Kingston, MA – A family of six using a generator because their power was out was overcome by carbon monoxide in their Kingston home early Thursday morning.
A 19-year-old woman, who lives with the family, was taken by medical helicopter to Massachusetts General Hospital, and a 38-year-old woman and her three children, ages 19, 11, and 7, were transported by ambulance.
The children’s father was also being evaluated.
Fire officials say a generator that was running in the garage was to blame. Overnight, the garage doors that were left open for ventilation were inadvertently closed.
“A generator was in the garage, and someone had closed one of the garage doors,” Kingston Fire Department Chief Robert Heath said.
Heath said NStar had shut off power to the home Wednesday. It was not clear why. The generator provided power during a temporary power outage in the home.
Officials also said there was no working carbon monoxide detector in the home.
“Most of the smoke detectors had been taken down off the ceiling,” Heath said.
“This is an incident that never should have happened. This is preventable,” State Fire Marshal Stephen Coan said. “The real message here is: You never put a generator in a garage.”
Coan called carbon monoxide “the silent killer.”
“I plead with all to install those carbon monoxide detectors on each level of the home where there is habitation or where people sleep,” Coan said.