Sacramento, CA – News10, By Jason Kobely – A mother and her 6-year-old daughter are in critical condition after an apparent case of carbon monoxide poisoning from a built-in heater in their Sacramento home.
Fire crews were called to the home on the 7200 block of 15th Street at 4:51 p.m. Wednesday, according to Sacramento City Fire Battalion Chief Niko King. King said the 46-year-old woman and her young daughter were found inside the home unconscious when the woman’s husband came home from work. After dragging his family outside, the man’s cries for help alerted neighbors.
“I came out and the daughter was laying at the front door and the mom was laying in the back door,” neighbor Vanessa Robledo said. “I saw him trying to wake them up, shaking them. They wouldn’t wake up.”
Both mother and daughter were found with high levels of carbon monoxide in their systems. The mother was transported to Kaiser South Hospital in critical condition. From there, she was taken to Travis Hospital for hyperbaric oxygen treatment. The girl was also listed in critical condtion at Methodist Hospital of Sacramento. The child was also expected to receive treatment in a hyperbaric chamber at the U.C. Davis Medical Center. The victims’ identities have not been released.
“They probably didn’t even know they were being exposed to it,” King said. “They felt lethargic, they got tired and then just fell asleep.”
The husband told authorities the couple had been having problems with the home’s built-in heating system and had called out a repairman Tuesday to look into the problem, King said.
King said a carbon monoxide detector in the home could have alerted the family to the danger