Carbon monoxide is the leading cause of accidental poisoning deaths in America. This odorless, tasteless, and colorless gas is known as the Silent Killer. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that carbon monoxide poisoning claims nearly 500 lives and causes more than 15,000 visits to hospital emergency departments annually. Greg Bell, MD, emergency medicine specialist at University of Iowa Emergency Treatment Center, talks about the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning:
What is carbon monoxide?
It’s a gas released by the breakdown of oil, gas, or kerosene and it’s unique in that it is odorless, it’s tasteless, you cannot see it, and it’s not irritating to breathe.
Where is carbon monoxide found?
It’s usually released by burning of any combustible fuel. It’s found in heating systems that are poorly functioning, like a furnace that’s not functioning well. It’s released by poorly vented fuel-burning devices like kerosene heaters, charcoal grills, camp stoves, and also gas-powered electric generators. Finally, probably the most common source of carbon monoxide is a burning structure or a house fire.
What are the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning?
The symptoms are variable. If you have mild or moderate inhalation of it, you begin to get headaches. You often just feel poorly, you’re nauseated, you begin to get dizzy. Sometimes it feels like you might have a sickness coming on, like a viral illness.
How does carbon monoxide poisoning work?
What happens is that the carbon monoxide molecule binds to your hemoglobin (which is the molecule that attaches oxygen in your red blood cells). So the carbon monoxide binds to your red blood cells. It’s very drawn to your red blood cells—in fact, much more so than oxygen. Normally your red cells would pick up oxygen, instead they’re picking up carbon monoxide.
Who is at risk for carbon monoxide poisoning?
Anyone who might be in a burning structure. It seems people think they might be able to use fuel burning devices indoors, such as a kerosene heater, that actually produces quite a bit of carbon monoxide indoors. Charcoal grills or camping stoves also produce a lot, and when they’re used indoors, you get excessive carbon monoxide.
What is the treatment for carbon monoxide poisoning?
It is simply oxygen replacement. In other words, if you breathe in a high amount of oxygen, you will gradually displace this carbon monoxide from the red cells that have carbon monoxide bound to them.
So it sounds like maybe it’s just as simple as taking a step outside?
That’s a good question. If you breathe regular air, it takes five to six hours to get rid of all the carbon monoxide. If you get attention at a health care facility, they give you high concentrations of oxygen and that reduces the amount of time it takes to get rid of the carbon monoxide to about an hour and a half. There are special pieces of equipment that we have at The University of Iowa and other health care facilities called hyperbaric chambers. They can give you oxygen at an increased atmospheric pressure and reduce the amount of time that the carbon monoxide stays in your system to about half an hour.
Does carbon monoxide poisoning have long-term side affects?
In people who are overcome by carbon monoxide, where the primary symptom is that a person passes out, they can develop something called a delayed neuropsychiatric syndrome. That’s a big collection of words, but basically it means you have some impaired brain function that begins to develop within days, or even up to three weeks after exposure. What I mean by abnormal neurologic function is that you can have some abnormal thinking ability, you can have some personality changes, you can even have movement disorders—as you attempt to walk, you’re not walking properly. These usually resolve, however, in a period of months, or even up to a year.
When the power is out this winter during an ice or snow storm, how would you recommend people heat their home or cook safely?
If the power goes out, the major thing is just try to bundle up to stay warm. If you happen to have a wood-burning stove or a fireplace you normally use for heating, you can continue to use that because it is properly vented.
If you don’t have them, and if you’re not able to stay warm by bundling up, leave and find a warm place elsewhere. If you are traveling by car and are stranded in the winter and it’s cold, again, bundle up to stay warm. If your exhaust pipe is free of any obstruction—that is snow, and if you’re not in an enclosed area, because that’s dangerous, you can turn on the car for a while to heat up.
Finally, if you need to cook food at home and your power is out, you can either use a simple one-burner butane stove to cook canned soup or something small or you can eat cold items. But you should not operate a grill or any camp stove larger than a one-burner butane stove inside. |
