13 WTHR - Indianapolis News |RV tips to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning

RV tips to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning

Emily Longnecker/Eyewitness News

Indianapolis - A family at the Speedway this weekend didn't expect a deadly gas to fill their camper. One person died and several more were hurt when carbon monoxide filled their camper outside the Indianapolis 500 Sunday.

Four family members went to sleep in an RV Saturday night. Sunday morning one of them, 43-year-old Michael Thies, never woke up. The other three in the RV were hospitalized with carbon monoxide poisoning.

Carbon monoxide is known as the silent killer because it is odorless and colorless. Investigators think with several RV's parked tightly together for the race, that carbon monoxide from one RV's power generator somehow got into the one parked next to it, possibly through the air conditioner.

Mike Wain of Camping World said, "they're not air tight.  Carbon monoxide can find its way into a lot of places.  It just seeps in."

It can come from another RV nearby or from some place in the one you're using. 

"Anything that burns propane. All of your appliances that run on propane will produce it. Generator and your motor home exhaust," said Wain. "If you're running your stove a lot which is producing carbon monoxide then yeah, you'd want to open windows."

RV Safety advocates say every year 500 people die inside of RV's from carbon monoxide poisoning. They say the best defense against that happening is a CO detector. New RV's will already come with them, but if you've got an older model then you need to check your RV.

"If they don't have the safety equipment in them they need to make sure they have it installed," said Wain.

But such words of caution were too late for one Illinois family who traveled to Speedway for the Indianapolis 500. Of the three taken to the hospital, one of them is in fair condiditon, another serious, and another had no condition available.