WASHINGTON — A family of three was taken to a hospital Thursday morning after being exposed to carbon monoxide in Northeast D.C.
D.C. Fire and EMS said they were called to a home on 20th Street, near and Kearney Street, in Northeast, in response to a report of a man having a heart attack. But when they arrived, they detected carbon monoxide that were “off the charts,” and deduced that that was the real problem, spokesman Doug Buchanan said.
The man, the father in the family, was unconscious when he was taken to the hospital; along the way, he regained consciousness and is expected to be OK. The mother and a teenage daughter also were taken to the hospital with serious, but non-life threatening injuries.
Fire officials believe the cause of the carbon monoxide leak was a furnace that had been worked on Wednesday.
There were carbon monoxide detectors in the home, fire officials said, but the batteries weren’t working.
