Carbon Monoxide

The Baltimore County Council unanimously enacted legislation Monday that will require rental property owners to install carbon monoxide alarms in all units heated by fuel-burning equipment as well as dwellings attached to an enclosed parking area. The measure takes effect in 45 days. Landlords will have eight months to install the devices, which will make a distinct audible sound before the colorless, odorless gas reaches unsafe levels. The original bill had given property owners a year but Council Chairman Joseph Bartenfelder asked for an amendment shortening the time given "the rash of CO incidents" in the county recently.

Had his next-door neighbor asked, Charleston Graves said, he gladly would have extended a cord and allowed her to use some of his electricity for a night. But she didn't. And Graves, his neighbor, her four children and another neighbor in Middle River ended up being rushed to area hospitals Friday morning, suffering from carbon monoxide exposure, the latest in a string of incidents involving the poisonous gas in Baltimore County. Graves said the woman had the power turned off in her home this week in anticipation of a weekend move.

Officials from the Baltimore housing department and a private management company were investigating the cause of a carbon monoxide leak Friday that prompted the evacuation of 48 people — 36 children and 12 adults — at the Pleasant View Gardens Child Care Center. Those affected were evaluated in a building across the street from the child care center in the 1100 block of E. Fayette St. in East Baltimore. Chief Kevin Cartwright, a Fire Department spokesman, said no one showed symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, but five people were taken to an area hospital for evaluation.

A leak of potentially deadly carbon monoxide gas led officials to shut down a Southwest Baltimore school Tuesday for the second time in a week, prompting a call from elected officials for a major infusion of state funding to upgrade dilapidated school buildings. Six students complained of illness and 40 other people were possibly exposed to carbon monoxide Tuesday morning at Dickey Hill Elementary/Middle School, Baltimore fire officials said. A child who complained of abdominal pain was taken to Sinai Hospital, but his condition was not life-threatening, said Chief Kevin Cartwright, a Fire Department spokesman.

A woman and five children were treated at Maryland Shock Trauma Center for carbon monoxide poisoning -- apparently caused by a clogged chimney pipe in their Baltimore County home.Judith D. Howard, 52, of the 3600 block of Langrehr Road in Rockdale, and four of the children were released after treatment. Howard said her granddaughter Channel Ford, 12, was expected to be released today.Howard said she and the children felt ill when they awakened yesterday morning. Howard said she thought they had the flu. But after seeing Channel with eyes "in the back of her head" and "turning yellow," Howard called 911.She said she turned on the heat Friday night, but her chimney had not been cleaned.

More than four years after three people died of carbon-monoxide poisoning in a rented townhouse in Essex, Baltimore County officials announced Wednesday that they would introduce legislation to require that all rental dwellings in the county be equipped with carbon-monoxide detectors. The bill is scheduled for a vote by the Baltimore County Council on Dec. 21 and, if it passes, would take effect 45 days later. From that point, landlords would have a year to install the detectors. "If the people of Baltimore County do not feel safe where they live, work and shop, our neighborhoods will not thrive and our businesses will not prosper," the county's chief executive, James T. Smith Jr., said at a news conference in Towson.

An elderly couple was found dead Saturday night in their Carroll County home that emergency personnel discovered to contain 80 times the normal level of carbon monoxide. Lewis Keyser, 81 and his 84-year-old wife, Betty, were found in the basement of the house. Relatives told Maryland State police that they found the house in the 1900 block of Lang Road in Hampstead filled with soot and haze Police said Sunday that no foul play is suspected and that the couple was last seen on Thursday.

A Baltimore jury on Wednesday awarded more than $34 million to 20 restaurant workers who claimed carbon monoxide exposure in a downtown hotel left them with permanent brain damage, leading to personality changes, memory problems and, in some cases, marital difficulties. Area attorneys called the judgment phenomenal, particularly considering the level of disagreement over the scope of the injuries. It's likely to be reduced by millions, however: Maryland law places a $710,000 cap on pain-and-suffering damages in nonfatal cases like these, well below the awards some plaintiffs received.

C arbon monoxide poisoning killed three members of the Wiley family in July 2005 after the colorless, odorless gas built up to astronomical levels in their Eastern Baltimore County rental home in the Cove Village complex, apparently as a result of faulty installation of the unit's furnace or other appliances. It's not so surprising, then, that immediately after Cove Village management installed carbon monoxide detectors in all the other homes in the complex that firefighters got a string of false alarms from nervous residents.