By Steven Elbow
The Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin) 
Copyright 2006 Madison Newspapers, Inc.
 
Greg Simonis thought he had all the bases covered. Before firing up his gas-powered concrete saw in his basement, he opened all the windows and positioned a fan.

"It wasn't enough," he said today.

After cutting a block of concrete for a basement renovation project at his Monona home, Simonis spent three hours in a Milwaukee hospital's hyperbaric chamber to get the carbon monoxide out of his blood.

He said that while he had a fan positioned to blow toward him, he didn't have another fan sucking air out of the house.

"When I came up out of the basement I kind of knew what was wrong," Simonis said. "But I thought I just needed some fresh air."

After an hour, he didn't feel any better. He called the Monona Fire Department, which advised him to get to a hospital. He had a neighbor drive him to St. Mary's Hospital, where they measured high levels of carbon monoxide in his blood.

Firefighters entered his home and measured carbon monoxide levels at 50 parts per million, five times more than levels that are considered safe. Simonis' 15-year-old son was taken to St. Mary's for evaluation, but was fine.

Simonis used the same saw to cut concrete in his basement about three weeks ago without incident. But he thinks this time the filters in the saw may have gotten clogged with concrete dust, increasing its output of carbon monoxide. Previously he had used water to keep the dust down, but this time he did not.

"Probably the biggest lesson I learned is to have things more than adequately ventilated," he said.

"He's lucky he realized what was happening," Assistant Fire Chief Barb Tilley said.

Tilley noted several recent carbon monoxide poisoning incidents, including the death of contractor Corey Nonn, 26, who last December used a gas-powered paint sprayer in the basement of a home he was remodeling in McFarland. Three residents of the home suffered severe carbon monoxide poisoning.