Re: They are going to have to make these generators idiot proof
They finally got the story straight.<br /><br />*************************************<br />BEAUMONT - After evacuating to Mississippi to escape Hurricane Rita's wrath, Billy Coleman returned home to find the electricity out at his north Beaumont apartment. <br /><br /><br />Early Monday more than 48 hours after Rita made landfall and long after it swept northeast the lasting effects of the storm delivered a tragic blow to Coleman and six others staying with him. A portable generator the family used to run fans inside its stifling, sweaty apartment produced carbon monoxide, which overcame those inside. Coleman, 47, was killed, along with three children, ages 12, 10 and 7, and his girlfriend's sister, 25.<br /><br />Coleman's girlfriend, Irene Bean, 29, who is the children's mother, and another child, Emery Reese, 8, were hospitalized in critical condition. Another youngster, a 12-year-old girl, was treated at a medical facility and released.<br /><br />Officials at the scene said they found six to seven times the amount of the lethal dosage of carbon monoxide fumes inside the apartment. The victims may have been exposed to the deadly fumes for more than seven hours, Beaumont Fire Department Capt. Mark Clapp said.<br /><br />The deaths are believed to be the first hurricane-related fatalities in Beaumont, city officials said.<br /><br />The horrific scene was overwhelming for neighbors already pushed to the limit by Rita's fury.<br /><br />"It's too much," said Terry Jackson, 28, who had just returned home to pick up belongings after evacuating to Houston with his wife and two children.<br /><br />"This is just too much. I left (my family) in Houston this morning, and I come back to see kids die," Jackson said.<br /><br />The poisonings were discovered when Coleman's daughter, Quanishia Haynes, drove past the apartment at the Pine Club complex and gave a friendly honk, only to see her 12-year-old sister stumble outside the front door, vomiting.<br /><br />Haynes and her boyfriend ran inside to find her father and others unresponsive.<br /><br />They frantically dragged the victims outside to the sidewalk, covered by a green carpet of pine needles.<br /><br />Another resident at the complex, Kevin Dwayne Hall, said he walked outside shortly before 10 a.m. to find two children and an adult sprawled on the sidewalk and gasping for air.<br /><br />Daniel Tierott, 31, said he and other neighbors helped pull the remaining family members from the apartment and tried to improvise performing CPR.<br /><br />"We just tried our best, man," Tierott said as he fought back tears. "I just did what I've seen on television."<br /><br />A seven-hour exposure to carbon monoxide renders the blood incapable of carrying oxygen, making revitalization efforts futile, fire department officials said.<br /><br />"There's nothing anyone could have done for them," Clapp said.<br /><br />Coleman, a construction worker, apparently collapsed while making his way to his apartment door, his daughter said.<br /><br />She harshly criticized the government, saying the family came home when their funds ran low and no help was available.<br /><br />"Government is letting all of us down," Haynes told the Associated Press.<br /><br />"Ain't nobody want to live in Beaumont with no lights. Ain't nobody wanting to live in Beaumont having to boil your water and no gas. Ain't nobody helping us. Some people from Hurricane Katrina still ain't been helped," she said.<br /><br />C.J. Collins, a resident of the apartment complex, said he had worried for the family's safety when he heard them start the generator.<br /><br />"I should have told them. I should have told them," Collins said, as he broke down in tears.
<br /><br /> http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/topstory/3369454 <br /><br />Ken
