21 Sickened by Carbon monoxide Fumes in West Side Apartments

[Guest guest]

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/29/nyregion/29FUME.html

January 29, 2001

21 Sickened by Fumes in West Side Apartments

By DEXTER FILKINS

Serban for The New York Times

nna Chica watched after the evacuations of three nearby buildings on

West 80th Street, where residents suffered from poison fumes.

Carbon monoxide flooded an apartment building on the Upper West Side early

yesterday, sending 21 people, some of them dangerously ill, to hospitals,

and prompting suspicions that a faulty boiler had caused the incident.

Two residents of the five-story building, at 159 West 80th Street, remained

hospitalized last night, but their conditions had stabilized by yesterday

afternoon. Residents were allowed to return last night, though the building

had no heat, fire officials said.

Many residents were still asleep about 7:45 a.m., when paramedics received

the first call, a report of a man having a seizure.

As the paramedics made their way to the second floor, another call came in,

reporting two people having seizures on the third floor. Realizing they had

a larger problem, the paramedics called the Fire Department, which rushed

several firefighters to the scene.

The firefighters smashed doors and opened windows to alert people inside.

About 60 people in all were evacuated: 22 from the contaminated building and

others from the buildings on each side of it, fire officials said.

Firefighters measured the level of carbon monoxide inside 159 West 80th at

about 400 parts per million. Ordinarily, a building would be evacuated if

the level exceeded 35 parts per million, fire officials said.

Four of those taken from the buildings were children. Five adults, some of

them with near-fatal concentrations of carbon monoxide in their blood,

received emergency treatments to bolster their oxygen-deprived tissues.

Some residents of 159 West 80th who said they were awake at the time of the

incident yesterday morning said they became ill very suddenly.

" I got dressed and went to the living room, " said Jeff Wachs, a 39-year-old

options trader who lives on the fifth floor. " I wasn't feeling good. I was

moving slowly. I just put on my shoes, walked through the door and passed

out. "

Several residents, some dressed only in their underwear, were dragged from

their beds and placed on the chilly streets, where they breathed through

oxygen masks. Three of those hospitalized yesterday morning were not

breathing when paramedics found them and were given cardiopulmonary

resuscitation as they lay on the sidewalk.

, a commodities trader who passed out in his apartment, was

unconscious when he was taken to i Medical Center in the Bronx. One

physician there said Mr. had so much carbon monoxide in his blood he

" should have been a corpse. "

Mr. emerged dazed after spending 45 minutes inside i's

hyperbaric chamber, which forces oxygen into the blood at 10 times the

normal rate.

Firefighters investigating the incident said they were focusing on a boiler

in the basement. Residents said the boiler had malfunctioned last week.

Many residents said that they had received only intermittent heat and water

in recent weeks, and that a sign posted in the building last week said the

boiler was broken. Property records show that the building, and one next

door, is owned by Pablo Llorente. Phone calls to Mr. Llorente's office in

Manhattan and his home in North Bergen, N.J., were not returned yesterday.

Carbon monoxide, a byproduct of combustion, is a toxic, colorless and

odorless gas. By binding with red blood cells, carbon monoxide reduces the

amount of oxygen in the body. It can cause neurological damage and death if

inhaled for even brief periods. According to The Journal of the American

Medical Association, carbon monoxide is the leading cause of accidental

poisoning death in America, accounting for 1,500 fatalities each year.

It was unclear whether the building had carbon monoxide detectors, which are

not required.

Five of the residents who were sickened were sent to i Medical Center,

which has a hyperbaric chamber that can treat more than one person at a

time. The chamber increases the air pressure around the patients to make

their red blood cells more receptive to oxygen.

The concentration of carbon monoxide in the patients' red blood cells ranged

from 20 percent to nearly 50 percent. Dr. ez of i said a

level of 50 percent usually proves fatal.

" All had significant intoxication, " Dr. ez said of the five.