Omnibus – Detecting the invisible killer

THIS COLUMN tries to stay away from material that would normally appear in the news or lifestyle columns, but for once I want to follow the crowd and join in the general warnings about the silent killer that takes upwards of 40 lives in this country every year.[private] There is a personal angle to this: in school, my son was one class behind a young man who died tragically at Christmas 2008. His name was Padraig Hughes, a son of Cathal Hughes from Westport, and he died at home in his own bed of carbon monoxide poisoning. The Hughes family had more than its share of suffering in the past few years â€â€ Padraic's mother Kim died of cancer in 2004. So it was brave of Cathal, who went to school in St Jarlath's College, to appear on a series of radio and TV ads around Christmas advising people to invest in carbon monoxide detectors for their homes. I had it in the back of my mind for ages to invest in a CO (carbon monoxide) alarm, but never got around to it. And then came the news of the death in the Trident Hotel in Kinsale earlier this month, and I heard several people on Joe Duffy's Liveline RTE 1 radio show speak of friends or relatives who suffered similar deaths. So then the only question was, where to get a reliable alarm? It was mentioned in passing that all alarms are not equal, and those which do not have the EN 50291 EU approval number are not to be trusted. Last week I spoke to JJâ€Ë†O'Brien, of the COâ€Ë†Detector company, who knows this part of the country well. His wife Sharon Wallace is from Granlahan, between Williamstown and Ballinslough, and JJ is often in the area. JJâ€Ë†recommended the Honeywell detector, which is guaranteed for six years. I know Honeywell is a reliable and well established company â€â€ we have used several of their control devices in our business â€â€ and went ahead and ordered three. That was late on a Thursday, and they arrived on the following Monday morning. The Honeywell detector costs €40, but it's a small investment over six or even seven years. You can buy cheaper, I gather, but you will have to replace the battery every year. The old adage applies â€â€ buy cheap, buy twice. The picture shows how it looks. It's about the size of a pack of 20 cigarettes, and you mount it on a wall in the room where your stove or fireplace is, or in the bedroom nearest the flue if you have an oil boiler in or beside the house. You can get more information on the company's website, www.codetector.ie. Many people, myself included for a long time, think that an ordinary smoke alarm will guard against carbon monoxide. It will not. Carbon monoxide does not produce smoke, in fact it is colourless, tasteless and odourless so you get no warning. This deadly gas is produced when fossil fuels containing carbon (coal, wood, oil or gas) are burned without sufficient oxygen to allow for complete combustion. As carbon monoxide enters the body through the lungs, it inhibits the ability of the blood stream to carry oxygen throughout the body. Exposure to low concentrations of carbon monoxide can cause headaches, fatigue, shortness of breath, and chest pains in persons with heart disease. Higher concentrations can result in severe headaches, dizziness, disorientation, and various flu-like symptoms which mysteriously disappear when away from the home or source of exposure. Extreme levels of exposure can result in coma, convulsions, cardio-respiratory failure, and death. It's a grim prospect when you consider how many of us forget to check our chimneys for blockages or have the boiler serviced when it should be. The saddest story I heard was that of a young man who died because he closed the door on a gas cooker grill while he was cooking breakfast. Let's try to ensure there are no more needless CO deaths. â€â€ David Burke [/private]