Gas Safety on Holiday

With the summer season upon us it is a good time to think about gas safety on holiday.

We are all becoming aware of the safety of our boilers and gas appliances here in the UK and the numbers of fatalities every year from CO poisoning has decreased tremendously since laws were put into place by the Gas Safe Register. CO or carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas which you cannot see, taste or smell and as such it is a killer. CO is produced when gas appliances are not correctly fitted and maintained and the gas is not fully burned off.

Many of us believe that because we have booked our holiday with a reputable company that we will not be exposed to dangers in our accommodation. This is often not the case and this has been highlighted recently with the tragic case of the deaths of Christianne Shepherd aged 7 and her brother Robert aged 6 who died after being poisoned by carbon monoxide on holiday in Greece.
In this case the holiday the children were on was booked through reputable agency Thomas Cook who are now be sued by the surviving parents of the children for negligence and manslaughter. While this appears to be quite a leap, and although the courts have once cleared the company and its representatives of any wrongdoing, the hotel owners and maintenance staff are also being charged and held responsible for the dreadful state of repair of the boiler on the holiday premises.

Understandably the parents of these two children are asking for as many people as possible to be taken into account and they believe strongly that the representatives of Thomas Cook should have checked the premises more thoroughly. In this instance the offending appliance was not in the hotel room and so it was assumed that the occupants of the room were in no danger. However the boiler was in an adjacent building, an outhouse, to the room and CO fumes seeped in through a hole in the roof. The boiler was rusty, old, not maintained and not flued and in addition the thermostat had been bypassed. Although in the UK there are regulations about the maintenance of gas appliances there is clearly little legislation in Greece and other European countries and with this in mind it pays to take precautions in any other countries in which you might be holidaying.

One of the ways we can all avoid a tragedy when on holiday is to take an audible carbon monoxide alarm with you and place it in the room in which you are sleeping.
These alarms cost about £20 and can save the lives of you and your family. You can use them at home or abroad but do remember to buy an audible alarm which is able to wake you when you are sleeping and most vulnerable to gas poisoning. Whether at home or abroad, you can place your alarm in the room of your caravan, chalet, apartment or hotel. Even if the hotel owners say they have checked and serviced the gas appliances it is best to be sure of any danger to you and your family at all times.

Don’t forget to regularly replace the batteries and don’t forget to remove the batteries prior to flying so that the alarm does not go off mid- flight replacing the batteries again when you arrive at your accommodation.

Last year in the UK 14 people died of CO exposure and more than 200 hundred suffered health problems form CO exposure. Here are two stories from people who have been affected by CO poisoning that were recently printed on the Gas Safe Register website. Mother of three Jemma Traves, is a testament to the importance of being gas safe on holiday and recognising the signs of carbon monoxide poisoning. During a recent caravan holiday in the UK, the Traves family woke one morning with mysterious headaches and Jemma struggles to rouse her normally lively 15 month old baby. Jemma had heard about the tragic deaths of siblings Christianne and Robert Shepherd who died from carbon monoxide poisoning in Corfu in 2006 and as a result, Jemma took a CO tester with her on holiday, which indicated that the deadly gas was present in their holiday caravan.

Paramedic Johanna McLoughlin is strongly supportive of gas safe register’s efforts to raise gas safety awareness amongst UK holidaymakers. In April last year, she attended a 999 response call to a hotel in Newquay after they reported a guest, Fred Jackson, was found unconscious in his room. Whilst at the hotel Jo began to suffer symptoms of CO poisoning, which continued after she left. Jo raised the alarm and consequently high levels of CO were found across the hotel with further people suffering from symptoms, something that a CO alarm could have detected and potentially saved Fred Jackson’s life.

These two stories highlight the ways that a CO audible alarm can make you holiday a safe one.