Seventeen people were poisoned by carbon monoxide on Tuesday evening in Haute-Savoie and Ardèche, eight of whom were hospitalized, despite warnings from the authorities for the holiday period, firefighters and a prefectural source said on Wednesday.
“Malfunction” of a gas boiler
It was in Haute-Savoie that the most serious cases were treated after the “malfunction” of a gas boiler in a home, firefighters told AFP. In Annecy, around 11:30 p.m., emergency services intervened with six people in an apartment located north of the city center, the state of health of four of them requiring hospitalization, they specified, confirming information from the regional daily Le Dauphiné Libéré.
Three victims, two men and a woman, were transported “in absolute emergency” to the Geneva hospital, which is equipped with boxes to treat the most serious cases. Another man, whose state of health was less worrying, was hospitalized in Annecy, according to the same source.
An “imperceptible, colorless, odorless and non-irritating toxic gas”
Earlier, in Ardèche, eleven people, “friends and family” were taken into care after being poisoned to different degrees, we learned from the department prefecture. The accident occurred around 7:30 p.m. in the village of Saint-Marcel-lès-Annonay, located in the north of the department, when the victims “were gathered in a garage preparing homemade charcuterie”. Among them are a five-year-old child, four women and six men. Among the adults, one woman and three men were transferred to Annonay hospital “for nausea and headaches”.
The origin of the accident “could perhaps be linked to the use of an old gas stove and the lack of ventilation”, continued the prefecture, specifying that a gendarmerie investigation “was underway”. The latter also recalled on ” of intoxication.
Earlier, on December 18, the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regional Health Agency (ARS) did the same on the social network, recalling that “each year in France, nearly 5,000 people (were) exposed to poisoning to carbon monoxide” of which “around a hundred die”