s 35 guests present at the time were injured but a firefighter was hospitalized after being sickened from CO exposure.
Best Western Allentown Inn & Suites – Allentown, PA
“No one realized the man was suffering from exposure to carbon monoxide — and that the poison gas, notorious for its deadly stealth, was already sickening other guests and workers…Philip D. Prechtel, 63, died in his room…One other guest, two employees, two police officers and three ambulance workers were taken to hospitals.
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