NFPA Journal - May/June 2019 - 74

Perspectives

didn't have a law requiring it. I thought that
was crazy. Who would think that a hotel wasn't
required to have CO detection, especially since
you're sleeping there? Looking further, I discovered that only 14 states have any legislation
requiring CO alarms in hotels. So this could have
easily happened in 36 other states.
The Best Western hotel in Boone, North Carolina, where three people died
and one was seriously injured in carbon monoxide incidents in 2013.

investigators to do that. To them, it seemed more
likely that my parents both died of heart attacks.
It was very eye opening.
I was also shocked by how many of these hotel
carbon monoxide incidents there are, and how
these incidents seem to all play out the same way.
Since my parents died six years ago, there have
been 92 incidents, six deaths, and 377 injuries
from carbon monoxide poisoning in hotels. What
happened in North Carolina is really not unusual
in the world of hotel CO cases.

You said that the 335 incidents you've
found is likely the minimum number of
actual cases. Why are these incidents so
difficult to track?

READ a detailed
investigative report
compiled by the
Charlotte Observer
on what happened
in room 225.
READ Hauschildt's
collection of hotel
CO incidents since
1967, and what her
Jenkins Foundation
has done to spread
CO awareness.
READ "Carbon
Monoxide Poisoning
at Motels, Hotels,
and Resorts," a
study published
in 2007 in the
American Journal
of Preventive
Medicine.

What was most shocking?
We definitely underestimated the level of misinformation and ignorance about carbon monoxide
that's out there. You tend to think about the
people who die of carbon monoxide not being
informed, but before this happened I had no
appreciation for the fact that ignorance exists on
many levels and throughout many professions,
even those that most people might think would
be experts. After my parents died, we were really
pushing for an investigation into the air quality of the room, and there was a reluctance by the

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What do you mean when you say these
incidents seem to all play out the same
way? What is it about hotels that makes
them especially dangerous or susceptible
to CO poisoning?
Hotels pose a unique threat for CO because you're
sort of lulled into a false sense of security. They
advertise themselves as being your home away
home, taking care of all of your needs. For hotel
guests to recognize that a headache, or feeling sick to their stomach, might be the result of
carbon monoxide is a connection most people
would have a hard time making, even at home.
On top of that, you're traveling, you're eating
foods that are different, so if you have an upset
stomach you're more likely to think you ate something bad. The whole environment isn't conducive
to recognizing you may be in danger.

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perspectives

Of those states with CO laws, most only require
detection in new construction, or only in hotels
with fuel-burning appliances. It is rare to find a
requirement that covers an entire hotel building,
where you have coverage in every room. It's just
this real haphazard mix of requirements in the
limited places they exist. The more information I
found, the more I just kept being shocked.

In hotels without CO detection, I've found that
it often takes more than one person dying or
injured in a hotel before anyone even recognizes there's a problem because the symptoms
of carbon monoxide poisoning can be so many
different things. People also tend to think of
carbon monoxide poisoning as being this rare
event, so first responders usually think of all
these other things that are more likely to have
happened first. In my parents' case, the investigators thought it was more likely that they both
died of heart attacks. There are incidents on my
spreadsheet where the authorities first believed
it was a drug overdose, or that the person died
of natural causes, or that they had food poisoning. There are documented studies in the
medical community showing that even doctors
have a hard time recognizing carbon monoxide
poisoning.

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NFPA Journal - May/June 2019

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