Carbon Monoxide

JDBRIDER

Member
I know this was just brought up but wanted to put my experience on top.
A couple years ago I was fixing the brakes on my Pickup truck. Working in a closed shop. Heat off. Shop is 16 X 32 with 12 foot ceiling. Had a fluid leak where the new brake hose met the new caliper. I started the truck, pumped the brake and shut the truck off. Checked the leak and it was still leaking. Did this about 6 times. Truck probably didn't run a total of much more than a minute. About the 4th time I went from the back of the truck on the passenger side to the drivers side to start the truck and pump the brake I didn't feel well. The 5th time worse, the 6 time I could hardly walk. I didn't know what was wrong. After the 6th time I couldn't get up off the stool I was sitting on. I tried to call my wife in the house on my cell phone but couldn't figure out how to use it. I just sat there on my stool leaning against the truck. Carbon Monoxide never entered my mind. Thankfully my wife came into the shop and found me. She opened the door and called the ambulance and they took me to the hospital. I think what made my problem so serious was that I was working right by the exhaust pipe. I would start the truck, make a little cloud of carbon monoxide and go sit in it. About the time it would start to dissipate I would go start the truck and make another one and go sit in it again. Like I said before the truck probably didn't run much over 1 minute total.
You can never be too careful. Sometimes the smallest amount of carelessness can get you.
 
thanks for sharing. BTDT. I guess repeated start/stop cold made for powerful fumes. guess we all need alarms to remind, cuz you do get numb in the head. me & buddy lost a little Freon one winter, sucked thru space heater--pretty awful stuff.
 
I knew two different fellas that used carbon monoxide to make their exit. Guess it doesn't take much.
 
A bunch of teachers and students at a Dallas Tx middle school went home sick this week. Some failed to return next morning(all are fine now)and others become ill. After evacuating the school,a dead owl was discovered in a furnace flue. Appears the bird entered, was overcome and died. Not a single detector in building because Texas does not require detectors in public schools.
 
I should have included in my post. The next day we went out and bought detectors for each of the kids in their house and garage and in our house and in the shop.
 
I have two carbon monoxide detectors in my shop.
When we have run a vehicle in the shop occasionally they go off and we throw the overhead door up. They are very sensitive and go off well before anybody has trouble.
Good wives are great. They seem to come at the right time. One time my wife showed up and I was having a near fatal medical emergency.
 
(quoted from post at 22:26:18 03/05/15) thanks for sharing. BTDT. I guess repeated start/stop cold made for powerful fumes. guess we all need alarms to remind, cuz you do get numb in the head. me & buddy lost a little Freon one winter, sucked thru space heater--pretty awful stuff.

That can be a very bad situation. When refrigerant is burned it produces phosgene gas, also know as mustard gas, was the most common poisonous gas used in WWI.
 
I worked with a man who did the same thing you did. They found him passed out on the floor. Lucky to be alive, but has brain damage to nervous system. His body jerks uncontrollably.

I worked on my daughter's car inside my garage. I opened both overhead doors. There must have been enough wind to blow the exhaust under the door between garage and house. My digital CO meter was showing high levels in the other side of my house, 50 ft away. I had to open all windows to get levels down to 0.

I never work on a car, truck or tractor inside any building, lesson learned. Don't weld inside either. Worst case is it raining, I'll open shop door, work just inside out of rain, but have a fan blowing exhaust outside.
 
good friend of mine survived ,, but was disabiled at age 40,,. he was forklift driver , his company bought a building next door ,, they worked 2 fork lifts in the basement in the cold ,winter with no heat , cleaning out old stock and stock piling up the ramp to another floor ,, after 3rd day both drivers were sik , flu like symptoms , both went to hospital at noon, one was released next day ok ,, mark stayed there for 2 weeks , with permanent nerve damage ,, guess it all dependson many factors ,,
 
My brother in law was tuning a propane forklift in his shop when he got sick and woozy from carbon monoxide. He made it out the door but when the cold fresh air hit him he passed out and laid there unconscious. When he came to he was turning purple from the cold but he made it to the house and eventually took an ambulance ride to ER. He didn't suffer any permanent damage but it do think about him every time I start an engine in a closed building.
 

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