A tragic incident in Albany Park leaves a girl dead and another seriously injured due to carbon monoxide poisoning
The girl, whose name hasn’t been shared, was pronounced dead at Swedish Covenant Hospital. The boy was also taken there for treatment. Paramedics arrived around 5:20 a.m. after reports of two victims who were unconscious and not breathing.
Firefighters measured the carbon monoxide levels at the scene and found them to be alarmingly high at 300 parts per million. A spokesperson for People Gas mentioned they were called in as part of standard procedure and noted that their equipment likely wasn’t the cause of the problem.
According to officials, the severity of CO poisoning depends on both the concentration and the duration of exposure. For example, a reading of 1,000 ppm can be fatal in just 30 minutes, while 300 ppm could take a couple of hours. This can happen if a home is sealed tight during a cold snap, with the furnace running all night.
It’s still unclear if the home had a carbon monoxide detector, which is required by law, along with smoke detectors. These detectors can alert you at levels as low as 10 ppm, giving you a chance to escape and address the issue.
January is usually the coldest month in Chicago, and it sees a spike in fires and CO-related incidents. With the current cold snap, temperatures are in the single digits, and furnaces are working overtime.
