BOSTON (AP) – Snow-covered car exhaust pipes killed two people and sent two others to the hospital in three separate incidents Saturday.
All three tragedies happened much the same way: People trying to warm up while they or their parents dug out their vehicle sought refuge in the car while its tailpipe was still blocked with snow.
“You’ve got to have ventilation (for exhaust) if you’re going to dig your car out,” state Fire Marshal Stephen Coan told the Boston Herald. “Clear out the exhaust vent first.”
In the first case an 11-year-old Massachusetts boy had been helping his father shovel the snow in the Dorchester neighborhood but got cold, so his father started the car and the boy got inside the vehicle, Boston Fire Department spokesman Steve MacDonald said.
Witnesses said that a snow plow had later come up the street and had pushed snow back onto the bank, which then impacted the car’s exhaust pipe.
Just a few hours later, a man in his early 20s was found dead in a car with the engine running in Mattapan, according to media reports. It’s believed the car’s tailpipe was blocked by snow, allowing the gas to build up.
Two other children, ages 5 and 8, were hospitalized Saturday night after getting in a car to keep warm while their father shoveled snow in East Boston, WBZ-TV reported.
Boston firefighter Octavius Rowe came came across the first tragedy when he noticed a commotion in the street while at home. He went outside and saw the father leaning against a pile of snow, Rowe said.
“I came over to the car where it all started and the father appeared to have lost consciousness,” Rowe said. “He was semi-conscious and laying on the snow bank, and I wanted to first get him off that cold surface.”
Rowe said he put the man on a flat surface to revive him. He said the boy apparently had been taken into an apartment building where a woman was administering CPR. Paramedics from the fire department and Emergency Medical Services arrived and provided oxygen to the father to stabilize him and tried to engage him in conversation to keep him alert.
“He was responsive so we were able to, at least, get him up, get him to the stairs. He did say, ‘My son, my son,’ so he knew his son was involved or was in distress,” Rowe said. “We were talking to him. He was moaning, but the only discernible thing that he said was ‘My son.'”
http://weather.aol.com/2013/02/09/boston-boy-11-dies-of-carbon-monoxide-in-running-car/
Whatever happened to common sense?
It has become more and more rare.
It should probably be renamed uncommon sense.
I am a keen watcher of what goes on around me and over the last few decades people appear to have been getting ‘dumb/dumber’ (i cannot think of a better term for it). Over the last five years or so it is like this process has been accelerating.
It should be obvious that you don’t run the engine on a completely snowed in vehicle because it can/will kill you.
We had some terrible floods/storms a couple of years ago in Queensland and the one fatality was the man who needed to run his petrol generator in an airtight room.
Maybe I am coming across as an intellectual snob but I don’t mean to. Have you or anyone else reading this comment noticed a decline over the last few years in the general public’s ability to actually think? or even hold an opinion that they aren’t just parroting from whatever the latest trendy talking head on TV is espousing?
** To Angel-NYC – Some time ago I was quite rude, abrupt, condescending, and generally horrid towards you for no reason. I sincerely apologise. **
Yes, “common sense is a rare commodity.”
PS
Thanks. Water off a duck’s back. 🙂
uninformedLuddite, you can chalk it up to the combination of several factors: the deliberate dumbing down in the indoctrination centers that pass for schools these days, 60+ years of fluoridated water, 60+ years of T.V. (which has gotten exponentially worse the last couple of decades or so), and you could probably just as well add chemtrails to the mix, also.
Where I am I don’t get TV reception (i do watch DVD’s). It has been around 15 years since i have watched TV regularly.
What becomes obvious when you don’t have one is its hypnotic effect when you visit someone who has one switched on. It is impossible to not have it snatch your attention.
Mind you from what I saw at a mate’s house the other week everything appears to be reality programming (LOL – reality).
I know exactly what you mean. I stopped watching about five years ago myself (about the same time I ‘awakened’, surprise!) and every time I visit my youngest brother, the t.v. is on the entire time I’m there. But since acquiring my laptop, I just go out of view of the t.v., and get on the internet instead. Much healthier, and more productive.
p.s. I do have a t.v. in my bedroom, but it’s NEVER been hooked up for ‘programing’, I ONLY use it to watch movies on dvd, or NWO informational dvd’s.
story is bullshit.
if you block the exhaust outlet the engine will stop.
even if the pipe is rusted through it will still be outside of the car.
Did you have a misspent youth also?