by James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

There are always scary stories about carbon monoxide deaths this time of year.  It can happen any time, but in the winter, people have the heat on and the house sealed.

A family of four were guests in an Aspen, Colorado, mansion recently and died in the night.  I remember a famous tennis player died a few years ago staying in someone’s guest room.  Carbon monoxide, a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas, does not discriminate against any social class.  It can affect anyone.  In fact, a draft or two in an old house might help a little to ventilate it out.

Carbon monoxide is a product of carbon fuel combustion from things like fireplaces, heaters, exhaust fumes, pollution or volcano eruptions.  The modern day poisoning usually comes when you combine an inefficient or malfunctioning heat source with a relatively sealed space.  It’s popular way to commit suicide, with 2,000 deaths per year from breathing exhaust fumes in a closed garage.

And then there are the accidental exposures.

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by James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

When I read Senator Ted Kennedy had a seizure at a public dinner on inauguration day, it got me thinking, does the average person know what to do if someone’s having a seizure?

As a teenager, I witnessed a seizure while I was at a park, and it scared me to death. (I scared easily as a teen.)  The man jerked and flailed uncontrollably in an unconscious state surrounded by onlookers, and no one knew what to do.

People yelled, “Hold him down so he won’t hurt himself!”  “Put something in his mouth so he won’t swallow his tongue!”  “Call an ambulance!”  After, what seemed like an eternity, he just lay limp and moaned.  Later I saw his friends help him up and they drove away.

Now that I am a doctor (said in hushed, hallowed tone) I know what I should have done.

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