Mahaffey, PA – A carbon monoxide leak at a church in Clearfield County sent nearly a dozen people to the hospital Sunday night.
Mahaffey deputy fire Chief Josh Bush said the ambulance was first dispatched to the Calvary Chapel in Burnside Township for an unconscious patient and quickly paged for their help after carbon monoxide was detected.
Bush said the leak was from a furnace malfunction in the basement, so they cleared out the building and set fans up to ventilate it.
“We were getting a reading of 500 on our gas meter, which is really high,” Bush said. “Anything over 40, we normally put our airbags on. When we arrived, we made sure nobody was going in without an air pack.”
Clearfield County 911 said 11 people were sent to the hospital for treatment, including Stephanie Whiteford.
Whiteford said her family went over to the church to set up for the kids’ program and her fiance started feeling lightheaded.
“I guess I passed out and I woke up with everybody around me and praying for me,” Whiteford said. “My daughter was unresponsive. She started throwing up and it scared me.”
Shaun Sheehan, the medical director of emergency services at Penn Highlands DuBois, said the first step for treatment starts with the emergency medical services workers.
“High-flow oxygen is actually the best treatment for carbon monoxide,” Sheehan said. “The oxygen helps displace the carbon monoxide and get it out of your body faster.”
Sheehan said the carbon monoxide cases he’s seen are the result of people who don’t have heat using kerosene inside or when the power goes out, people running generators inside.
Bush said carbon monoxide leaks aren’t uncommon this time of year.
He said the best ways to prevent them are to have a qualified person check your furnace before firing it up for winter and to get a battery-operated carbon monoxide detector.