The next day, other people found the family. The parents and their five children had died in their sleep. They died because they did not know that burning wood products creates a deadly gas – carbon monoxide.
Carbon monoxide poisoning is known as a silent killer. The California family went to sleep in their warm camper and never woke up.
(MUSIC)
FRITZI BODENHEIMER:
Carbon monoxide poisoning causes death and injuries around the world. The poison gas has been a problem since people first began burning fuels to cook food or to create heat.
This gas is a problem in all parts of the world that experience cold weather. A few years ago, America's Centers for Disease Control studied deaths linked to carbon monoxide poisoning. It found that the average number of carbon monoxide deaths in the United States was greatest in the month of January.
The C.D.C. also found that carbon monoxide kills more than four hundred Americans each year. And, it said, more than twenty thousand people are taken to hospital emergency rooms for treatment of health problems linked to the gas.
FAITH LAPIDUS:
Carbon monoxide is called the silent killer because people do not know it is in the air. The gas has no color. It has no taste. It has no smell. It does not cause burning eyes. And it does not cause people to cough.
Yet, carbon monoxide gas is very deadly. It steals the body's ability to use oxygen.
最新
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25