Warning of new risks of CO poisoning from modern equipment
A family of three in Nghe An and three restaurant employees in Hanoi are receiving intensive treatment at Bach Mai Hospital after being poisoned by CO gas from a generator, gas stove, and gas and electric fryer.
According to Dr. Nguyen Trung Nguyen, Director of the Poison Control Center, Bach Mai Hospital, although the patient was rescued and treated promptly and actively, it is still possible that he will not be able to completely avoid future complications.
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| The patient is being treated at Bach Mai Hospital. |
The Poison Control Center, Bach Mai Hospital has just received consecutive patients with symptoms of vomiting, coma, and respiratory failure due to CO (Carbon monoxide) poisoning. Specifically, 3 poisoning cases from a kitchen in Hanoi and a family of 2 mothers and children due to using a generator.
The patient who was poisoned from the kitchen of a restaurant in Hanoi recalled: In the kitchen of about 25 - 30 square meters, that morning, there were 6 people working together. The kitchen did not have any unusual smell.
However, at around 9am I fainted. When I woke up, I found out that another person had also fainted like me and another person with uncomfortable symptoms was brought here for treatment due to CO poisoning.
The doctor said that the CO concentration in my blood was very high, HbCO was up to more than 30% while normally it is only about less than 1%, the later sequelae could be memory loss. Up to now, after more than 10 days of hyperbaric oxygen treatment, taking preventive medicine to avoid complications with the mind and nerves, I still feel very tired.
Also suffering from CO poisoning, the family of three in Nghe An was using a generator. The patient’s brother said that on the evening of August 8, around 8 p.m., the house lost power, so his brother’s family used a generator for about four hours to turn on the air conditioner in a closed room of 15-20 square meters.
The family has been using this generator for a long time, but this time it was placed in a room connected to the bedroom. On the morning of August 9, at 9am, the family discovered that all three members of the younger brother's family were in a coma, with vomit next to them.
The father suffered mild poisoning and was treated locally and discharged from the hospital. The mother and child were intubated and taken directly to the Poison Control Center at Bach Mai Hospital. There, they received treatment, including resuscitation and medications to prevent brain damage.
According to Dr. Le Quang Thuan, Deputy Director of the Center, the mother (48 years old) has regained consciousness and had her breathing tube removed, but her son (15 years old) is still in a coma and in critical condition. The patient was admitted to the hospital with multiple organ damage, especially to the brain, heart, muscles, respiratory system and several other organs.
Both mother and child have obvious brain damage, so there is a high risk of late sequelae and they need to be monitored and treated very carefully. As for the father, because he was unconscious at first, there is also a high risk of later sequelae with the brain. Doctors recommend that he should go for a quick check-up and the doctor will prescribe medication and possibly hyperbaric oxygen therapy to prevent late sequelae.
“The poisoning cases this time have higher levels of HbCO in their blood than the victims in the fire in Khuong Ha, Thanh Xuan, Hanoi in September 2023,” Dr. Thuan emphasized.
Dr. Nguyen Trung Nguyen said that the Center received many cases of CO poisoning that were not caused by fire or explosion, such as riding a motorbike in a closed room, running a generator in a room connected to a room where people were living, sitting in a car and being poisoned by inhaling CO from the car's smoke, using a gas-powered water heater, or an oil fryer that uses both gas and electricity.
The CO poisoning incident in the kitchen at the restaurant mentioned above was definitely caused by cooking equipment burning gas but not burning completely, creating CO gas.
Notably, the kitchen was newly installed, the equipment was all new and was in the first day of testing. The type of oil fryer that uses both gas and electricity is at a higher risk.
The issue of product quality with gas-using equipment to ensure safety for users needs to be evaluated, considered and handled, so that the equipment must burn gas completely, avoiding generating CO gas to the point of causing poisoning.
Authorities also need to step in to inspect and re-examine these products, ensuring safety for people when they buy them for use, avoiding the case of a series of unsafe products being sold on the market, causing the risk of poisoning everywhere for many people.
Of course, other factors such as air circulation in the kitchen containing gas appliances must also be adequate to avoid generating additional CO gas. The kitchen must also be equipped with equipment to continuously measure and monitor CO and gas concentrations and immediately warn people when the concentrations of these gases increase to levels that cause poisoning or explosion.
CO is a colorless, odorless gas that does not irritate the respiratory tract. Therefore, it is very difficult to detect the presence of CO in the air.
CO gas is formed by the incomplete combustion of carbon-containing materials such as: gasoline, oil, natural gas, wood or charcoal, plastic, fabric, straw, stubble... or in some special cases, chemicals are absorbed through the skin into the body and then converted into CO gas and cause poisoning.
CO gas is quickly absorbed into the body and causes poisoning. In mild cases, it causes nausea, headaches, and can be mistaken for flu or food poisoning. In severe cases, it can cause unconsciousness and death.
Because CO gas from the air is quickly absorbed through the respiratory tract into the blood, in the blood, CO binds tightly to red blood cells, causing the blood to lose its ability to transport oxygen to the organs. When it reaches the organs, CO inhibits and suffocates cell activity, causing cell death and a series of complex chain reactions and acute damage as well as later sequelae.
The organs that are most commonly damaged and often severely and first affected are the brain, heart, muscles and other organs. The consequences of poisoning are brain, heart and organ damage, collapse, death or long-term sequelae.
Doctor Nguyen also emphasized: "50% of patients with mild CO poisoning, after treatment, will still suffer from mental and neurological sequelae, dementia, and memory loss later on.
One-third of people with severe initial poisoning who have cardiovascular damage will die within 8 years of the disease due to arrhythmias. People over 35 years of age who are poisoned by CO are at greater risk of complications. Early and aggressive treatment will reduce the severity, reduce the risk of death, and limit complications.
Currently in life there are new risks of CO poisoning, besides many machines and equipment using gasoline as fuel, it is worth noting that modern circumstances do not require fire or explosion to generate CO or new generation equipment can use gas that we are not yet familiar with such as forklifts, ice rink resurfacing machines, anesthetic gas adsorption units, coffee bean roasters.
There are even paint stripper chemicals containing methylene chloride and methylene bromide that can penetrate the skin into the body and then be converted into CO gas in the body and slowly cause poisoning,...
Obviously, the authorities need to have management and inspection measures to ensure that these machinery and chemicals are of good quality and safe. These equipment and chemicals must always be accompanied by warnings of the risk of poisoning so that consumers know and avoid them.
“All places where CO gas can be generated, such as kitchens, need to have devices installed to monitor and alert for CO and gas concentrations, to promptly detect and avoid unfortunate poisoning or explosion incidents,” Dr. Nguyen Trung Nguyen recommends.
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