Carbon Monoxide Firefighters tell their stories

A Boca Raton woman continues to struggle in intensive care... fighting to survive after exposure from a silent killer. Over the weekend, she and her husband were overcome by Carbon Monoxide fumes in their home in the Bocaire Country Club. He died.

Even some of the firefighters who came to the rescue...had to be taken to the hospital. Tonight--two are telling their stories.

It came in Saturday morning about 9:40 as a routine call. A sick person. But the three firefighters who got there and went inside the house realized what they had was anything but routine.
Captain Dave Simmons said "I'd say its one of the most critical cases that I have worked."

The case that Capt. Dave Simmons handled Saturday morning is one he'll never forget.
They were sent to a house in the Bocaire Country Club in Boca Raton, for a report of a sick person.
When he got there, Capt. Simmons himself felt sick. "I felt a little lightheaded, a little dizzy, and maybe a little burning in the eyes."

Kathleen Fahrer, a PBCO fire-rescue firefighter recalled "when I was in the house feeling ill, it was just like a sickness, just felt sick, sick to my stomach."

Kathleen Fahrer was one of the first 3 firefighters to go into a house Saturday morning.

None of them had their masks on, because they didn't realize the whole place was filled with carbon monoxide.

And there were two caretakers in the house. One was okay, but the other one seemed woozy.
Captain Simmons said "She was just sitting in the chair and when you asked her a question she responded very slowly."

Simmons knew something odd was going on.
The residents were unconscious, and the firefighters who responded felt sick.

Captain Simmons recalled "At this time I realized something wasn't quite right and from past experiences I recognized it may be a carbon monoxide call. At that point, we started opening up all the windows and getting the patients out."

Simmons, a 30 year veteran firefighter, says they got the elderly couple and the woozy caretaker out of the house and called for backup units.

"My concern was let's get them out and get them into the fresh air and start treating them. It's something you don't come across everyday, that many patients at once,"Simmons said.

It turns out the elderly man had left his car running in the garage and the whole house filled with carbon monoxide.

Kathleen and her captain and a paramedic all went to the hospital, sickened by carbon monoxide.

She said "We just wanted to get them out of the house and then get out of the house as quick as possible."

"We are fortunate that we were just hospitalized for a short time."Simmons said.

The elderly man, 89 year old Hyman Portnoy of Boca Raton, died. His wife remains hospitalized.

And the caretaker got out of the hospital on Sunday.
Authorities say the car had been running in the garage so long, by the time firefighters arrived it had run out of gas and the engine had stopped.