Water heater gas leak? Iowa family dies in Mexico on vacation

[Terry]

The Sharp family planned to visit Mexico’s glittering Caribbean coast for a week, renting a condo northeast of Tulum. They were expected back Wednesday.

They never made it home to Iowa. All four members of the family asphyxiated on toxic gas in the condo, likely leaking from a water heater, Mexican authorities said Monday.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-mexico-official-says/?utm_term=.c0bdd8ffef9d

 

[Terry]

Gas is pretty serious. I was in Hanford California one time visiting relatives and experienced a bad situation there. I picked up their motor home from the dealer that had just been working on it. I told them as I was picking it up that there was a bad gas leak. They told me that they had just worked on it and I was wrong. I told them I was a plumber, and there was indeed a gas leak. They didn't buy it. Smarter than me I guess.

I drive the motor home back to their place, and my father in-law tells me it's okay to sleep in it. I'm insistent that nobody is sleeping in a motor home with a gas leak. He proceeds to demonstrate that the gas is working fine by lighting up burners on the stove. I'm backing out the door as I'm expecting an explosion. By this time my brother in-law is between me and the door, and he drops the oven door down.
Boom!!!!
Flames explode by him as I stand in his shadow. He turns to me and now has curly singed hair and eyebrows. The flames had gone right by him and missed me. Now everything is on fire. I turn and hook the hose up, turn back and start to put the fire out. My brother in-law sees me having so much fun with the hose, that he wants it now. I tell him the carpets that are burning inside are toxic.
Don't breath the air inside.
Of course that's the first thing he does as he starts coughing and coughing. Gee..........what a surprise.

They wound up towing the motor home back to the dealer. I found somewhere else to sleep.

I passed by this motor home in Oregon November of 2020
I least the one I saw catch fire was at my in-laws and I was able to put a hose on it.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Dj2]

Mexico is a lawless country. bypassing plumbing codes and laws is what they do.

 

[Phog]

I wonder if Mexico still has added carbon monoxide in their natural gas, like the USA used to in the old days of illuminating gas. (And no added mercaptin scent agents to serve as a warning). It's hard to die from natural gas alone in any way other than explosion -- it's not poisonous to breathe. You can asphyxiate, but a leak large enough to create an asphyxiating atmosphere in an entire apartment would have to be simply huge. It defies belief that a leak of that size could go unnoticed, and unignited, long enough to suffocate humans. Maybe it happened, but my guess is that it had to be something else other than natural gas that killed this family. And my bet is on CO.

 

[Jadnashua]

A Molex company (made in the USA) has a series of portable, calibrated CO detectors that run on batteries for probably close to the life of the sensor before it needs to be recalibrated that are made by their Sensorcom subsidiary (probably a couple of years). I recently bought one to carry with me on an airplane that I'm learning to fly. I had it on at home, and noticed that instead of zero, it was sometimes reading about 9-10PPM. That lead me to do some troubleshooting, and it all ended up with me replacing my boiler (I'm in the process now, hope to finish it up tomorrow). That's not enough to kill you, but might give you a headache. CO detectors you might have typically don't alarm below 35PPM after a delay, or higher, almost instantly.

The point is, these things aren't super expensive and can save your life.

A number of years ago, I was visiting my sister. I bought them a CO detector. A few weeks later, the thing went off in the middle of the night...their furnace heat exchanger developed a hole. Without it, they could have died.

The point being...you never know when or where you might run into this sort of thing. The only way maybe out of it is if you have an all-electric home...flames can give problems. FWIW, my gas stove ends up with all of 1-2PPM after it has been running for hours (like maybe doing a roast or a marathon baking event).

I've been very satisfied with the thing (I don't have any affiliation with them and gain no monetary benefit from them).

 

[Terry]

A number of years ago, I was visiting my sister. I bought them a CO detector. A few weeks later, the thing went off in the middle of the night...their furnace heat exchanger developed a hole. Without it, they could have died.

My Redmond home developed a hole the furnace heat exchanger. We were getting headaches and didn't know why.
I replaced the furnace and the headaches went away. Sometimes there is a problem, but not a big enough problem to know why. When I refinanced the Bothell home, they required carbon monoxide detectors. This furnace was replaced as part of the purchase when I bought it.

 

[Jadnashua]

The problem is...CO detectors don't alarm until the level is higher...you can get some symptoms when they are lower. This portable one is, I think, a good idea. If I were a serviceman, I think I'd carry one around with me so that you'd have a quick heads up when you were on a service call, especially if I were an HVAC guy.

 

[FullySprinklered]

Scary stuff. People need to know that gas will come out and get you.