Carbon Monoxide

Baltimore County police have identified a Fullerton woman who died Saturday while being treated for carbon monoxide poisoning. Pandora Spriggs, 44, was one of four people who suffered carbon monoxide poisoning Dec. 18 at the Eagles Crest apartment complex in Fullerton. Spriggs, another woman, a man and an 11-month-old girl were hospitalized after the carbon monoxide leak at 7508 Twincrest Court. Spriggs was later taken to a hyperbaric chamber at Maryland Shock Trauma Center. Investigators have not determined the cause of the leak.

Forward. It's more than a presidential campaign slogan. It's also a directive on the second Sunday of March - this weekend - for clocks in the United States to move forward one hour under daylight-saving time. This means more afternoon sun. The official clocks of the United States government will change by an hour at 2 a.m. Sunday, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, which regulates daylight savings and time zones in the country. Clocks detached from today's omnipresent Internet will have to be changed manually - unless you are in the rare places in the United States, such as parts of Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and other island territories that don't prescribe to the change.

Nothing makes a generator look more tempting than a days-long power outage in a 100-degree heat wave. Arnold Friedlander's Winn Electric Contracting in Timonium was so flooded with calls that staffers are still working their way through the backlog of requests for estimates and installations. Selling and setting up home-standby generators — the non-portable kind — is a regular but usually small slice of the company's work, which ranges from lighting to computer wiring. Then the damaging derechoblew through the region June 29, leaving about 675,000 in the Baltimore area without power, some for nine days.

The cafeteria at the Johns Hopkins at Keswick complex was shut down Tuesday after 18 people were sickened with an unknown condition and 600 evacuated from the building in North Baltimore. Fire and emergency management officials are still investigating what caused the illness that gave employees breathing problems, but one of the theories is possible food contamination. We are "trying to chase down what everybody ate," said Connor Scott, a spokesman with the Mayor's Office of Emergency Management.

Baltimore County fire officials say one of four people who suffered carbon monoxide poisoning in a Fullerton apartment complex more than a week ago has died. Two women, a man and an 11-month-old girl were hospitalized on Dec. 18 after the carbon monoxide leak on Twincrest Court. Fire officials say one of the women died Saturday. Investigators haven't determined the case of the leak. Last week, the Baltimore County Council passed a law that requires all rental units heated by fuel burning equipment to have carbon monoxide detectors.

Victims of carbon monoxide poisoning often mistake their symptoms for the flu and fail to get help, a sometimes deadly mistake, say doctors who see more cases in the winter months. That's when malfunctioning furnaces and improperly ventilated fireplaces come on and some people use appliances such as stoves for heat. "It's a problem across the country," said Dr. Clifford S. Mitchell, from the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's Infectious Disease and Environmental Health Administration.

Four people, including a baby, were taken from a Baltimore County apartment complex to hospitals Friday afternoon with carbon monoxide poisoning. When firefighters arrived at the Eagles Crest Complex in Fullerton, they found a 20-year-old woman holding an 11-month-old unconscious girl, said Fire Department spokeswoman Elise Armacost. They had made it out of their unit at 7508 Twincrest Court, but crews had to rescue a 44-year-old woman who was unconscious in the apartment, she said.

Baltimore county firefighters detected dangerous carbon monoxide levels late Monday in a unit at Cove Village Townhomes, a community that has been beset by carbon monoxide leaks. It was the 31st call this year from Cove Village about carbon monoxide. Elise Armacost, a Fire Department spokeswoman, said firefighters detected levels of 40 parts per million in the home. The department recommends evacuation at levels of 100 ppm, and considers it a "medical alert" at 35 ppm. The latest alert came when a mother of two called authorities to say that her carbon monoxide detector had gone off while she was cooking and that she felt ill. The 299-unit complex owned by Sawyer Realty Holdings has a history of carbon monoxide problems.

Even before the snowfall began, weather forecasters and emergency management officials were warning Marylanders about a little-discussed but increasingly common threat from any weather-related emergency: carbon monoxide poisoning. Weather that causes power outages is often followed by reports of carbon monoxide poisoning from gasoline-powered generators. But mammoth snowfalls also cover and block vehicle exhaust pipes, which can cause carbon monoxide to build up inside the passenger area.

Seven Elkridge residents were in stable condition Sunday after being hospitalized with carbon monoxide poisoning. Several of the residents had already evacuated the home in the 5800 block of Main St. by the time Howard County and Baltimore County rescue units arrived just before midnight Saturday, officials said. Officials said that five of the seven residents had high levels of carbon monoxide in their systems and that all seven were taken to the University of Maryland Medical Center.

Students and staff were evacuated from Westside Elementary School in Baltimore's Penn North neighborhood early Friday morning after carbon monoxide levels rose to a level higher than is considered safe in the school's boiler room, a Baltimore City Public Schools spokeswoman said. Everyone exited the building in the 2200 block of N. Fulton Ave., south of Druid Hill Park in West Baltimore, sometime after the morning bell rang so work crews could assess where the gas was coming from, said Edie House Foster, the spokeswoman.

Among the 54 calls for medical and fire-rescue service received by the Arbutus Volunteer Fire Department during the period Nov. 25 to Dec. 2 were the following: Vero Road, 3900 block, 9:43 a.m. Nov. 30. Crews from the Violetville, Arbutus, English Consul, Lansdowne and Owings Mills volunteer stations and Catonsville, Halethorpe, Randallstown, and Westview career stations responded to the report of a United Parcel Service building fire in...

Daylight saving time will end this weekend, when clocks "fall back" one hour to standard time, starting at 2 a.m. Sunday. That means an extra hour of sleep for many. Maryland State Fire Marshal William Barnard is recommending that residents change the batteries in their smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors at the same time that they turn back their clocks. Barnard says that having working fire alarms and carbon monoxide detectors can double a family's chances of surviving a home fire or instance of unsafe carbon monoxide levels.

Occupants of a Joppatowne home were taken to an area hospital Tuesday night after a carbon monoxide detector activated in the home, where Harford County fire officials say a generator may have been improperly used. "Three persons were taken to an area hospital after the fire dept. responded to a residence in Joppatowne for a carbon monoxide detector activation," Rich Gardiner, spokesman for the Harford Fire and EMS Association, posted on the association's Facebook media page shortly before 4 a.m. Wednesday.

UPDATES: • Baltimore County Police are monitoring the bridge carrying Belair Road over the Gunpowder River, north of Perry Hall and south of Kingsville, as the bridge's culverts have been jammed with large amounts of debris. The Maryland Emergency Management Agency has also been alerted. •There will be full service on all MARC train lines on Wednesday, though delays may occur due to signal problems and flood-related speed restrictions, the Maryland Transit Administration said.

As Halloween approaches, you might be more concerned about your child's costume than safety, but the season does bring up some important issues to keep in mind. Here are some Halloween fire safety tips from the Maryland State Fire Marshal: •    Pick costumes that are bright and reflective.  Make sure costumes are short enough to prevent tripping and ensure masks don't block vision. •    Consider adding reflective tape to costumes and trick-or-treat bags for greater visibility.

A carbon monoxide incident closed an annex at Baltimore City's Main Post Office Monday and sent two people to University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center. Fire crews responded at about 8:30 a.m. to the one-story annex at Colvin and Lexington streets, near the main building in the 900 block of East Fayette Street. They found one person who had suffered a head injury from a fall and several other employees complaining of dizziness. A hazmat unit conducted air monitoring and determined that there were 38 parts per million of carbon monoxide inside the 35,000-square-foot building.

Nothing makes a generator look more tempting than a days-long power outage in a 100-degree heat wave. Arnold Friedlander's Winn Electric Contracting in Timonium was so flooded with calls that staffers are still working their way through the backlog of requests for estimates and installations. Selling and setting up home-standby generators — the non-portable kind — is a regular but usually small slice of the company's work, which ranges from lighting to computer wiring. Then the damaging derechoblew through the region June 29, leaving about 675,000 in the Baltimore area without power, some for nine days.