Carbon monoxide kills man, hurts wife

Fire officials urge residents to buy detectors after couple is felled in their Chevy Chase home

When Fire and Rescue Service personnel reached the townhouse, 62-year-old Paul Menick was found dead upstairs, while his 59-year-old wife was taken to Suburban Hospital in Bethesda. As of Tuesday afternoon, Marilyn Menick was still hospitalized.

Fire and Rescue personnel said they detected carbon monoxide in the couple’s home. The gas leaked from the Menicks’ garage, where a car was left running, into at least three homes on Terrace Garden Way, according to residents.

One neighbor, who asked not to be named, was also hospitalized with carbon monoxide poisoning. She returned home early Tuesday.

Police entered a third home and alerted live-in housekeeper Mercy Labodo. Labodo said the gas gave her a headache but her symptoms quickly passed after breathing fresh air.

‘‘God was with us,” Labodo said from the home Tuesday morning.

The gas levels in the Menick’s house were 10 times the potency that would require fire personnel to wear breathing equipment, Piringer said.

Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas. Poisoning from the gas causes flu-like symptoms. Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service receives hundreds of calls each year relating to carbon monoxide, Piringer said.

‘‘People become distracted and leave cars running,” he said. ‘‘A simple, easy thing to do is just buy a carbon monoxide detector.”

According to the Center for Disease Control, an estimated 15,200 U.S. residents are treated at hospitals for carbon monoxide exposure or poisoning each year. Of those, approximately 480 die each year from non-fire related carbon monoxide poisoning. The data was gathered from 2001-03, and released in 2005.

Detectives are still investigating why the car was left running and are waiting to speak with Marilyn Menick, said Montgomery County Police Department spokeswoman Lucille Baur.