Orlando, FL – WESH – A suspected carbon monoxide leak sent five employees of Central Florida’s Blood Centers to the hospital on Tuesday morning.
They were on board the blood donor bus being driven to University High School in Orlando, WESH 2 News reported.
When they arrived at the school, they complained of nausea and dizziness and called the Orange County Fire Department.
No high school students, including those participating in the blood drive, were affected. The blood drive continued at the high school and a lot of students lined up to donate blood.
The bus that the sickened workers were riding on was shut down, but another blood donation bus was still operating.
The five blood mobile workers who were taken to Florida Hospital in Orlando are doing OK.
Florida’s Blood Centers, which runs the blood mobiles, said it is not yet known if carbon monoxide was to blame. This is not the first time this has happened. In November 2004, one person was taken to the hospital after a blood drive at the University of Central Florida. The initial report blamed carbon monoxide.
In June 2005, fumes forced five workers to seek treatment during another blood drive, also at UCF.
“We don’t know that it was. We have indicators on the bus and they didn’t tell us it was anything like that. We don’t know, we’ll certainly find out, but right now, the indication is no,” said Pat Michaels, a spokesman for Florida’s Blood Centers.
Michaels said the workers will be treated at Florida Hospital, which is protocol for the Blood Centers.
Similar to Tuesday’s incident, Michaels said the center’s buses all have indicators and they did not detect carbon monoxide during the previous two incidents.
“When this happens to a bus, and we’re on multiple drives every day, we tell them, ‘If you smell anything unusual, you need to make the call. Don’t wait,’ because we have to err on the side of caution, not only for the employees, but for donors that are on the bus. So, we had no indication that it was carbon monoxide today or the other two,” Michaels said.