Carbon monoxide story: 1.4 Flashback Toronto 1984

Carbon monoxide poisoning 1.4

(Continued from Carbon monoxide 1.3)

Flashback: Toronto 1984

The phone rang. Sarah answered it, and handed the receiver to me telling me it was my father on the line. That was very strange, I don’t think my father had ever called me. It was always my mother. I was pretty sure my father didn’t know my phone number. “Hello? Daddy?” I said. His voice was very weak, I heard, “Mommy is not feeling good…”. “What is the matter with her?” I asked. Then nothing. He didn’t hang up the phone. There was no response despite my shouting the question into the receiver (my father was a bit deaf). “Let me speak to mommy” I shouted. Silence. It was about 9:00 p.m. on Sunday April 15, 1984. The next day was the start of Passover, a festive holiday where families get together for a communal dinner commemorating the exit of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt about 3000 years ago (yes, this is all relevant to the story). Sarah was 8 months pregnant with Tali, who is today, as in the picture below, 8 months pregnant herself. (All part of the coincidences and ironies of the story.)

Tali Friedman, April 2019

I asked Sarah to call 411 and jumped into my car. I was thinking, could my father just have neglected to hang up the phone and all this panic is for nothing? It is possible. He has Parkinson’s disease and his movements are awkward. But he has never, ever, called me. It was always my mother who called. He didn’t know my phone number. If my mother was OK, she would be the one calling. He would have had to look up my number in the old tattered telephone directory consisting of hand-entered names and numbers, some in pencil some in ink, smudged, with grease stains, and the loose pages in vague alphabetical order tucked into the aluminum case that sat by the phone. His hands, his arms, his head and legs shaking with Parkinsonian tremor. My mother would not have let him do that.

I sped through the nearly empty streets, skipping some of the red lights, on the 10 km rout to my parents’ house. The lights were on inside. I rang the bell and knocked on the door. There was no answer. A firetruck arrived as I began banging on the door with my fist. I gave the firefighters a brief recount of who I was and why I was here. A firefighter asked if he should break the door down. “yes”I said. He shoved the door with his shoulder and it flew open. We ran in.

My father was lying awkwardly on the kitchen floor in his pajamas, apparently dead. My mother was on the floor and breathing sonorously, drooling and clearly unconscious. One of the firemen called the ambulance. He went over to my father and felt his neck. I said “forget about him, he’s dead. My mother is still alive…” At that, my father said to me in Yiddish, “Joe, is that you?” I had a shock and visceral reaction. A firefighter ran into the kitchen and said we need to evacuate the house immediately. He found there was car in the garage with the motor running. He handed me a thick bundle of keys. At that, two ambulances arrived. The EMT’s immediately began ventilating Rachella and my father with oxygen via a face mask and gas from a small oxygen cylinder. I asked that they be taken to Toronto General Hospital. I did not know much about carbon monoxide poisoning at that time, but I knew TGH had a hyperbaric chamber. The EMT’s had to take them to the nearest hospital where it would be determined if they could travel the extra distance to TGH. I got into my can and drove to Sunnybrook (stopping at the red lights).

The long and short of it is, they were treated at Sunnybrook with oxygen. Rachella regained consciousness within minutes of being placed in the ambulance. They were awake, alert and in good spirits. Their blood levels of carboxyhemoglobin was not that high. I declined overnight admission and elected to discharge them and take them back to my house.

So, here is what happened, reconstructed. They were at my house earlier in the day, with Rachella helping Sarah cook and clean for the holiday. In the late afternoon, they drove home. Rachella was working, cooking some dishes and putting away the daily dishes and bringing the festive dishes out of the cupboards. For the latter, she had to climb up on a little step platform. My father changed and as was his habit, went to bed.

How did the carbon monoxide get into the house? My father had worked for years as a house painter and when the work increased hired help. He would get up about 4:30 a.m. every morning to mix the colors for painters before they left for their jobs, then he went to his. There was very little work in the winter, but my father preferred to take whatever jobs there were, even if they were break-even, rather than lay off the workers in the winter and have to scramble for labour in the spring. In the winter, the paint would freeze in the garage. So he cut a hole in a heat duct that traversed the garage. This was enough to keep the paint from freezing. It was also enough to transmit the carbon monoxide throughout the house with the help of the furnace fan.

Why did my father, rather than my mother call me? My mother was working hard climbing and going up and down a little step ladder to reach the cupboards above the counter in the kitchen. She was thus breathing hard. The harder she worked and the harder she breathed, the faster she took up the carbon monoxide. My father had Parkinson’s and had been in bed. He was just lying in bed, not breathing hard, so his carbon monoxide burden was considerably less, even though he was exposed to the exact same levels. When Rachella began to feel faint, she called him to come down. When he came down, he found her sitting or lying on the floor (it was not clear). He somehow (we never understood how), looked up my phone number and managed to call. This probably took some time during which he may have been quite active—trying to pick up my mother, looking for my phone number—and thus his carbon monoxide levels began to rise quickly. He managed only to dial the number (who knows how many times he dialed and failed), and mumble those few words…”mumma is not feeling good”.

The next night was the first Seder of Passover. We had much to be grateful for. How close they both came to perishing. How close Rachella came to suffering the fate of Hanna, which haunted her every day of her life.

Next episode: “Request permission to expose humans to CO, please”(1.5)