None — Seven people were hospitalized with carbon monoxide poisoning Monday at the Sanford Housing Authority due to a faulty heater. WFTV learned the authority was not properly maintaining the heater.
It turns out, the air ducts were so badly clogged in the heater that it was actually cycling carbon monoxide right back into the family's apartment and making them feel sick. Code enforcement says keeping the ducts clean and changing the air filters is simple, preventative maintenance and would be the Authority's responsibility, not that of the tenant.
IMAGES: Crews On Scene Of Gas Leak
Monday was a frightening night for two kids. They were among the seven tenants rushed to the hospital from Castle Brewer Court's unit 71, poisoned by carbon monoxide from their heater. At the hospital, they were put in a hyperbaric chamber to get the potentially-deadly toxins out of their blood stream.
"My baby could've died last night. They told me in the hospital, if I would've left my baby in the house ten minutes longer, he would've died," tenant Kortney Killingsworth said.
The heater had been so poorly maintained, it was circulating carbon monoxide inside that should have been piped outside.
"The bad air was being returned with the good and blowing through the ducts," Kevin Wright of Rinaldi's Air Conditioning said.
Celesley White says the Authority's maintenance men had checked on her heater just last month and didn't notice the problem. In January, the same crews couldn't fix other residents' heaters, prompting a series of WFTV investigations that exposed huge financial problems in the Authority.
"They can't know what they was doing, if we was in the house all passed out," White said.
"Are these maintenance crews up to the task?" WFTV reporter George Spencer asked Sanford Housing Authority Executive Director Angel Tua.
"That's going to be assessed. All these maintenance guys are going to be assessed on their knowledge and experience," Tua said.
Tua echoed board members' "grave" concerns about maintenance.
An outside contractor, Rinaldi's Air Conditioning, replaced the unit Tuesday and it began the process of checking every other heater in the Authority's 480 apartments. The units are so old that HUD does not require carbon monoxide detectors, but the same contractors who are checking heaters will install detectors, too.
Eyewitness News has been uncovering problems with the Housing Authority's properties since January, including at least $700,000 in debt. Also, Eyewitness News was the first to report how some residents had been living in units for two years without heat.
Then, some residents nearly had their heat shut off, because the Sanford Housing Authority didn't send out utility assistance checks. Some of those people live in the same complex where Monday night's gas leak happened.
WFTV
