Four teenagers were treated at local hospitals after experiencing suspected carbon monoxide exposure at a Russellville restaurant over the weekend, and the restaurant closed Tuesday after a Cole County Health Department inspection noted multiple violations.
The teenagers, all under age 17, are employees of Russellville Drive In on Route C, where the mother of one of the teenagers called for an ambulance Saturday night.
The Russellville-Lohman Fire Protection District responded to the call around 9:30 p.m., and first responders arrived to find one of the four employees working that night experiencing symptoms including lightheadedness, dizziness, a "burning" sensation in his face and difficulty breathing, said Fire Chief Chris Cinotto. Firefighters evacuated the building after a second employee began showing similar symptoms. They had to remove one employee found lying in a storage closet semi-responsive but conscious, he said.
EMS officials tested the employees for carbon monoxide poisoning on the scene, and all four tested positive, Cinotto said. They received oxygen in the ambulance and were transported to a local hospital for further treatment. When hospital personnel tested them for carbon monoxide poisoning again, all four teenagers' levels had returned to normal, Cinotto said the teenagers' parents had told him.
Back at the restaurant, firefighters investigated the building, eliminating a checklist of potential causes including mixing the wrong chemicals in a mop bucket, Freon, septic gases and propane leaks.
"We narrowed it down to carbon monoxide," Cinotto said, noting their detectors were reading about 6 parts per million (the standard measurement for carbon monoxide) in the kitchen - not a number that typically would concern him, as he usually would begin considering evacuation at around 9 parts per million. He did note, however, that the employees had opened the building's doors to air it out about an hour before emergency personnel arrived on the scene, which could have diluted the original carbon monoxide concentration.
Most people do not experience any symptoms from prolonged carbon monoxide exposure at levels of 1 to 70 parts per million, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission website.
"(How high) it was I don't know, but I know that two of our victims had long-term exposure and when they were checked by our EMS crew on scene they indicated that they were at the highest levels that their monitors would read," Cinotto said.
The employees also were tested for drugs and alcohol at the hospital, and those tests came out negative, according to information the teenagers' parents gave Cinotto.
The Cole County Health Department conducted a health inspection of the business Monday, but that department can inspect only for food santitation-related issues. Still, the inspection discovered multiple sanitation violations, prompting the health department to close the business until the violations have been corrected and the restaurant has been reinspected.
Violations noted by the inspection included a soft-serve machine that was not being sanitized, improperly stored food, some food items being held at improper temperatures, several dirty surfaces and containers, an unlabeled chemical spray bottle in the kitchen, and mice feces on back storage room shelves. Some violations were corrected while health officials were on site, and some come with a deadline to correct by today or by Sept. 7, depending on the severity.
Kevin Grace, who has owned and operated Russellville Drive In since June 2013, said he had the building inspected Tuesday for carbon monoxide as well as any problems with gas lines, and that the inspections found nothing abnormal. He closed the restaurant Sunday to figure out what had happened and because some of the affected employees had been scheduled to work that day. It reopened for business Monday.
Russellville Drive In is not located inside Russellville city limits, and Cole County does not have a building code that requires carbon monoxide alarms, Cinotto said.
"We have informed him there is a problem," Cinotto said, noting the only way the business owner likely could end up facing any charges would be if he failed to take corrective actions to prevent a future carbon monoxide hazard at the business, at which point the fire department would provide evidence and make a recommendation to the Cole County Sheriff's Office.