14 DAY TRIAL // Four children and two young women had to receive immediate treatment for carbon monoxide poisoning after spending several hours fairly close to a barbecue.
Apparently, the barbecue was brought indoors by the kids' grandmother, who worked on the assumption that using it to dry some clothes indoor might not be such a bad idea.
However, as she later found out, her improvised laundry drier caused her grandchildren (two girls and two boys) and her daughters-in-laws to inhale significant amounts of carbon monoxide.
Seeing how this is a deadly gas, it comes as good news that both the children and the two young women managed to get away with only needing treatment for their carbon monoxide poisoning and that none of them lost their lives as a result of the old woman's ignorance.
Information made available to the general public says that, out of the six people affected by this poisonous gas, only a three-year-old girl ended up collapsing and needed significantly more medical attention.
The family has been released from the hospital, and it is to be expected that they will make a full recovery.
The incident occurred on Hockley Avenue, in East Ham, London, and firefighters were the ones who rescued the family, Express reports.
Commenting on this woman's decision to use the barbecue to speed up the process of drying her laundry, Dave Brown from the London Fire Brigade made a case of how, “In my 28-year career I have never heard of anybody using a barbecue to dry clothes let alone using one indoors.”
“Never, ever bring a lit or smoldering barbecue indoors. Not only is it a serious fire risk but it also omits carbon monoxide (CO) which is a poisonous gas that can kill or seriously injure,” he went on to add.
Firefighters wished to take advantage of this incident to draw attention to the fact that faulty and/or poorly maintained fuel appliances pose significant threats to one's health and wellbeing simply because they contaminate the air with carbon monoxide, and that ordinary folks would do best to check their boilers, ovens and the like every once in a while.