How Generator Fumes Killed An Only Son

Sub-Pharmacist Tobenna:

Femi’s mother called his phone, it rang but he didn’t pick & he never returned the call, that was unlike her son, she called him the next day and it was the same thing, the third day his number was off, she was alarmed and spoke with her husband about it & he was worried-

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His parents set out on a search for their son, his mom suggested they go to where their son lives first if he is not there then they have to report to the police immediately.

They checked him out in his house, the door was locked but something didn’t feel right with the mother so, after knocking on the door, they got help and broke the door, when they did, they found their only son and another lady lying unconscious on the bed, they didn’t know what happened.

His mother couldn’t hold her tears, and his father was in shock. Their son and the lady were both rushed to the hospital, there in the hospital their son died. The girl was still unconscious and placed in the emergency unit.

The boys parents enlisted the forensic department and I was part of the toxicology unit. We set out to do what we do best,”uncover the truth”.

We were all running background checks to know what really happened.
We had to check what really happened, first, we had to visit were it all happened, the boy’s room. We got there and there was no sign of struggle, no attack, there was no sign of drug use or substance abuse, but I noticed something.
The position of his gen and I was like, isn’t this gen wrongly placed?
The gen was positioned in such a way that the gen smoke could get to the room and not outside, so I thought.

We ran a simulation and had to run analysis, so we bought fuel and filled the gen, put it on and in the same way it was facing and closed the room the way it was, the gen was not actually “smoking” but at a time we started somewhat choking, we had to rush out for air.
From that we had a lead and we kept digging. 3wks later the lady he was with woke from her coma. We attended to her and made sure she had all the care she needed, we prevented the boy’s parents from getting to her so things don’t get really messy.

3days later when we were sure she could at least talk we asked her what happened, she said Femi was her boyfriend, she came to stay with him that night so as they were about sleeping NEPA took light so he went and put on his gen, the gen exhaust was somewhat facing the direction of their room but because it wasn’t smoking at all she didn’t have any cause to complain, so he closed the windows & locked the doors and they slept and at a point she felt as if she was choking. That was all she could remember and the next question she asked was where is Femi?
We couldn’t let her go through the shock as it might kill her as she is still recovering, so we kept it from her for the moment.

The information we got from her was enough to point us towards that same direction we were on. We actually took samples of their blood the day they were brought into the hospital and ran analysis and when the results came out, something was out of place.
Femi had an abnormal level of carboxyhemoglobin but hers was somewhat normal but we couldn’t make a conclusive report then but with everything now we had a conclusive report.

From our findings, reports, and what she said, it was obvious that Femi died due to the carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning from the gen smoke but that directed us to another question, why is it that the boy died from the gen smoke but she didn’t?
How is that possible? We had to continue digging and asking questions, we found out that at the time of her visit she was in her period, she was losing blood. That was why she survived.

I know you have alot of questions, Let me explain:
Carbon monoxide (CO) is an odorless, colorless gas formed when there is an incomplete combustion of fuels. This can occur from motor vehicles, generators or cooking equipment that run on carbon-based fuels.

When people are exposed to CO gas, the CO molecules will displace the oxygen in their bodies and lead to CO poisoning. This is because hemoglobin (Hb) (an iron-containing component in the red blood cells) which carries oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body have a high-affinity for CO.

When CO is inhaled it forms a stable complex with Hb and hinders it from delivery Oxygen to the body, when there is prolonged inhalation of this gas, as it happened in this case (i.e when they were sleeping) it can result in loss of consciousness, suffocation and death.
Maybe the girl survived due to other factors we can’t really explain but there is one we could explain. She survived because she was in her period, she was losing blood.
Because she was losing blood this also forces her system to produce more blood.
So even when she breath in the CO fumes and it accumulates in her system she loses some of that particular blood that will kill her and it is replaced to some extent by fresh red blood cells that can transport oxygen round her system for sometime.
That was how she manage to survive and not die like Femi.

We explained everything to Femi’s parents and they could only cry. It wasn’t the poor girl that killed their son. It was CO poisoning. As she was still recovering we still kept her from that, at a point she said she was going to go mad if we don’t tell her what happened to Femi-
We did and she fainted. We got her back. We had to book her a therapist as her parents also came to see her.

A lot of people have died because of this CO poisoning, where I stayed before a family died because of this, like the whole family. The put on the gen and slept by morning they were unconscious, it was a village and they couldn’t get help. They died.

If you make use of gen make sure the exhaust is facing outside and not your room. It doesn’t matter whether the gen is smoking or not. CO fume is dangerous.
If possible the gen should be outside please. It have killed many.
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Summary:
1. Carbon monoxide (CO) is an odorless, colorless gas formed when there is an incomplete combustion of fuels. It can occur from motor vehicle or generator.