A silent leak. A life-altering injury.

Carbon monoxide (CO) is a colorless, odorless gas that can kill without warning. It’s created by incomplete combustion and it becomes dangerous when it builds up indoors or in enclosed spaces where people breathe it in. For many survivors, the harm isn’t just an ER visit. Severe CO exposure can lead to brain injury, seizures, permanent disability, and wrongful death.

CO poisoning often starts like a common illness. Headache, dizziness, nausea, and fatigue can look like “the flu” until symptoms escalate. CO can also incapacitate people while they’re sleeping or before they understand what’s happening.

Where exposure happens

CO incidents are not limited to one type of building. They show up in everyday places, especially where fuel-burning appliances, boilers, heaters, or ventilation failures are present. Common high-risk settings include: hotels and short-term rentals, apartment buildings and rental properties, daycares and schools, office buildings and factories, nursing homes and care facilities, and private residences.

A real-world example: an Allentown-area daycare incident led to dozens of people hospitalized, many of them children, after a faulty furnace and blocked ventilation allowed CO to leak into the building, with litigation and licensing consequences following.

Statistical Insights and Legal Trends

The NFPA reports that fire departments respond to approximately 60,000 CO incidents each year (which do not include vehicle-related cases). The statistics related to CO exposure are grave reminders of how many people grapple with severe related health issues and wrongful death from CO poisoning. Thus, the rise in CO litigations reflects public awareness and demands accountability for negligence that leads to CO poisoning.

In 2013, a family received a $12 million settlement in Boone, North Carolina, after an 11-year-old boy died due to CO poisoning from a defective hotel pool heater. In 2017, teachers and students in Baltimore filed a lawsuit and won an unnamed lawsuit against the city’s school system after being exposed to CO from a faulty boiler. Private settings are not immune to CO cases. In a notable 2018 incident, a Colorado family won a $2 million lawsuit after suffering CO poisoning from an improperly ventilated home furnace.

What to do after suspected CO exposure

Medical care comes first. But a few steps can protect safety and preserve critical evidence:

1. Get everyone to fresh air and seek medical evaluation immediately.
2. Document the timeline: where symptoms began, who was present, and when emergency response occurred.
3. Preserve evidence when possible: photos of appliances/vents, detector locations, and any alarm units (don’t discard detectors).
4. Request records: fire department run sheets, building maintenance logs, inspection reports, and any CO readings taken on scene.

Misdiagnosis and delay can happen because symptoms mimic common illnesses, so medical records and timing details matter.

Consult with a Toxic Tort Attorney

Carbon monoxide poisoning is a “silent” harm, but the consequences are loud: ICU stays, neurologic injury, lifelong disability, and wrongful death. When a building, product, or maintenance failure allowed CO to accumulate, the harm isn’t an unavoidable accident. It’s a preventable exposure.

McEldrew Purtell investigates CO poisoning cases involving catastrophic injury and wrongful death, identifies responsible parties across property and product lines, and pursues accountability that matches the scale of the loss.