CO Leak

It is astonishing to think that a cheap and nationally mandated safety precaution was not previously implemented regardless of budget constraints.

This really is unacceptable and should be an outrage to any supporter of ANY of the academies.

Providing basic safety equipment in the buildings where the Mids sleep should come far above any other funding issue.

The lack of a CO detector in a building where gas heat/hot water is used, in a building that houses hundreds of people, is such an egregious safety violation (mandated by law or not) that whoever is responsible for this oversight/error should be fired immediately for incompetence.
 
Law

Was the Academy exempt to the NY law mandated in 2004? Thank God no one was seriously hurt.

NY LAW-- All carbon monoxide detectors must be installed by November 1, 2004. Under limited circumstances, the Department of Buildings' borough offices may grant time extensions until June 30, 2005.

And who can parents contact now to ensure every dorm has detectors now?
 
How about every ROOM WHERE MIDS SLEEP and go to? not just the dorm building! unless we are talking about the same thing.
 
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Looking online it appears that the CO detectors have to be a certain distance from each bedroom door according to the code. But I am not taking any chances and sending my mid a CO detector to put in the room where he sleeps
 
Mids told today that the problem was that the boilers had not been serviced and the filters were clogged, creating a negative air pressure and sending CO through the vents.

Students sleeping with their windows and doors open, afraid of more CO. No heat or hot water in Barry or Jones.
 
I am getting my DS a CO 2 detector also.

According to the 2015 Parent FB page, many DD's and DS's are telling their parents that they still have headaches. From what I heard, Patton was closed today? Is anyone checking on all of these kids to make sure they are ok????
 
hyperbaric (sp) chamber

My son was taken to brooklyn hospital and was put in "the chamber", said he felt fine..just had a headache. I called today (thurs) just to express that I was not happy with the chain of events. I do realize they are "adults" but finding out after the fact, that he was fine, does not change the fact that I should have had been informed, heaven forbid things had gone worse. I tried calling for nearly 2 hours monday morning before he picked up. Not a good two hours. When I spoke to someone in the office today (I did not call sooner because i knew it would be chaotic on campus) I was told to sign onto the text alert system which he would send me a link to-it has now been 4+ hours, still no email. So much for improving contact. They currently have no heat directly in the dorms (barry) but the heat in the hallways is operational. Just my two cents.
 
I do realize they are "adults" but finding out after the fact, that he was fine, does not change the fact that I should have had been informed, heaven forbid things had gone worse. QUOTE]
Interesting perspective.
 
My son was taken to brooklyn hospital and was put in "the chamber", said he felt fine..just had a headache. I called today (thurs) just to express that I was not happy with the chain of events. I do realize they are "adults" but finding out after the fact, that he was fine, does not change the fact that I should have had been informed, heaven forbid things had gone worse. I tried calling for nearly 2 hours monday morning before he picked up. Not a good two hours. When I spoke to someone in the office today (I did not call sooner because i knew it would be chaotic on campus) I was told to sign onto the text alert system which he would send me a link to-it has now been 4+ hours, still no email. So much for improving contact. They currently have no heat directly in the dorms (barry) but the heat in the hallways is operational. Just my two cents.

Are you on a release for your son's information? Legally they can't "inform" you of his medical status unless you are. I think I signed the release for my parents when I was a cadet.
 
Temperatures in the NY area here have been very mild so a lack of heat, while inconvenient and not ideal, is probably just a nuisance.
 
My source tells me the David Matsuda will be spending the night in Third Co. tonight. I wonder if the heat will be back on or hot water for his shower in the morning.

luv2fly
 
My son was taken to brooklyn hospital and was put in "the chamber", said he felt fine..just had a headache. I called today (thurs) just to express that I was not happy with the chain of events. I do realize they are "adults" but finding out after the fact, that he was fine, does not change the fact that I should have had been informed, heaven forbid things had gone worse. I tried calling for nearly 2 hours monday morning before he picked up. Not a good two hours. When I spoke to someone in the office today (I did not call sooner because i knew it would be chaotic on campus) I was told to sign onto the text alert system which he would send me a link to-it has now been 4+ hours, still no email. So much for improving contact. They currently have no heat directly in the dorms (barry) but the heat in the hallways is operational. Just my two cents.

I agree completely that some of the communication could have been handled a little better.

However, anything to do with medical information cannot be released to anyone without the written consent of the patient. Even the fact that they were transported to a hospital can be protected information that might not be released. One can even call a hospital and ask for a patient directly and unless they have signed a release upon admission the hospital operator can't tell you they are a patient. It's a pain for everyone involved: the patient, the providers, the family; however, ultimately it is meant to protect the patient's privacy (although it was written into a health insurance portability law).
 
KP2001 is right again. Parents make SURE, SURE SURE, that you have all your young adults sign releases that allow their chosen person/people to have access to medical and financial records. Each college, university, etc..should have releases. Have your mid or college age student make contact with the appropriate "authorities". Also your mids should eventually plan for their medical and financial powers of attorneys. Not just for your mids but for your whole family. We've completed this process with both our young adults and they've understood the reasons. We parents dislike the laws limiting access to family members' records, but it can be done.
 
All is well that ends well, I guess?

No one was hurt and now, as of today, all rooms have CO detectors installed.

Also, maybe the Academy will receive a bit more attention from David Matsuda.
He tried to tough it out in 3Co last night, but had to abandon ship in the early AM because it was too cold to sleep!:smile:
 
It is our understanding, that at this time, only the mechanical room in the basement of the dorms and the first floor bedrooms will have detectors. The second and third floor rooms/halls have not received detectors.
 
My source tells me the David Matsuda will be spending the night in Third Co. tonight. I wonder if the heat will be back on or hot water for his shower in the morning.

luv2fly

It's my understanding that Administrator Matsuda did spend the night in Third Co earlier this week, I have NO idea why or WHAT GOOD that can or did accomplish. Given the stupidity surrounding this issue I have jumped to the conclusion that it's none! None at all!

Do I sound outraged - I hope so. My son was one of the affected mids and had one of the highest levels of CO in his blood to my understanding. He came home this weekend and relatively casually told me how the way this leak was detected was when mids came back from TMs and started wondering about the smells and noticed how their roommates, etc were so affected. As was noted earlier, we parents all need to thank God that no one was killed by the neglect and incompetence that allowed this to occur. I'm talking about the neglect and incompetence that led to the fact that every day and night at a Federal Academy, a location where our nation's best and brightest are recruited and go to start their lives and service to our Nation's greater good, are AND HAVE been allowed to be subject to such an incident, in violation of local and state laws that every other similar institution of higher learning must comply. That is an outrage and as Luigi notes, we can only hope someone wakes up and does something about quickly.

I fear instead of that our incompetent Maritime Administrator, on the advice of his lawyers at MARAD will sweep this under the rug as fast and best he can, instead of properly responding and doing something constructive as they will no doubt consul him to do maximum CYA first and foremost for the Government and secondarily for himself.

If sleeping in Third Co was meant to reassure parents like myself that the Academy is a safe place and that he and his staff are doing everything possible to make sure my son and the other members of the Regiments safe keeping and good health are critical to their thinking and efforts, it did not. Now if he showed up, had an rapid plan to install CO detectors every place on campus where NYS law has said they should have been since 2005, using some leftover Recovery Act funds or wherever he and his boss Secretary LaHood could rapidly gather them from, and had a "Go Team" formed to help Acting Supe Kumar quickly address the other issues with the Capital Plant rather than continuing to talk it to death like the bureaucrat he is, then I wouldn't be so critical. Of course the way I feel right now, that sort of stuff only happens in the happiest place on earth and I'm not getting ready to go on "Its A Small World" right now.

Sorry for the rant but in this case I believe it's entirely called for and as I say, until I talked to my son when he and I were in the same room for the first time since the incident, I really didn't realize how lucky we were to not have to have travelled up to Long Island last Sunday to an ICU or something worse.
 
Dear Jasperdog,

Your sentiments are exactly right.

To Mr. Matsuda,

Your bio reads that you have a degree from Harvey Mudd in engineering and a JD from the University of San Diego.

I am going to take a different slant to this event. You are a product of a Jesuit institution - the University of San Diego. As such, I am sure that you have had to take some type of ethics courses when you were there for law school. I appeal to that training now. How would you have felt, honestly, if 100 students had died that night? What do you think your career options would be after something like that would have happened under your supervision? How would you have reacted if your children were in those dorms last Sunday night?

Do not let your political ambitions cloud your thinking and prevent you from doing what is right in this situation - just as you would have been taught by the Jesuits. Get us the maintenance budget we need immediately to fix whatever hazardous situations exist at Kings Point before you are attending funerals for our children. Find the money - this is now an emergency. If nothing else, if a tragedy happens under your watch, it will follow you for the rest of your career. This goes for anyone making decisions at MARAD that affect Kings Point.
 
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