Carbon monoxide poisoning prevented by forward thinking

By Rosa Duarte

Published: July 8, 2008

Tuesday, crews were busy fixing what could’ve been a deadly situation for some tenants at the Villages in Garst Creek in Roanoke County.

“The carbon monoxide was coming from some water heaters, gas powered hot water heaters” says Brian Clingenpeel with Roanoke County Fire and Rescue.

Clingenpeel says firefighters found dangerously high levels of carbon monoxide in 11 of 15 apartments after a detector went off early Sunday morning.

Courtney Bowles lives in one of those apartments.  “I came home at 3:00 a.m., and I saw the fire truck, and I was freaked because I didn’t know what had happened.”

Bowles and Clingenpeel agree things could’ve been much worse had it not been for that detector, owned by former Virginia Tech student Carli Dodd.

Dodd was a student when a similar situation occurred last August in Blacksburg where five people were sent to the hospital.

Clinenpeel says, “That stuck in her mind, and she bought a carbon monoxide detector while she was at Virginia Tech.  When she moved to Roanoke Co., she placed one in her apartment and we’re very glad she did because if her carbon monoxide detector hadn’t alerted and got us checking these apartments we could’ve had some different outcomes on Sunday morning.”

Maintenance Supervisor Mike Wall says after the incident they’re checking on all the vents and plan to install a detector in each apartment.