On Wednesday evening four people died in Porcari (Lucca) from carbon monoxide poisoning: a family of Albanian origin made up of a 48-year-old father, a 43-year-old mother, a 22-year-old son and a 15-year-old daughter. The causes of the leak are not yet ascertained, but a malfunction of the boiler is assumed. The father’s brother was also seriously intoxicated, while four rescuers – a relative and three carabinieri – reported mild intoxication.
Yet another tragedy turns the spotlight on an often underestimated emergency: according to the Italian Society of Environmental Medicine (Sima), carbon monoxide causes between 350 and 600 deaths in Italy every year, with over 6 thousand hospitalizations. 80% of poisonings occur at home.
The golden rules for preventing risk
To avoid accidents it is essential to adopt concrete preventive measures,
states the president of Sima Alessandro Miani, indicating the essential precautions:
Mandatory periodic maintenance of domestic heating systems, boilers and water heaters. It is the first line of defense against potentially lethal malfunctions.
Never use cooking systems designed for outdoors, such as barbecues or camping stoves, indoors.
Always turn off vehicle engines when parked in garages or enclosed spaces, even for short stops.
Install CO detectors in homes: economical but life-saving devices, capable of promptly reporting dangerous concentrations of the gas.
Ensure adequate ventilation in rooms with stoves, fireplaces or boilers.
The “silent killer”: why it is so dangerous
Carbon monoxide is particularly insidious because it is colorless and odorless, capable of causing almost immediate death at high concentrations,
explains Sima. Once inhaled, it binds to hemoglobin with 200 times greater affinity than oxygen, preventing blood from carrying oxygen to tissues.
In homes, normal levels range between 1.5 and 4.5 mg/m³, but with malfunctioning systems and poor ventilation they can reach 60 mg/m³.
Recognizing the symptoms can save your life
At concentrations below 5 mg/m³ there are no evident effects in healthy people, but in heart patients even low levels can be dangerous. At higher concentrations, headache, dizziness, weakness, nausea, vomiting, chest pain and mental confusion appear.
Prolonged exposure to small quantities can cause asthenia, chronic headache, neuritis and heart problems.
Who needs to be more careful
Particularly vulnerable are the elderly, people with cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, pregnant women, newborns and children,
Miani warns.
The severity depends on the concentration of CO, the duration of exposure and individual health conditions.
Prevention remains the most effective weapon against an invisible enemy that affects thousands of Italian families every year.
