Changes after Humboldt carbon monoxide leak kills three

The death of three residents at a long-term care facility in Humboldt last year is being blamed on a carbon monoxide leak originating from the facility’s boiler.

Mechanical failure caused the leak at St. Mary's Villa where an 89-year-old man and two women, aged 94 and 98, died from carbon monoxide on December 26, 2010.

Early Boxing Day morning the boiler malfunctioned and released the poisonous gas throughout the building.

The 89-year-old man died hours later, the 94-year-old woman died on January 4th, and Tammy Morgan's 98-year-old grandmother died one month later on January 26th.

Morgan is pleased to know where the problems started, but believes more could have been done.

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“We have a fire department that could have come in at three o'clock when they suspected it might have been carbon monoxide. We could have done the readings at the peak of it,” said Morgan.

Morgan points out that evacuations didn't begin until more than three hours after the boiler released the carbon monoxide.

Vice president of the Saskatoon Health Region's community service, Shan Landry, admits fault in hindsight.

“In our findings we discovered that people did not necessarily know that that was one of the things they could have been done,” said Landry.

A new safety procedure has been put in place.

“It will be now built in to our emergency response and people will be trained to know that they should immediately call 9-1-1 and call in the fire department who would have the capability of measuring the carbon monoxide,” said Landry.

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