NFPA Journal - May/June 2019 - 75

I can understand why a lot of
guests might not make that
connection, especially since
they're mostly sequestered in
their rooms and have no way of
knowing if there are others in
the building who are suffering
from the same symptoms. But
what about hotel staff?

a more regular basis, thereby increasing public awareness. It could be a
win-win situation.

As a guest, your line of communication is with the front desk, which
most of the time is staffed with people
who aren't trained to recognize a CO
danger. Even if multiple people are
complaining of sickness, the hotel staff
often won't put it together that there
is a bigger problem going on. When
I travel, I ask hotel staff whether the
hotel has carbon monoxide detection,
and they generally don't know. If I ask
questions at a front desk, they usually
refer me to a maintenance person who
may or may not know the answer, or
isn't there.

One problem is, when these events
happen, it's localized and the response
is localized. The lessons seem to stay
within that town or that state; there
doesn't seem to be a broader thought
process for the fact that hotels are in
every state. How about we share this
information so that everybody could be
on board doing the same thing rather
than waiting for people to die in each
state?
Another problem is that, in the fallout in these cases, everybody tends
to pick out their own portion of it.
The people who deal with gas appliances look at components, the building
inspectors tend to look at the building code piece of it. There's really
nobody looking at it from a consumer
standpoint, a voice that will say, "Hey,
to prevent people dying and suffering permanent injury, we need to give
people an early heads-up to get out of
the building." And because there is no
data collection, we don't really know
how many people are suffering injury
and death as a result of this, and there's
nothing to base any action on. It's kind
of a Catch-22.

From your research and in
talking with people, what's your
sense of the level of carbon
monoxide protection in hotels
generally?
The hotel industry is not particularly
forthcoming with that information,
and there's no transparency in the
current system to allow you to even
make an educated decision on whether
you stay in a safe place. At least on
Airbnb you have the option of selecting a place that has carbon monoxide
detection because they offer it as a
search option. You don't have that ability when you reserve a hotel room; you
don't get to pick your safety amenities. I think many people just assume
it's already there. There's a lot of blind
leading the blind out there.
It's too bad because it would be such
a great public awareness for people if
hotels did advertise their safety amenities rather than hiding them. What
a great thing if hotels said, "Your
safety is important to us and here
are the things that we have in place
to ensure your safety." It would put
carbon monoxide in front of people on

The simple fix you advocate is
to require CO detectors in every
hotel room. Despite all of these
incidents, why haven't things
changed?

How did you become involved
with NFPA?
I became aware of NFPA when I was
researching which states have CO laws
and trying to understand more about
that. I found a lot of references to
NFPA 720, so I ordered that code book
so I could read about it, and found
out about the code revision process
and entered into that process. Then
I learned about the Life Safety Code
and how it determines what types of
buildings are required to have alarm
systems. Then I became an NFPA
member. I wanted to find out things

and be a contributing part of that
process in whatever way I could.

How have you been
involved so far?
I was at the NFPA conference in
Las Vegas last year, where I kind of
schlepped around my spreadsheet and
put it in front of whoever was willing to look at it, in an effort to find
out where I could talk to someone
about this. I started there and learned
more about the process, and eventually entered public input into NFPA 101
to change the code so that CO detection is required for existing hotels in
the same way the code requires it in
newly built hotels. I later attended a
meeting in Minneapolis to present in
front of the 101 committee about my
input. The committee did approve my
input during the first public input stage
and it is in the first draft of the 2021
document.

What do you want attendees to
take away from your upcoming
C&E presentation?
I just want to give people the whole
picture so they have a better understanding of what is going on with this
issue so that they can do whatever
they have the power to do within their
profession to help change the system.
That could mean changing additional
NFPA codes or local building codes in
their own communities or agencies,
or at the very least disseminating this
information to the public.
On the secondary level, I hope that
people will take away a personal recognition of the danger that CO poses for
themselves and their families. This is a
danger to all of us. We need to do whatever we can to get information to our
family and friends about the importance of carrying an alarm, and being
aware of this danger when you travel.
When you pick a hotel, try to find a
place that has carbon monoxide detection. I hope they feel empowered to do
all of those things. If my parents had
had this information, it would have
saved their lives.
N F PA . O R G / J O U R N A L * NFPA JOURNAL

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NFPA Journal - May/June 2019

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