By Geoff Hamill
The Pocahontas Times
SNOWSHOE, W.Va. — Although five Snowshoe employees were hospitalized after being overcome by carbon monoxide gas at Seneca Lodge, emergency responders were praised for their quick thinking that kept the situation at the resort from worsening.
Shavers Fork Fire and Rescue received a call about 9 a.m. Sunday about a female employee in the condo building experiencing chest pains. While rescue workers were evacuating that patient, a Snowshoe Resort public safety officer discovered another ill employee in a nearby stairwell who quickly lost consciousness.
After the discovery of the second employee, Capt. Jason Hall of the Shavers Fork department evacuated the lodge. Shortly thereafter, the firefighters discovered an extremely high level of carbon monoxide on the ground floor of the building near an employee break room and storage area.
Firefighters soon found three more ill employees on the ground floor. Five employees — two who were unresponsive when evacuated — were transported to Pocahontas Memorial Hospital.
All were listed in stable condition at the hospital on Sunday evening and two were released early Monday. Two others who were transported to a Charleston hospital, and a third patient remained at Pocahontas Memorial.
Cass Emergency Medical Services and Marlinton Fire and Rescue also responded to the scene.
Shavers Fork Chief Shannon Boehmer praised Hall’s quick decision to evacuate the building.
“After we got to that second patient, that’s when Capt. Hall realized that we were having a bigger issue than just somebody having chest pains, and that’s when he decided to clear the building out, which saved a whole lot of lives, at that point,” he said.
“We had quite a bit of people in that building, and luckily they made that call very quickly and got those people out of the building.”
Boehmer said the carbon monoxide level on Seneca Lodge’s ground floor was literally off the scale.
“Our highest levels, we actually got up to 999 parts per million - as high as our monitor will go,” he said.
High levels of the gas never reached other parts of the building, according to the fire chief.
“In the rest of the structure itself, even up on the fourth floor, we never got levels higher than 50 parts per million, so it was really isolated to the basement area,” he said.
Firefighters first suspected one of the three boilers in the building was the source of the gas but with assistance from building maintenance personnel discovered that a propane-fueled hot water heater was the real source.
Boehmer said the malfunction with the water heater is still being investigated.
“It could be anything from inside the hot water heater itself, a malfunction that’s actually throwing CO back into the room, to somebody actually bumping into it or one of the exterior exhausts being knocked off,” he said. “We’re not exactly sure yet.”
Boehmer commended firefighters Hall, Coy Beverage, Randy Wilfong and Larry Holson.
“Those are the four individuals that were initially on scene, after that first call, and then discovered the second call,” he said. “Those are the four that really saved a lot of lives that day.”
Snowshoe Mountain communications director Laura Parquette also praised the “extremely professional, well-trained staff at Shavers Fork.
“They’ve done a great job,” she said Sunday afternoon. “A little more than three hours into the incident and the building is safe again.”
Carbon Monoxide is a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas that is slightly lighter than air. The gas is produced whenever fuel such as gas, oil, kerosene, wood or charcoal is burned.
If appliances that burn fuel are maintained and used properly, the amount of carbon monoxide produced is usually not hazardous. However, if appliances are not working properly or are used incorrectly, dangerous levels of the gas can result.
According to the U.S Consumer Product Safety Agency, sustained exposure to carbon monoxide levels above 70 ppm can cause headache, fatigue and nausea. At concentrations of 150-200 ppm, the gas can cause disorientation, unconsciousness and even death.
When carbon monoxide gets into the body, it combines with chemicals in the blood and stops oxygen from reaching cells, tissues and organs.
Boehmer strongly recommended that everybody install an inexpensive carbon monoxide alarm as well as a smoke alarm in their home.
“CO is a big killer every year in the United States,” he said. “It kills hundreds of people every year. If you just had a simple CO monitor, like you do your smoke detector, it’s going to alert you at very low ppm, and that gives you plenty of time to evacuate any structure.”
Copyright 2010 Charleston Newspapers