Family’s Thanksgiving trip turns into a nightmare as 19 members – including 13 children – suffer carbon monoxide poisoning at Utah rental cabin
Nineteen members of the same family were lucky to escape alive from a Thanksgiving trip after suffering carbon monoxide poisoning while staying in a rental cabin in Utah.
Jade and Cassidee Smith invited members of their extended family, including thirteen children, to an early holiday celebration last weekend at the Six Lakes lodge near their home in Roosevelt.
But all 19 ended up in hospital in a hyperbaric chamber after a faulty carbon monoxide monitor failed to detect the deadly gas enveloping them from below.
“If one thing would have happened differently, this would have been a story about 19 bodies being found in a hut,” says transport manager Jade.
Cassidee, a nurse, was among the first to feel the effects of the toxic leak when they arrived, after she and her sister started feeling weak and feared they were going to faint.
Jade and Cassidee Smith were on an early Thanksgiving outing with 17 other members of their extended family last weekend when the nightmare began to unfold
The family had booked a cabin at the idyllic Six Lakes resort near their home in Roosevelt, Utah
Cassidee’s 12-year-old niece (pictured) had more than three times the safe level of carbon monoxide in her blood when she was tested at hospital
“I kept telling Jade something was wrong,” Cassidee said KUTV.com
Shortly afterwards, an eleven-month-old baby had to be rushed to hospital after becoming pale and lethargic in the now deadly apartment.
After going to bed Friday night, Cassidee woke up to find her sister Jacqueline shaking her and screaming that her 12-year-old daughter was unconscious after falling to the floor.
Cassidee tried to get out of bed, but discovered she had tunnel vision and blacked out.
“I just slapped Jade like, ‘You have to get up, I can’t move.’ I couldn’t stand it,” she said.
Then Jacqueline fainted.
“At that moment I thought, ‘Okay, that’s three people. My wife is upstairs, she can’t move. There’s something in the air,'” Jade said.
“We went from one unresponsive to four in about five minutes.”
Their cozy cabin turned into a scene from a nightmare as the toxic gas seeped out
Approximately 420 people die each year in the US from accidental carbon monoxide poisoning and more than 100,000 are taken to the hospital with symptoms
Jade and Cassidee had been married for just over a year when they booked the family getaway
Fire Department officers checking for gas in the Smiths’ cabin found large quantities in the basement of a utility room
The family called 911 and threw open the doors of their lake cabin, pushing all the children out as quickly as possible.
Officers from the Altamont Fire Department arrived around 2:30 p.m. and the entire family went to nearby Uintah Basin Medical Center, six by ambulance.
Tests showed that each family member had elevated blood carbon monoxide levels and they were all given pure oxygen in a pressurized room for two and a half hours.
Carbon monoxide poisoning occurs at carboxyhemoglobin levels above 10 percent, while severe poisoning is caused at levels above 20 to 25 percent.
No one had a level below 8.5 percent, while Cassidee’s 12-year-old niece had a level of 33 percent.
Approximately 420 people die each year in the US from accidental carbon monoxide poisoning and more than 100,000 are taken to the hospital with symptoms.
The poisonings are usually caused by faulty heating or cooking equipment, and common symptoms include headache, dizziness, weakness, upset stomach, vomiting, chest pain and confusion.
Earlier this month, two men, ages 23 and 33, died of carbon monoxide poisoning at a hunting lodge in nearby Carbon County, and last month four Americans died on the same day in rented apartments in Mexico City.
Fire Department officers checking for gas in the Smiths’ cabin found large quantities in the basement of a utility room.
Jade said they also found a battery-powered carbon monoxide detector that wasn’t working properly.
“You never think about that when you’re traveling,” he said.
“You just think that everything will be fine in the place you’re traveling to because you rented it.”
Manager Dave Nelson said no other properties at the site were affected and Six Lakes was investigating the cause of the leak.
“Her family has a lot of experience in the medical field,” Jade said of his wife, “and I have a lot of experience with toxic gases and stuff, and it was so quiet, it’s a silent killer.”
In a Facebook post, Jade paid tribute to the people who came to their aid.
“Her family has a lot of experience in the medical field,” Jade said of his wife, “and I have a lot of experience with toxic gases and stuff, and it was so quiet, it’s a silent killer.”
All 19 members of the extended family had to be treated for poisoning in a hospital hyperbaric chamber
“Super grateful to be alive today, a huge shoutout to the Altamont Fire Department, Duchesne County Sheriffs and Uinta Basin Medical Center for being absolutely amazing and saving our family.
‘Check your carbon monoxide detectors. They will save your life.”
Cassidee said the family was ‘blinded’ by the deadly gas.
‘It could have been so much worse, but these are images, how you see their bodies falling, we will have to live with that forever.’
Ny Breaking.com has contacted manager Mr Nelson for comment.