Everyone
knows what Carbon Monoxide is. They know it is the silent killer; there are no
signs of it, mostly until it is too late. Everyone knows it comes out of cars
or ovens or charcoal, but do people really know the effects and especially the
long term effects of carbon monoxide exposure? In our “Molecules of Murder,”
book, I read chapter seven, which had to do with Carbon Monoxide. There are
many symptoms, detections and a whole lot of chemistry that comes with it. This
murder mystery is about a man killing his five children.
Adair Garcia is the murderer
behind this story. He and his six children had moved into a new house and one
night he had just put his five children to bed. Garcia was very bitter because
his wife had just left him and their family and would eventually divorce him.
Garcia would have his children write his wife messages, so she would know they
all still care about her. On that one night, Garcia had his children write
their mom a message and then put them to sleep. Earlier in the day he had
bought a bag of charcoal and matches. When they were in bed, Garcia closed all
the windows and put blankets over the doors. He then lit the charcoal on a
barbeque grill and put it in the passageway outside their bedroom. Then he went
to bed and in the morning his five children had died from the carbon monoxide
poisoning. The next morning, Garcia’s mother-in-law, Adriana, found the house
full of smoke and could not find the children so she called the police. When
the police arrived three of the children still breathing, but two of them died
shortly after. Garcia and only one of his children survived and they were brought
to the hospital immediately. Adriana called her daughter and she was astonished
at the news. After being discharged from the hospital, Garcia was arrested and
brought to trial in 2005. He had admitted that he did try to kill his children
and himself as a way of getting back at his wife for leaving them. Garcia was
found guilty on murder accounts and was spared the death penalty, but was
sentenced to life in prison.
Another Carbon Monoxide incident comes from the Jones family. Mr. Cranog Jones was having an affair and wanted to prove that his wife was having an affair as well. He wanted to kill his wife obviously, so on December 7, 1991 through the outside of his wife’s bedroom and fitted a plastic pipe through the hole, which led to his garage. The pipe was then attached to his wife’s exhaust from her car. That night, he went into his wife’s room and installed the box, and then he went to the garage to start the car in order to ensure a high amount of carbon monoxide would go through. Mr. Cranog made a huge mistake that night because he didn’t muff the hole, meaning it was very loud. The noise ended up waking up his wife, so she called the police. Realizing that his plan had failed, he dismantled everything so it wouldn’t look like he was trying to kill her before the police came. When he was questioned, he simply said that his wife was crazy. Later, he eventually admitted that he dumped the tubing and piping, but he didn’t do it because he was trying to kill his wife. The Jones’s eventually got a divorce and he was brought to court. He was found guilty and was sentenced to nine years in jail.
Both of these stories are really sad,
but both of the murderers would probably agree that carbon monoxide wasn’t exactly
the best murder weapon to use. Not only did Garcia not kill himself, but Mr. Cranog
didn’t kill his wife. Carbon monoxide kills more people than any other poison,
but not because it’s a good murder weapon, but because most of the time it is
an accident. I referred to it earlier as the silent killer because there is no
warning that it is there and its effects are not normally recognized by its
victims (1). Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless and poisonous gas (1). “It
is produced by the incomplete burning of various fuels, including coal, wood,
charcoal, oil, kerosene, propane, and natural gas” (2). It can be made from
carbon or methane (CH4) and by reacting them with oxygen or steam. Blowing
steam will cause carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas, creating a new gas known as
syngas (synthesis gas) (1). This syngas
can be converted into carbon fuels, such as methanol or carbonyl chloride. When
methanol reacts with more carbon monoxide it creates acetic acid, which is used
in paints, silicone resins, polyester fibre and certain plastics.
Carbon Monoxide boils at -192 degrees Celsius and it is a polar molecule. In certain experiments nickel reacted with carbon monoxide actually turns the nickel into a gas. Tests on animals showed that nickel carbonyl was five time more deadly than carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide has a lot of different functions along with “unvented kerosene and gas space heaters; leaking chimneys and furnaces; back-drafting from furnaces, gas water heaters, wood stoves, and fireplaces; gas stoves; generators and other gasoline powered equipment; automobile exhaust from attached garages; and tobacco smoke” (2). It is also used to preserve the color of meat. It not only controls the overproduction of cells in the artery walls, but it can kill the rogue cells, while leaving the normal cells unaffected. This shows that there are positive features to carbon monoxide. It has the ability to lower blood pressure and dilate blood vessels (1). It has also been proven that carbon monoxide can counteract the effect of nicotine. It also gives protection against organ rejection. In 2006, Harvard medical school discovered that carbon monoxide was able to relieve pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), which caused heart failure. Another function of carbon monoxide is to suppress endothelin, which reduced blood pressure.
Carbon monoxide comes from
volcanoes and is oxidized to CO2 and is absorbed by the leaves of growing
plants or by the water of the sea. Almost everything that burns produces some
sort of carbon monoxide. Car exhausts are the largest human contribution, but
it doesn’t have a lot of long term effects because it changes to CO2 pretty
rapidly.
This gas forms a bond with
haemoglobin in order to form carboxyhaemoglobin. Symptoms of carbon monoxide
change depending on how much you are exposed to. Milder forms include headaches
and flu-like symptoms, but the higher levels lead to dizziness and even higher
levels lead to unconsciousness. Once the heart is no longer supplied with
oxygen, death soon comes. It can also lead to mental confusion, loss of
muscular coordination and/or vomiting (3). Concentrations between 35 and 200
ppm can cause a headache, 800 ppm is a throbbing headache with dizziness and
nausea, 1500 ppm death is likely within 2 hours, at 3000 ppm death is within half
an hour and at 6000 ppm feels faint within a minute and is dead within twenty
minutes. You can measure the amount absorbed by analyzing the proportion of
carboxyhaemoglobin in the red blood cells. Claude Bernard in the 1840s
performed an experiment on dogs where he exposed them to carbon monoxide and
then dissected them after. He noticed that their blood turned a bright scarlet
color. Knowing this now it is easy to see the effects of carbon monoxide, not
only on humans but on animals.
Accidental deaths come from badly
ventilated gas fires, furnaces, heaters, wood-burning stoves, motor vehicle
exhausts or camping stoves. In order to prevent carbon monoxide there are
detectors available for rooms where there may be exposure, such as kitchens or
garages. “By not cover the
bottom of natural gas or propane ovens with aluminum foil you can prevent being
exposed to carbon monoxide. Doing so blocks the combustion air flow through the
appliance and can produce CO. And never leave a car running in an
attached garage, even with the garage door open” (3).
In the 18 and 1900s there were many
suicides caused by carbon monoxide exposure. For example, people would stick
their heads in ovens. There have also been other stories about carbon monoxide
killings that were accidents. For example, the Mason family had traveled from
their home in London to their cottage in North Devon; little did they know a
family of blackbirds had nested in the flue of the gas boiler, which blocked
the ventilation system. All three of the Masons ended up dying that weekend. Today,
cars are not as dangerous and as apt to carbon monoxide poisoning because today
they only have gases below .25%, whereas before it was around 20%. Some famous
people that have died from carbon monoxide poisoning include Sylvia Plath,
Emile Zola and Sir Bernard Spilsbury.
1. Molecules of Murder Book
2. http://www.epa.gov/iaq/co.html
3. http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/pubs/466.html
3. http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/pubs/466.html
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