“Weird Al” Yankovic’s parents died of CO poisoning, a few years back.
Public service announcement, kiddies: If you have a CO detector, check the batteries. If you do not, GET ONE. (assuming you have any fossil-fuel appliances whatsoever including furnace/water heater, and/or you have a fireplace).
My senior year in college, my roomamtes and I were likely suffering from low-level CO poisoning. Our crappy apartment leaked like a sieve - so we put up weatherstripping / plastic on the windows.
And we were tired ALL THE TIME no matter how much we napped.
It got better after spring break. We decided we just needed time to rest and decompress.
Years later, I finally made the connection. We’d basically poisoned ourselves. The improvement was because we were no longer using the furnace. No way to prove this in hindsight but the symptoms and timing all add up. The fact that we couldn’t afford to weatherstrip the whole place, and that there were still visible gaps around the doors, likely saved our lives.
The news stuff Mrs FtG watches went on and on about Hoosiers and such. Barely mentioned The Conversation which I feel is his greatest work. He got much more “into character” in that one than any other, IMHO.
[Which makes me think of a post for the questions-with-two-answers thread. What movie has both Harrison Ford and Cindy Williams?]
Story is getting weirder…apparently there were pills scattered on a counter, the dead dog was found in a closet. Maybe they were not thinking clearly due to the gas? Sad no matter what caused it.
The ABC site said this- Their deaths were “suspicious enough in nature to require a thorough search and investigation” due to all of the “circumstances surrounding” the scene, according to a search warrant affidavit obtained by ABC News.
I literally just referenced this on another thread as the quintessential example of an “anti-villain” so many good things about this movie but Hackman still stood out as amazing.
I’m sure all the horrible details will be poured over by the press in the coming weeks. But I’m amazed in this day and age with all the building codes around boilers and CO detectors, a (I assume) multi millionaire would have burner faulty enough kill a household.
According to a search warrant, obtained by TMZ, a Santa Fe detective who sought a search warrant wrote in his affidavit, he believes "the death of the two deceased individuals to be suspicious enough in nature to require a thorough search and investigation because the reporting party found the front door of the residence unsecured and opened, deputies observed a healthy dog running loose on the property, another healthy dog near the deceased female, a deceased dog laying 10-15 feet from the deceased female in a closet of the bathroom, the heater being moved, the pill bottle being opened and pills scattered next to the female, the male decedent being located in a separate room of the residence, and no obvious signs of a gas leak.
The fire department came and advised they did not see any signs of carbon monoxide leak or poisoning. The New Mexico gas company came to the residence and conducted testing on the gas lines in and around the house, and concluded, “As of now, there are no signs or evidence indicating there were any problems associated to the pipes in and around the residence.”
AIUI, CO poisoning from a central gas furnace is not typically due to a manufacturing defect. Instead, parts of the burner and/or heat exchanger, after many years and many cycles of thermally induced stress, develop a crack that lets CO get to where it ain’t supposed to be. In other words, any gas furnace, no matter how well-built, is vulnerable to this kind of failure.
My dog would be found in the closet. That’s his defacto cave/den.
If I fell over from some poisioning and happened to have my med bag in my hand, pills would be everywhere.
Neither one of those is suspicious in itself. Just coincidental.
I knew an elderly man(friend of my Daddy) who was starting his car in the garage one morning. He was waiting on it to heat up to leave. Some reason he closed his eyes and promptly fell asleep. It appeared he had been there and hour or more.
He lived. He said it was about the most painful thing he ever survived.
So… CO poision is not like going into a peaceful sleep.
I guess you get there eventually, after you’re brain dead.
This is strictly an anecdote. I’m reporting what the man said he experienced. I believed him. YMMV
Yeah you’d think whoever was taking care of his house (presumably not Hackman as he was 95) would be getting paid more than I spend on maintenance in a decade and sparing no expense to ensure everything was in perfect condition.
But I guess that’s not how it works IRL. Again I’m sure all the horrible details will be spread all over the Internet in the months to come.
