Friday night's edition of 20/20 included what may be the first national mainstream media report on two carbon monoxide poisonings last spring at a Best Western in Boone, North Carolina. For those who missed it, in June Jeffrey Williams was killed after ingesting a lethal amount of carbon monoxide, and his mother Jeannie suffered permanent brain and lung damage. Only a week later, it emerged that an elderly couple from Washington state, Daryl and Shirley Jenkins, had also died of carbon monoxide poisoning after staying in the same room in April. However, the area medical examiner failed to expedite tests on the Jenkinses, and when he got those results, he didn't alert anyone about it. As a result, local authorities the Jenkinses had died of carbon monoxide poisoning until a week after Jeffrey died. It has since emerged that the room had been bombarded with CO from an indoor pool heater that had not only been illegally and improperly installed, but was severely out of maintenance. The hotel's former owner, Damon Mallatere, has been indicted on three counts of manslaughter for the deaths of the Jenkinses and Jeffrey and assault causing serious bodily injury for what happened to Jeannie.
Watch part 1 of the piece here and part 2 here. It features Jeannie Williams' first public interview since her ordeal. She drove from Rock Hill, South Carolina to pick up her daughter, Brianne, from science camp, and decided to make a day of it. In what has to stand as a horrific stroke of luck considering what later happened, she and Jeffrey had to change rooms because some moran staying in the room they'd originally reserved had been smoking in it, and the cigarette odor was unbearable. So they moved into room 225.
A few hours later, Jeannie said she started feeling funny--and it only got worse when she got to the bathroom. She tried to get to her phone, but before she could make it back to the other room in their suite, she passed out. The next thing she knew, she was in the hospital, unable to speak. She asked her husband, Jeff, Sr. about Jeffrey--and Jeff, Sr. told her Jeffrey hadn't made it. By coincidence, the same EMTs who responded to the 911 call were the same ones who had come out in April when the Jenkinses died. A hazmat team pinpointed the cause--the indoor pool heater. The exhaust pipe, located directly under room 225, had several leaks and was propped up with a videotape and an ice bucket. As a result, rather than safely pump CO outside, it was staying inside--and going into the rooms above it.
The 20/20 piece includes two particularly sickening revelations. For instance, the Jenkinses' relatives suspected almost immediately that Daryl and Shirley had died of carbon monoxide, and warned the hotel. Despite this, the room was reopened only a month later. Mallatere, however, says the authorities never told him there was any carbon monoxide risk. To my mind, both Mallatere and medical examiner Brent Hall share blame. Hall's failure to expedite the blood tests on the Jenkinses is inexcusable--after all, shouldn't a perfectly healthy couple dying out of nowhere cause red flags? Indeed, to my mind the only reason Hall isn't up on charges himself is because North Carolina contracts out medical examinations, meaning that it's debatable whether he was a "public official." If it turns out he does meet that definition, his failure to expedite the tests and alert local authorities once the results came back are unquestionably actionable under North Carolina law. But even without any official warning, you'd think hearing "carbon monoxide" would set off alarm bells in any hotel owner's mind.
Also, three weeks after the Jenkinses died, 10 girls were sickened at Levi Solinski's 13th birthday party that took place in room 325--one floor above room 225. Levi's mother, Serene, told the front desk in no uncertain terms that there was an environmental hazard in the room. However, Mallatere says that he was never informed of this.
Some good has come out of this. North Carolina has enacted laws requiring CO detectors in hotel rooms. The Williamses are starting a foundation in their son's name. Additionally, prosecutors are still trying to determine whether anyone else's nonfeasance adds up to criminal conduct. Still, one thing's for certain--heads need to roll and people need to go to jail for this.