What Is The Practical Connection Between Safety And Carbon Monoxide?

By Michael Regis


As a species, human beings rely less on our natural characteristics than our ability to reason to survive. We lack the physical makeup to withstand the elements in most of the places we inhabit. Our ability to thrive all over he word is the result of harnessing sources of energy, each with their own risks. One of the gravest dangers pits safety and carbon monoxide against one another.

The most significant need for mankind in his quest for progress has always been a need for energy. Whether we are burning wood, coal or oil, we need something to fuel our need for heat and power. The bane of this need is the deleterious consequences of using these materials to stay warm and comfortable.

The ingenuity of man led to a fairly early discovery of the uses of fossil fuels for keeping warm in hostile and cold environments. Once we made it past coal and wood, oil opened up a whole new world of power, and man was up to the challenge of harnessing it. Unfortunately, the idea that the atmosphere was large enough to absorb or dissipate the byproducts was rather dramatically proven false.

There is a common byproduct of burning fossil fuels of any type, and even burning wood, and that is the combination of a single carbon atom with a single oxygen molecule. This is an extremely stable compound that has some pretty dramatic and devastating effects on the human physiology.

The problem with this attachment to blood is that it still moves through the body after attachment. The stronger bond, however, prevents the regular oxygen molecules from entering the tissue as would normally occur. Tissue is thus starved of oxygen as surely as if the victim were suffocating or drowning.

For individuals exposed to this gas through the use of fuel burning appliances inside an enclosed facility, there is a significant and dramatic danger. They must be removed from the environment and moved to an area where they can breath normal oxygenated ambient air. If it is possible, medical treatment with 100 percent oxygen is preferred, but the must get to an oxygenated area quickly.

If a patient suffering from this oxygen stealing condition can not be transported, either due to disease, infirmity or obesity, the windows and doors of the facility must be immediately opened. Any means of increasing oxygen flow, from the medical to the practical can be life saving efforts.

The reason this kind of poisoning is so challenging is its natural invisibility. The gas is colorless, odorless and tasteless, so we mere humans are powerless to identify it without any indication of its presence. This makes safety and carbon monoxide adversaries from the start.




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