KellysEye
Well-Known Member
We had a CO alarm on our boat and now have one near our wood burner. The first sign of CO poisoning is getting a headache if that happens get out quickly.
Death by Carbon Monoxide
- Thread starter oldbilbo
- Start date
sarabande
Well-Known Member
That is about the most dangerous suggestion re CO poisoning I have read on this forum. You cannot possibly be serious !
CO and CO2poisoning will almost certainly reduce your mental ability to think straight, and may therefore fail to set off the mental alarm that "OMG, I am experiencing brain failure , therefore I must breathe fresh air."
Have a look at these sites, and then see if you really believe you will certainly recognise and act on the symptoms of CO and CO2poisoning.
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Carbon-monoxide-poisoning/Pages/Introduction.aspx
http://chemistry.about.com/od/medicalhealth/a/Carbon-Dioxide-Poisoning.htm
Last edited:
Nicholas123
N/A
johnalison
Well-Known Member
I can accept the advice that if you develop a headache you should consider CO poisoning and immediately get fresh air, but clearly it is unsafe to conclude that the reverse is true, that if you don't have a headache you are not being poisoned. The advice should have been "a headache can be a sign of poisoning" rather than what was written.
Leighb
Well-Known Member
I only saw one case of - non-fatal - CO poisoning when I was working. The chap presented complaining of chronic headaches which had been troubling him for a couple of weeks mainly during the early hours of the morning and not at weekends. Turned out that he lived in a flat above a dry cleaners and the boiler/heating outlet was below his bedroom window, on testing it was shown that the boiler was faulty and emitting CO in significant amounts. He was quite lucky, the outcome might have been far worse.
Further to the mention of CO2 "poisoning" excessive CO2 does not poison you as such, if in sufficient concentration there may then be insufficient Oxygen and you would technically suffocate rather than be poisoned, however high CO2 levels tend to produce noticeable symptoms which would probably alert you to the poor air quality.
Further to the mention of CO2 "poisoning" excessive CO2 does not poison you as such, if in sufficient concentration there may then be insufficient Oxygen and you would technically suffocate rather than be poisoned, however high CO2 levels tend to produce noticeable symptoms which would probably alert you to the poor air quality.
GHA
Well-Known Member
Make a simple mistake and you could die, CO alarms are so cheap and so sensitive if you make a human error, or something happens unknown then you'll know about it when the piercing alarm goes off.
Arguing against both properly maintaining your boat *and* having a backup alarm is dangerous and extremely bad advice imho.
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
Have you a citation for that? This paper from Medscape on Carbon Monoxide Toxicity Treatment & Management suggest using an estimated half-life of 30 - 90 minutes when breathing 100% oxygen while this paper, from Physiological Reports, reports carboxyhaemoglobin half-life in humans is about an hour. I've never seen it suggested before that red blood cells are permanently put out of use by CO.
alant
Well-Known Member
Look in a mirror, if bright red you either have CO poisoning, or have read a post on here.
alant
Well-Known Member
I said it would kill, but not that it is poisonous.
However, at concentrations of 6%, it is toxic & will kill.!
http://principia-scientific.org/at-what-concentration-does-co2-becomes-toxic-to-humans/
IJL
Well-Known Member
The figure I can recall is the haemoglobin's affinity for CO is 260 times greater than that for O2. The half life is a bit of a red herring once the carboxyhaemaglobin level rises beyond a certain point you fall unconscious and die. in which case if the half life is 5mins or an hour you're still dead. if your lucky enough to stagger out or get rescued then oxygen or just fresh air/ removal from the environment may help. CO poisoning can also be chronic from long term low levels of CO. The very nature of CO means rescue is fairly unlikely, there is no fire to see and nothing for an outside observer to notice, just the MAIB report a year later
Biggles Wader
Well-Known Member
Ahha.Common sense at last.Thank you.:encouragement:
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
Yes, but if you get away from it and breathe fresh air then you do, I believe, recover a lot faster than it takes to regenerate red blood cells. Recovery is faster in pure oxygen and faster still in hyperbaric oxygen, which they use for the worst cases.
I have set my CO alarm off twice accidentally - by pressing the "Test" button - and I am happy to report that it is very, very loud and very, very annoying.
GHA
Well-Known Member
Thank you
Works both ways as well, I strongly believe you should spend money and time on safety systems only after you've done everything realistic you can think of to make sure they're not needed in the first place ...
zikzik
Well-Known Member
Thanks for the warning Bilbo. I have got one on my boat but have not checked it for months. I will correct that at the weekend when next on the boat.
KellysEye
Well-Known Member
>We had a CO alarm on our boat and now have one near our wood burner. The first sign of CO poisoning is getting a headache if that happens get out quickly.
>>That is about the most dangerous suggestion re CO poisoning I have read on this forum. You cannot possibly be serious !
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Carbon-monoxide-poisoning/Pages/Introduction.aspx Look at that URL and the first symptom in the list is - A tension-type headache is the most common symptom of mild carbon monoxide poisoning.
Other symptoms include:
dizziness
nausea (feeling sick) and vomiting
tiredness and confusion
stomach pain
shortness of breath and difficulty breathing
>>That is about the most dangerous suggestion re CO poisoning I have read on this forum. You cannot possibly be serious !
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Carbon-monoxide-poisoning/Pages/Introduction.aspx Look at that URL and the first symptom in the list is - A tension-type headache is the most common symptom of mild carbon monoxide poisoning.
Other symptoms include:
dizziness
nausea (feeling sick) and vomiting
tiredness and confusion
stomach pain
shortness of breath and difficulty breathing
macd
Well-Known Member
Is it germane that another consequence is permanent brain damage?
sarabande
Well-Known Member
my point, KellysEye, is that it is possible that someone may not associate having a headache with being poisoned by CO or CO2. If that is the case, then it is a fatal error.
To put forward "get some fresh air" as your primary suggestion for dealing with poisoning, when other people have lucidly and logically suggested that proper design, proper maintenance, proper alarms and a robust Hazard Control Hierarchy (look at Blowing Old Boot's post) are appropriate processes and controls for a risk-rich system, is both naive and irresponsible, and may lead inexperienced people to understand incorrectly that they do not need do do anything except keep a lookout for getting a headache to avoid being killed.
Sadly, the numbers of fatalities from CO or CO2 each year disproves your fallacious belief that headaches are a good method of avoiding death.
To put forward "get some fresh air" as your primary suggestion for dealing with poisoning, when other people have lucidly and logically suggested that proper design, proper maintenance, proper alarms and a robust Hazard Control Hierarchy (look at Blowing Old Boot's post) are appropriate processes and controls for a risk-rich system, is both naive and irresponsible, and may lead inexperienced people to understand incorrectly that they do not need do do anything except keep a lookout for getting a headache to avoid being killed.
Sadly, the numbers of fatalities from CO or CO2 each year disproves your fallacious belief that headaches are a good method of avoiding death.
langstonelayabout
Well-Known Member
That's an interesting one. We've had the wrong sort of CO alarm on the boat for the last 4 years then. I'll look out a new one at SIBS.
I always assumed the difference between the domestic alarms and the yacht alarms was just the price ...
RichardS
N/A
KellysEye made that exact point ..... that people should associate having a headache with being poisoned by CO .... so avoid them making that "fatal error".
Your response was that that was the worst post you have ever read on the Forum ..... or something similar.
Richard
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
Indeed, so suggesting that someone with a headache should consider the possibility of CO poisoning seem like a sensible one.
I'm finding it hard to understand the outrage. Of course we should take all possible precautions, but if you're reading in your cabin one winter's night and feel a headache coming on, is the right response
(a) get into fresh air fast, see if that helps, then press the "Test" button on the CO alarms and check all possible sources or
(b) think "I really must review my design, maintenance, alarms and a Hazard Control Hierarchy some time" and then roll over and go to sleep?
Would it be considered equally irresponsible to say "If you find yourself showing signs of hypothermia, warm up a bit"?
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