Face of Nation : A guest who fell sick from carbon monoxide at a Winnipeg motel on Tuesday believes the poisonous gas had been building up for several hours — long before an alarm went off.
“Clearly, there was carbon monoxide poisoning going on through the night ’cause it was seven in the morning when I woke up with horrible symptoms, so obviously detectors weren’t working properly,” said Dave Montgomery.
The Super 8 Motel on the western side of Winnipeg had to be evacuated Tuesday morning because of excessive levels of the gas.
Of the 52 guests and staff, 46 people were treated for carbon monoxide poisoning at city hospitals. At one point, 15 people were listed in critical condition, but all survived.
A dog that was staying with one guest was treated by Winnipeg Animal Services.
Eight fire trucks, along with ambulances and a mass-incident-response vehicle responded after the carbon monoxide alarm in the boiler room went off just after 10 a.m.
The CO levels in the hotel were extreme, as high as 385 parts per million, according to Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service chief John Lane, who noted 10-20 parts per million is when carbon monoxide becomes dangerous.
Montgomery said he got up feeling dizzy and nauseous and suffering from a headache “like a major hangover” three hours before the alarm went off.
He thought his symptoms were from dental work the day before, and booked a followup appointment with his dentist.
“I thought, ‘Wow, I must be having some kind of reaction to that.’ A couple of times I just sort of had to sit down on the couch in the room, like ‘Whoa, what is this?'”
When he explained his symptoms, the dentist told him it was not connected to that work. The dentist allowed him to stay in a room until he felt better, and Montgomery said within a half hour he was vastly improved.
It was only as he was driving away that he heard the news reports.
“These carbon monoxide levels didn’t just go up in the morning, they had to be up during the night,” he said.
A couple of times I just sort of had to sit down on the couch in the room, like ‘Whoa, what is this?’ – Dave Montgomery
“Clearly, that’s what it was.”
He said he pulled into a hospital in a small town and got checked over.
He wonders why it took so long for the gas to be detected.
The owners of the Super 8 say they are co-operating fully with the investigation into the leak and are extremely grateful there were no casualties.
“This could have ended very badly,” said Karina Bueckert, a spokesperson for the Inn Keepers, a Manitoba-based family-run firm that owns the motel and four other hotels in the province.
The Super 8 was inspected in May and passed, she said, adding it was fully up to code regarding the location of CO detectors.
The devices are not required to be located in individual hotel rooms, just where there could be a carbon monoxide leak.
“Anywhere there could have been a carbon monoxide leak, we had a carbon monoxide detector,” she said.
Bueckert noted there was no work being done on the heating and cooling system or anything else at the motel to explain why the CO levels spiked.
“So we’re very interested in hearing what the report [from the office of the fire commissioner] says,” she said.
Officials with the city’s fire paramedic service, the regional health authority and Manitoba Hydro are holding a news conference at 1:30 p.m. CT Wednesday to provide an update on the incident.
