U.S. senators representing states that experience cold weather have banded together to introduce legislation to help prevent deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning.
As winter set in across the nation, U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.; and Bob Casey, D-Pa., this week offered a bill named for two young brothers from Kimball, Minn., who died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Called the Nicholas and Zachary Burt Memorial Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Prevention Act, the bill would allow the Consumer Product Safety Commission to provide support for public safety education and to encourage installment of safe and reliable carbon monoxide detectors.
“Preventing instances of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning requires the proper safeguards,” Klobuchar said in a statement. “This bill will help educate the public on how to avoid danger as well as ensure the installation of critical detectors, helping families in Minnesota and across the country prevent tragedy before it strikes.”
International Falls Fire Chief Jerry Jensen applauded the effort.
“Anything to do with CO alarms and smoke alarms, I think is a great thing,” he said.
Jensen said locally, paramedics carry carbon monoxide monitors with them on ambulance runs as well as devices to detect CO levels in a person’s body.
Carbon monoxide is a gas that can build up to dangerous concentrations indoors when fuel-burning devices are not properly vented, operated, or maintained. Because it has no odor, color or taste, carbon monoxide cannot be detected by our senses, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. It is estimated that unintentional carbon monoxide exposure accounts for an estimated 500 deaths in the United States each year. Poisoning contributes annually to more than 2,000 deaths in the United States. In addition, about 8,000 to 15,000 people each year are examined or treated in hospitals for non-fire related carbon monoxide poisoning.
“People get sick and don’t know what’s going on,” Jensen said of people suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning. “We really push people to get monitors in their homes...It is just as important to have CO monitors as it is to have smoke alarms. Carbon monoxide can be very deadly.”
Schumer said carbon monoxide poisoning is an indiscriminant and stealthy killer, and legislators cannot remain silent about the danger it poses, especially when winter rolls in and oil and gas heaters are more heavily in use.
“That’s why our legislation steps up federal support for both public education and carbon monoxide detection, which will give American families the tools they need to detect carbon monoxide before it can cause harm,” he said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, there are more than 400 deaths and 20,000 emergency room visits as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning each year and the highest percentage of carbon monoxide exposures occurs during the winter months of December, January, and February.
“We get CO calls all year round,” Jensen said. “I’d say we go on a couple calls a month...We get a lot of low battery calls.”
Jensen said carbon monoxide related calls are becoming more common because more people have alarms in their homes.
Especially dangerous in Minnesota is the risk of poisoning associated with running an automobile engine in an attached garage or burning charcoal in the house.
