The carbon monoxide incident that hospitalized several first responders last week in Garnett has taken the life of the original patient. Forty-five year old Chad Farrar was found unresponsive in a basement at 104 S. Hayes in Garnett, when county ambulance personnel arrived, believing they were approaching a cardiac arrest scene. Farrar had apparently been using a gasoline powered concrete saw without ventilating the fumes and carbon monoxide from the area and he passed out from the toxic gas.
The arriving ambulance crew started resuscitation efforts but soon began feeling the effects of carbon monoxide as well, prompting a call to the Garnett Fire Department and other ambulance teams to check the area for the gas and possibly treat members of the responding teams. Eight emergency responders and one additional member or the household were treated and released at the local hospital for suspected carbon monoxide exposure.
Anderson County Commissioners approved an expenditure of a little over $1,000 for portable CO detectors that will be attached to the equipment bags carried by responding EMS teams. With the detectors, as soon as they walk in, it will give them immediate notification of the danger.
