METHUEN, Mass. — A Methuen family was taken to a hospital early Thursday morning after a carbon monoxide incident caused by a generator, fire officials tell Boston 25 News.
“It’s one of our biggest fears, you know, fires and CO,” Methuen Deputy Fire Chief Dan Donahue said. “CO is a silent killer.”
Officials said they were called to the West Street home around 3 a.m. to investigate after members of the family started experiencing headaches, became nauseous and started vomiting.
“The generator was up against the garage door, within a couple inches of the garage door, and had been running for quite a while," Donahue said.
Investigators said they found extremely high levels of carbon monoxide in the home when they arrived at the scene.
“They found the CO levels in the house to be 500 parts per million,” Donahue said. “We typically evacuate a house at nine parts per million.”
Two children, their mother and grandmother were all taken to Lawrence General Hospital to be evaluated.
Officials said the family had been using the generator to power the home after outages caused by a massive storm that impacted the area Sunday night into Monday.
The house has since been aired out.
The family members are expected to fully recover.