Carbon Dioxide Poisoning
Imagine that it is the first really cold night of the winter season. You begin to feel a chill in the house so you decide it's time to turn on the furnace. So you get up out of your chair and adjust the thermometer. After a while you notice that it has not really warmed up much in the house. So you decide to check it again just as soon as you get something for this awful headache that just came on. But, as you get up out of your chair you almost fall over because you are so dizzy. You also begin to feel weak and nauseous. You think that it is just a case of the flu coming on but it could be something much worse. Without even knowing it a silent killer has made it's way into your home. This killer shows no remorse. It strikes men, women, and children. It does not care what color you are, nor does it care what nationality you are. The killer is carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide, or CO as it is also called, is an odorless, colorless, and deadly gas given off when any fuel is incompletely burned by, for example, a furnace or water heater (Marable 97). Unlike a fire where you can immediately see smoke and flames, carbon monoxide poisoning gives no physical evidence of its presence. But, when ta
All of the appliances in this daycare center were serviced by electricity. So the carbon m monoxide came from another unknown source. Interviews were conducted, and it was learned that the daycare center had a contract janitorial service. They had cleaned the facility the evening before and the morning of the incident. The janitorial service said that a power buffer, with a propane combustion engine, had been used to clean the linoleum tile in the daycare the evening before. The local fire department made arrangements with the janitorial service to test the CO emission from the machine. Within seconds of turning the machine on, the CO level within 3 feet of the machine measured 1,000 ppm. Levels greater than 50 ppm over an eight-hour period are considered dangerous. Being an enclosed environment with no proper ventilation, the power buffer should not have been used to clean the daycare center. In fact unless proper ventilation is present, any combustion engine should not be used in any enclosed environment for any purposes (Jones 97). "On a bone-chilling, windy night, the paramedics arrive in the emergency room with Wilma Garver, 70. Mrs. Garver is unconscious and pale, and her mucous membranes are bright red. Mrs. Garver's granddaughter says she found her grandmother in the bedroom, apparently asleep, but she couldn't wake her. The house smelled strongly of kerosene, so Mrs. Graver's granddaughter turned off the kerosene heater in the bedroom, and called 911 (DiDonna 97)." Another way of beating carbon monoxide poisoning is learning how to spot exposed persons and treating them. "On August 1, 1996, the Delaware County Health Department (DCHD) received a phone call from the Muncie Fire Department referencing a carbon
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1179
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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