10 hospitalized with symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, Nassau fire marshal says

Eleven people sharing an East Meadow home on Buchanan Road might not have lived through Monday night were it not for their pediatrician — who also doubles as their fire department's medical director — and instantly identified carbon monoxide poisoning. 

Ten of them, four children, one only 3 weeks old, and six adults, the eldest of whom was 60, were hospitalized, while one declined medical care, according to Nassau County chief fire marshal Michael F. Uttaro.

"They're doing well; everybody's OK," said the pediatrician, Dr. John Zaso, of East Meadow. 

The mother had called that evening to describe her children's flu-like symptoms, which, oddly, were spreading throughout the household.

"As soon as I heard that," said Zaso, "bells went off in my head."

"The first thing — I said: 'Everybody get out of the house and call 911.'"

The headaches, nausea and trouble walking one or two children were suffering from mimicked the flu — but with everyone in the home getting sick at once, Zaso realized the culprit probably was carbon monoxide poisoning.

Standing by his fire department radio, the pediatrician waited to hear the emergency call go out — when it did not, realizing the residents still had not left their home, "I used a variety of expletives to get them out of the house as quickly as possible."

And he made the call, dispatching the fire department at approximately 9:20 p.m. Monday.

The doctor's instincts were correct: The level of carbon monoxide — a gas whose lack of all taste, color and odor makes it so deadly — was 1,450 parts per million, Uttaro said by text.

"As little as 50 parts per million can cause illness," he noted.

Said Zaso: "If they hadn't called within an hour, they would have been unconscious; if it had gone on to this morning, you would be doing an entirely different story."

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration bars workers from being exposed to an average of more than 50 parts per million in eight hours. Experts say symptoms, including dizziness and chest pain, can begin in concentrations as low as 70 parts per million.

The gas, which red cells prefer to oxygen, kills at least 430 people every year; almost 10 times as many must be hospitalized, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. 

When firefighters arrived at the East Meadow home, said the doctor, "there were still people in the house; we had to go in with safety gear, the levels were so high."

"If you went down to the basement without safety gear and a respirator, you'd have been overcome in half a minute," said Zaso, who first trained as an emergency medical technician.

Underscoring the severity of the poisoning, Uttaro said: "Several occupants who were transported to Nassau University Medical Center were to be evaluated for possible treatment in the hyperbaric chamber for serious exposure to carbon monoxide."

No first responders were hurt. Uttaro said it "cannot be confirmed" if the home had functional carbon monoxide alarms. 

Said Zaso: "The biggest thing is to tell people to check their carbon monoxide detectors every year."