Awareness While Camping

Carbon monoxide detection around the home is something we should all be aware of but we also need to think about CO poisoning when we are on a camping trip. The article below highlights the need for awareness at all times. Most, if not all death from carbon monoxide could have been avoided and this is another one of those cases. The long term effects of poisoning is devasting, check out this link.

 

VERNONIA, Ore. (KOIN) — Camping season is upon us and one Oregon woman is helping raise awareness about a silent killer that left her partner dead in his RV.

Elana Brasure says her partner Daryl was the family’s rock.

“We met in the 6th grade,” Brasure told KOIN 6 News. “I paid 25 cents to kiss him and we wound up being true love, soulmates. He raised all 4 of my children as his own.”

He was also a big part of his step-grandkids’ lives. He used to take them camping in the same RV he used for a weekend of 4-wheeling with friends at Nicolai Mountain.

“He just never came home,” Brasure said.
Daryl said goodnight to his friends and climbed into the camper on a cold February night during the trip. He cranked on the furnace and went to sleep.

His best friend found him the next morning.

“We’d been in that motor home a zillion times,” Brasure said.

The family didn’t know the tasteless, odorless gas carbon monoxide killed Daryl until receiving the medical examiner’s report. Brasure says she wasn’t aware of carbon monoxide’s fatal risks and that a detector might have saved her partner’s life.

This article was originally published here.

 

Unfortunately, this is not the only case of carbon monoxide poisoning occuring while camping. There are numerous cases and below is another that resulted in tragedy. This story also mentions the great campaign Say No To CO which helps raise awareness and you can learn more about CO at this RSS Feed.

Loose Women speak to the man who lost his partner in a carbon monoxide camping tragedy
Tragedy struck campers Roland Wessling and Hazel Woodhams who lost her life due to CO poisoning inside her tent
Forensic scientist Roland Wessling appeared on Loose Women to warn about the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning after his partner, Hazel Woodhams, tragically lost her life.

He expressed his support for the show’s carbon monoxide awareness campaign Say No To CO.

Roland told of his camping trip to Great Yarmouth with Hazel and how after they had finished with their coal barbecue and let it go cold that it was perfectly safe to bring into the tent to keep it dry.

But unfortunately the carbon monoxide from the barbecue inside the tent caused Hazel’s death.
Roland said of the tragic accident: “How I survived is completely unknown. Yeah a miracle to be honest… No medical person could understand how I survived this and Hazel didn’t, especially because Hazel was probably dead within 5-10 minutes.”

He described how he woke up dazed and sick: “It took me a very long time to regain consciousness properly and as soon as I was conscious enough to understand there was something seriously wrong.

“I turned around and I was only lying half inside my sleeping bag and I must have tried to get out at some point in the night but I’ve got no recollection and Hazel was just an arm length away from me and she was dead.”

Read the full story here
Carbon monoxide is lethal and we will only stop these deaths through awareness. Taking a carbon monoxide alarm on camping trips is a great idea and will alert when there is a danger and will help to save lives, a lot of information can be read here.