Carbon monoxide
By Malka Eisenberg
Issue of August 27, 2010/ 17 Elul 5770
The peaceful stillness of Aviva Rizel’s Shabbos morning was shattered by the insistent beeps of her carbon monoxide detector. It instructed her to move to fresh air.
“I moved robotically,” she recalled. She calmly gathered her three children, one a still sleeping 16-month old, and her mother-in-law, and went to a neighbor. Her husband, Meir, had already left for shul. “I did it automatically and didn’t feel fear until the fire department was there and allowed me back in the house,” she said.
When firefighters entered her Bayswater home, they spotted a single high flame burning on the stove top beneath a metal sheet, a ‘blech’, in a room with closed windows.
Lighting fires and cooking on the Sabbath are proscribed, but warming food on an existing flame is not, under specific conditions.Therefore, Sabbath-observant Jews commonly leave a fire burning under a ‘blech’ over Friday night and Saturday.
In the Rizel home last week, firefighters measured carbon monoxide levels as 60 parts-per-million. Any reading over nine parts-per-million is considered a health hazard over eight hours.
When Rizel returned to the house she saw that every window and door had been opened.
They “immediately saw that the burner was on,” Rizel said. When a firefighter asked how long the flame had been on and she replied, “since last night at sundown,” they “looked at me, horrified.”
“I do it every week,” she admitted, adding, “You’re gonna kill me but I’ve been doing this my whole life; everybody does this.”
“I’m not gonna kill you,” retorted the firefighter. “This is going to kill you. Listen, you have to speak to your rabbi and straighten this out because it’s really not safe.”
Rizel, a marriage and family therapist who writes a weekly column, Ask Aviva, in The Jewish Star, explained that Sabbath observant Jews would never turn off a flame on Shabbos but that an alternative would be an electric hotplate with a timer. That would be better, the firefighter said. “Make sure to get the word out,” he warned. “People shouldn’t be doing it this way. Tell your entire community.”
“We’re lucky it happened during the day,” Rizel said in an interview. “If it had happened at night no one would’ve woken up.”
Her husband discussed the scare with their rabbi who instructed her to recite Birchas HaGomel, a thanks to G-d for sparing the family from a life-threatening situation.
That, Rizel said, scared her even more.
“Thank G-d, thank G-d, we have a carbon monoxide detector,” she said. “We put it in when we got the house and never thought we’d need it.”
Another local family had a serious incident in February involving a ‘blech’. The Hirschel’s house caught fire in the middle of the night because of the metal sheet covering a gas burner, their son Daniel recounted. The kitchen and several bedrooms were damaged, he said, and the family is still rebuilding.
Carbon monoxide poisoning killed 30 New Yorkers and sent over 400 to hospitals between 2000-2005. Carbon monoxide (CO), a colorless, odorless and tasteless gas can be produced by any fuel-burning apparatus, as the product of incomplete combustion. Fumes can build up in enclosed areas that lack adequate ventilation. Some sources of CO include gas stoves and ranges, car and truck exhaust, burning charcoal, fireplace chimneys, gas heaters, and hot water heaters. Symptoms of CO poisoning include headache, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, confusion and reddened skin.
To help prevent CO poisoning, install carbon monoxide detectors in your home near bedrooms and test them monthly (there’s a button on them for this) and change the battery every six months. Never heat your home with a gas stove, don’t barbecue in your house, check your chimneys, keep exhaust pipes clear (especially in snowy weather in your car), and don’t run your car in the garage.
An electric heat cabinet that can be opened and food placed inside for Shabbat or an electric warmer-hot plate that may be set with a timer are alternatives to a gas heated blech, said Lenny Cherson, second assistant chief of the Hewlett-Woodmere Fire Department. “If they’re insistent on leaving a blech it should be on the lowest possible flame, the simmer setting,” he warned.
Lit candles can also pose a serious hazard, Cherson said.
Yahrtzeit candles should be protected underneath, perhaps on ceramic tile, and should be in an open area, with nothing above, such as cabinets, to prevent a heat build-up that can lead to a fire. Additionally, Cherson said, many poskim allow adjustment of gas flames. Readers should discuss that matter with a competent Halachic authority.
A lower flame allows for a lesser buildup of heat, Cherson said, and advised lighting a front burner, also to prevent heat buildup against the back of the stove. For ventilation, leave a window open, he advised.
“It’s tremendously important to have carbon monoxide detectors in the home,” stressed FDNY spokesman Steve Ritea. “With a detector you can get out safely. Never leave an open flame unattended; it’s always a hazard. Be careful, be safe.”
NYC CARBON MONOXIDE HAZARDS
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