Carbon monoxide leak at arena east of Calgary sends several children to hospital

A carbon monoxide leak at a hockey arena northeast of Calgary sent several children to hospital on Saturday one of the parents says the incident served as a wakeup call.

Fire crews were called to the arena in the Village of Rockyford, about 90 kilometres northeast of the city, around 7 p.m. after reports of several people falling ill.

Kristine Hunter tells CityNews she and her 10-year-old son both became sick while they were at the arena for his hockey game on Saturday afternoon.

“We were watching the kids play and we noticed a lot of the kids were leaving the bench,” says Hunter. “We had heard some of them were not feeling well. They were nauseous and had headaches.”

Hunter says her son threw up in their car five times on the way back to Calgary after leaving the arena in Rockyford.

“We had heard that a couple of the players on the other team were not feeling well as well,” she says.

A parent from the opposite team ended up calling the fire department to the arena and when crews arrived, they noticed high CO levels and evacuated the building.

Officials say all affected children were transported to hospital but details on their ages and conditions are not known.

Hunter says she took Smith to the hospital where he was one of around 30 kids there getting hooked up to oxygen. She says he was found to have high levels of CO and was the last of the children to leave the hospital around 2 a.m.

She says he seems back to normal days after the incident, but she is still shocked about what happened and relieved that the outcomes wasn’t worse.

“I still can’t even believe that this has happened to them,” says Hunter. “Our concern was just getting them the attention that they need.”

A social media post from the Village of Rockyford says officials determined “a radiant heater was defective and causing the emissions to vent into the building.”

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Lori Miller, chief administrative officer for the village, says the scary situation is a reminder of the potential dangers of carbon monoxide in all buildings – especially during the winter.

In the meantime, the arena is closed for repairs to the heaters, along with needing a follow-up inspection.

“I don’t know if they had a monitor and it was just faulty,” says Hunter. “All of us are just trying to understand the reason this happened to our kids.”

“Our coaches bought a CO monitor that we’ll be taking to games and we will absolutely be talking those precautions now.”

Fire crews see surge in CO calls as winter arrives

Earlier this month, a man was found dead in a northeast Calgary home where high CO levels were detected.

A few days before that, the Calgary Fire Department (CFD) said crews responded to five CO calls, some of which resulted in large evacuations. No deaths were reported in any of the calls on that day.

The fire department says they often see more CO calls once furnaces and other gas appliances work harder due to winter weather.

A list of tips to detect and prevent CO poisoning can be found here.