HOUSTON — Shalemu Bekele awakened on Feb. 15 to find his townhouse, which he shared with his wife and two children, so cold that his fingers were numb.
Bekele, aged 51, was happy looking at his two children, aged 7 and 8, who were playing with snow and stepped out to capture photographs. The 46-year-old Bekele wife, Etenesh Mersha, made a fateful choice. She went into their attached garage and turned the key to start her car, desperate to warm up. When Bekele returned within 30 minutes, he found Mersha slumped in a chair, intoxicated by smoke from the tailpipe.
Mersha vomited that. Suddenly Bekele began to feel sick and asked if the eggs he had prepared for breakfast had sickened them all. Panicked, he sent the children in to pick up their mom's towels. Both children collapsed inside the floor before they could return.
Bekele then faints, landing on the concrete floor of the garage with a thud as the car continued running.
How Does Carbon Monoxide Get Enabled?
Two months ago, Texas legislators took some steps to protect residents against any future carbon monoxide disaster following the never-before mentioned wave of poisonings. This option covers more than 10 years of unknown warnings. Inaction has made Texas one of only six states without a national carbon monoxide alarm requirement in homes, as found by ProPublica, the Texas Tribune, and NBC News.
Carbon-Monoxide Poisoning Had Caused Too Many Casualties
Statistical experts in Health Policy said that Texas has a confusing patchwork of local codes with uneven resident protections and limited enforcement, which most likely contribute to unnecessary deaths. At least 11 deaths were confirmed, and during the weeks of the outage, only 400 shies, of the total for 2020, more than 1400 people in emergency departments and emergency care centers sought treatment of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Are The Texas Homes Equipped With Carbon Monoxide Alarms & Prevention Equipment?
In the past two decades, the vast majority of countries have introduced laws and regulations in private homes that require carbon monoxide warning, often under the umbrella of high-profile deaths or mass storm-related poisons. But efforts to implement similar carbon monoxide requirements have been repeatedly failing in Texas, where top legislators often promote personal responsibilities over state mandates. At the height of storm, temperatures dropped to the same figures, almost 4.5 million Texas homes and companies lost power, and over 150 people died.
The Carbon Monoxide Issue Has Alarmed the Area
Change demands triggered a series of resignations, but, given the regulatory shortcomings caused by power outages, virtually all the media and legislation focused little attention on carbon monoxide alarms. If the measure goes by, some new homes and apartments require carbon monoxide alarms, not before 2022.
The Family that Have Never Been Told About Carbon Monoxide Before
Back ten years ago, Bekele and Mersha came from Ethiopia to Houston with their family's dreams of a better life. In Houston, they purchased a three-bedroom townhouse. Bekele doesn't think that anybody told them that there were no carbon alarms at home. Bekele does not remember.
Information Should be disclosed as per Law.
State law requires information to be disclosed when homes are sold to a single family, but in Houston or throughout Texas, there is no policy that would have required one of the previous owners. "I've never been told about carbon monoxide before," said Bekele, speaking in his native Amharic through an interpreter.
The ambulance driver sailed ice-covered roads to the Texas Medical Center to transport Bekele to Hermann Memorial Hospital. Patients like Bekele were overrun in the hospital.
Dr. Samuel Prater, medical director of the hospital emergency department, said that medical staff was treating so many people because of carbon monoxide intoxication that the department runs out of beds and oxygen tanks." We never saw such a thing," Prater said later.
Memorial Hermann Health System Takes CO Cases
In its 20 emergency rooms in Houston and surrounding counties, Memorial Hermann Health System treats around 50 patients annually for carbon monoxide poisoning. The oxygen-supplying chambers are a standard treatment to stop the harm caused by serious CO poisoning in the bloodstream to more rapidly flush off carbon monoxide.
Prater has asked media chieftains at Memorial Hermann and at UTHealth's McGovern School for medical information to reach news agencies that can warn residents of the dangers of carbon monoxide, as power still falls in millions of Texas homes.
REFERENCE
Published by: Book Club
Source: NewsService
Release ID: 18041