Carbon-monoxide deaths preventable
Woman who lost son on mission to save others from tragedy.
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Ammie Turos holds a photo of her son, James, when he was 3 years old. He was 15 when he died of carbon-monoxide poisoning a year ago in their East Side home.
James Turos was one of seven people killed by carbon monoxide in 2004 in Columbus. One person has died of it this year.
After last December’s ice storm, Ammie Turos turned on the furnace the day electricity was restored in her East Side home. But along with warmth, the faulty gas furnace flooded the home with carbon monoxide.
"My son was arm’s-length away from me (on the couch). I couldn’t stand up for anything," said Turos, 32, who said she also suffered carbon-monoxide poisoning. "I was yelling for him and I thought he was ignoring me. I was hallucinating. . . I would try to stand up and fall."
James "Jimmy" Turos, 15 years old and an only child, died in their home a year ago today. Since then, his mother has been on a crusade to inform people of the silent killer.
"I talk about it so I can educate everybody that I can," Turos said. "I don’t want him to be forgotten and have this happen to somebody else’s family."
She said she has given away 323 carbon-monoxide detectors to low-income families. Some detectors were donated by manufacturers and others were bought with money from a fundraiser organized by her friends.
Sources of carbon monoxide include poorly vented or leaking kerosene and gas space heaters, chimneys, furnaces, gas water heaters, wood and gas stoves, and fireplaces. Other sources are gasoline-powered equipment, such as generators, and automobile exhaust.
As of yesterday, the Columbus Fire Division had responded to 908 carbon-monoxide alarms this year and 108 calls from residents who thought the deadly gas was in their homes. There was one carbon monoxide-related death in the city this year, said Battalion Chief Doug Smith. On Nov. 29, firefighters found Patricia Perdue, 60, unconscious in her North Side home with a car running in an attached garage. She died later at a hospital.
Those statistics forecast that 2005 will be an improvement over 2004, when Jimmy Turos was one of seven people killed by carbon monoxide in Columbus. The Fire Division responded to 953 carbon-monoxide alarms and 130 calls from suspicious homeowners.
On Jan. 26, 2004, four people died of carbon-monoxide poisoning in a North Side home. Cab driver Owusu "Mike" Sekyere, 46, had left his cab running in an attached garage. The fumes killed Sekyere; his 21-year-old son, Michael Sekyere; 11-year-old daughter, Tracy Sekyere; and Mr. Sekyere’s girlfriend, Shirley Badu, 45. About two weeks later, Shereda Head, 28, and the Rev. Toney Howell, 83, died in a running car parked in a garage at Howell’s East Side home.
"We often call it the silent killer," Smith said. "It’s invisible, colorless and odorless. It’s a gas that’s created when fuel such as gasoline, wood and propane burns incompletely."
Symptoms include headaches, dizziness, confusion and nausea.
Ammie Turos didn’t celebrate Christmas this year, her first without Jimmy. He had attended Whitehall-Yearling High School. He loved NASCAR and basketball and wanted to be an architectural designer.
If she had known about the danger of carbon monoxide, Turos said, she would have had a detector in her home. The dollars invested in one can prevent death and despair, she said.
"Instead of going out to dinner or something," buy a carbon-monoxide detector, Turos suggested.
"It’s worth $30 because you can’t bring them back." |
