Reports came in this morning about four guests at the San Francisco Marriott last night falling ill due to carbon monoxide poisoning.
KGO TV now has an update, reporting that the fire department responded to two separate calls regarding the same problem in the same hotel rooms on Tuesday of this week. The department believes that the hotel’s ventilation system is actually sucking exhaust fumes in from vehicles on the street.
From KGO:
…Four people got sick at the Marriott Hotel just before 11 last night – all with dizziness and nausea. A blood test showed carbon monoxide poisoning, but the source was and still is uncertain – though firefighters believe they know.
“The thinking right now is that it came in through?” asked ABC7’s Terry McSweeney.
“Through the air intake system and it basically just sucks the outside air in and then it goes through their ventilation system,” said Mindy Talmadge of the San Francisco fire department…
The affected rooms are right above Stevenson Street, where trucks and cars park, sometimes leaving their engines running. It’s possible the exhaust is what got into the rooms. But no other rooms were affected – not last time and not this time. It’s still a mystery and a disturbing one to some hotel guests.