Carbon Monoxide Procedures

The Kalamazoo County (Mich.) sheriff’s comm center is investigating an incident where a dispatcher told an 89-year-old woman to remove the battery from her carbon-monoxide detector after it started sounding at midnight. The dispatcher questioned the woman about smells, smoke and a possible fire, but the woman experienced none of those. So the dispatcher told the woman, “I would recommend pulling the batteries out and having it looked at. If you feel sick or something, feel free to give us a call back, but at this point that is not something that the fire department comes out for, OK?” Perhaps light-headed but still not daffy, the woman smartly opened up a window and called the gas utility, who arrived to measure carbon monoxide in her home at 110 parts per million, well above the 25 ppm safe limit. The CO was traced to a faulty heater. Kalamazoo County Sheriff Mike Anderson said the dispatcher handled Eppstein’s call as he was trained. But he also changed procedures. Read more here. [editorial opinion]

Editorial opinion: Fire departments typically urge residents to install smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in their homes for protection. The CO detector warns of the presence of an odorless, colorless gas that could disorient the occupant, or make the semi- or completely unconscious. Now, when the CO detector sounds, the procedure is to question the caller–who can’t smell or see the gas, and who might not realize their peril because of the effects of the gas–and not respond a fire or EMS unit? Unless a comm center is receiving scores of calls from residents per day about CO detectors that are sounding false alarms, this response policy is unsound.