13 people hospitalized due to dangerous carbon monoxide levels at an Ohio hotel swimming pool

It appears there have been no deaths, but 13 people have been hospitalized (7 In Critical Condition) due to life-threatening levels of carbon monoxide in the pool area of the Hampton Inn in Marysville, Ohio. (about 30 miles northwest of Columbus)

(CNN)Thirteen people, including an unconscious 2-year-old girl, were hospitalized Saturday night due to life-threatening levels of carbon monoxide in the pool area of a hotel in central Ohio, officials said.

The Hampton Inn in Marysville was evacuated Saturday after a 911 call reported the young girl unconscious, Police Chief Tony Brooks said.

"Shortly after this call, the local 911 Center received additional calls (referencing) unconscious subjects in and around the pool area," Brooks told CNN via email. "Others described symptoms such as dizziness and a burning in their throat."

Nine people, including the 2-year-old, were taken to local hospitals, and four others arrived to the hospital on their own, Brooks said, adding their conditions were not known. Two other people received medical evaluations at the scene and were not hospitalized.

"We did have life threatening levels of carbon monoxide in the pool area of the hotel and we transported several people to local hospitals," Marysville Fire Chief Jay Riley told CNN in an email. "We continue the investigation into the source and (are) glad that no one died as a result of their exposure."

www.cnn.com...

Carbon Monoxide Poisoning At Hotel Leaves 7 In Critical Condition

Marysville Fire Chief Jay Riley told the newspaper that the source of the carbon monoxide was unclear but everyone who was hospitalized had been in the hotel's pool area.

Brooks told the newspaper that all of the injured were alive when they were transported and that seven of the patients were in critical condition.

abcnews.go.com...

That's got to be a lot to overwhelm people quick when they are awake and aware like that. Usually when you hear about CO poisoning, it has taken people who are asleep overnight.

Wow! And then for it to have been confined to the pool. It's almost like the pool heater went haywire.

a reply to: ketsuko

It's been awhile since I've stayed in a hotel (probably over 10 years ago), but the last time I was in a hotel pool, they seemed to be using a ridiculous amount of chlorine.

It's possible that when these people first started feeling the symptoms, such as a sore throat, they might have just assumed it was the chlorine, and weren't overly concerned about it. Maybe.

a reply to: BrokenCircles

Yeah. Hotel pools do have strong chlorine. Judging from our own experiences since we tend to do overnights reasonably often, you usually aren't going to stay in a pool for more than an hour or two at most too. That's still a lot of CO in the air!

a reply to: BrokenCircles

Damn that sucks , I hope they all get better quick . I guess they didn’t have a carbon monoxide detector. Or it didn’t work like it should . It shouldn’t be that people are learning of carbon monoxide in the air by becoming unconscious. Businesses should spend money on a carbon monoxide detector to alert these poor people

CO is a heavy gas. It tends to stay low to the ground. The reason that you hear about people being overcome in their sleep is because beds are near the flood and the gas concentrates there.

The surface of the water in an indoor pool would be the low point in the room. The gas would concentrate there. People around the pool lying on chaises would also be near the concentration. The physical exertion of swimming could also be a factor.

On the subject of Chlorine. There was a local company that had an indoor swimming pool for the use of it's employees. There was a closet where the pool chemicals were stored. One time someone put a box containing bottles of Ammonia on a shelf. One of the bottles leaked into the Chlorine for the pool. They had to evacuate the building.

a reply to: Thenail

Businesses should spend money on a carbon monoxide detector to alert these poor people

Regardless of what the actual source was, I assume this will likely lead to some hefty lawsuits, which will hopefully help to ensure that such a thing doesn't happen again.

originally posted by: BrokenCircles
a reply to: Thenail

Businesses should spend money on a carbon monoxide detector to alert these poor people

Regardless of what the actual source was, I assume this will likely lead to some hefty lawsuits, which will hopefully help to ensure that such a thing doesn't happen again.

Yeah, but you shouldn't need lawsuits for that. It should be enough that people almost died for the changes to occur, and sometimes, it's all just a freak accident to begin with that no one ever thought would be a thing so again, I hate seeing lawsuits out of it.

I doubt that a CO detector will work around a pool. A CO detector shines a beam of light on a sensor. A certain amount of CO will change the wavelength of the light triggering the alarm. With the amount of humidity around a pool, I don't think the sensor will work.

originally posted by: JIMC5499
I doubt that a CO detector will work around a pool. A CO detector shines a beam of light on a sensor. A certain amount of CO will change the wavelength of the light triggering the alarm. With the amount of humidity around a pool, I don't think the sensor will work.

I guess they don’t work great in damp and real humid and excessively moist conditions. I don’t think one in a ventilated area of the room would be a huge problem . I’ve heard once or twice where a carbon monoxide from a hotel pool heater killed someone . I know neither you nor I write the code for that area but it’d be interesting to know what it is . Maybe it needs to be changed

As far as I can tell, they still haven't found the source, but it does seem that the patients conditions are improving. A couple still in critical condition, but stable.

Jan. 30, 2022 / 12:53 PM

Two of the patients are listed as being in critical condition after suffering carbon monoxide poisoning, but have since stabilized, hospital officials told CNN. Five patients are in serious condition and at least four other patients have since been released from the hospital.

Six of the patients were children, according to WSYX. It was not immediately clear what caused the high carbon monoxide levels.

www.upi.com...

That stuff is dangerous you cant smell it I almost died when I was a kid riding in the back seat of my dads car me and my brothers were out cold and my father noticed and threw us out of the car and revived us . Not sure how it happened but the exhaust fumes were hitting us in the back seat but somehow old dad knew exactly what it was - He knew there was a problem I guess.

a reply to: Ravenwatcher

Something to do with the exhaust system probably. If it breaks in the wrong place the exhaust doesn't get funneled out of the car properly and can leak up into the cabin.

How much snow does this area of Ohio have? I wonder if it snowed enough to cover the pool heater exhaust vent on the roof of the building?

Like Ketsuko pointed out, the pool goes to heat up and with nowhere to exhaust it would go back into the building. They have flue stack sensors but they only check for the temperature of the exhaust, as long as the exhaust didn’t exceed temp it would have continued running.

I see other articles that claim pool chemistry can do this but I have yet to see which chemicals are responsible. That info would be nice to know so this can stop happening.

I would suggest that the source of the Carbon monoxide is probably the pool heater. I assume they are using a gas water heater for the pool water. An electric pool heater would be extremely inefficient.

originally posted by: BrokenCircles
a reply to: ketsuko

It's been awhile since I've stayed in a hotel (probably over 10 years ago), but the last time I was in a hotel pool, they seemed to be using a ridiculous amount of chlorine.

It's possible that when these people first started feeling the symptoms, such as a sore throat, they might have just assumed it was the chlorine, and weren't overly concerned about it. Maybe.

You are 100% correct. I don't enter the pools any longer. But Covid-19 can't live in higher levels of chlorine. And human gas can have strange effects on chlorine gas.

I don't think they've made a definitive statement yet, but Officials are saying possibly the pool heater.

The source of a carbon monoxide leak at the Hampton Inn in Marysville on Saturday that sent multiple people to the hospital may have came from a pool heater, according to police and fire officials.

news.yahoo.com...

I thought this was pretty interesting.

A 2019 article in Preventive Medicine Reports indicated that from 2005-2018 there were 28 incidents and 12 deaths due to "unintentional (carbon monoxide) poisoning in hotels, motels, and resorts" as a result of natural gas swimming pool heaters.

Ohio's fire code does not require hotels to have carbon monoxide detectors in pool areas of hotels. Inspections and licensing of public water facilities, such as the hotel pool and hot tub, are done by local health departments.