Doctors see spike in carbon monoxide poisoning-related ER visits

Doctors are seeing a spike in cases of carbon monoxide poisoning in southern Colorado.

In the past month, 13 people have been treated at Memorial Hospital for carbon monoxide poisoning. Usually, they treat about one in a month. They’ve come from all over Colorado, including Montrose and Lamar.

Doctor Rob Price, medical director for the Hyperbaric Medicine Department at UCHealth Memorial Hospital said because of the cold weather, people are turning on their furnaces and wood stoves.

“Carbon monoxide is an odorless, colorless gas that can be generated by burning any carbon-based fuel. Sources of carbon-based fuel can be propane for space heaters, it can be natural gas if it runs the furnace and the hot water heater in your homes, or it can be firewood in a wood-burning stove or fireplace,” Price said.

The gas can be deadly.

“It depends on the level they’re exposed to and for how long,” Price said. “If it’s a very high level, it can be fatal within an hour. Usually they’re not that high of levels, and it takes six to eight hours. Sometimes people are chronically exposed to very low levels, and the symptoms can be subtle.”

He advises people to make sure they have working carbon monoxide alarms and to have their furnaces, wood stoves and chimneys serviced.