A CO MAYO father, whose 20-year old son died on Christmas Day after inhaling toxic emissions from a gas central heating boiler, has spoken of the need for public awareness of the dangers posed by such appliances.
Cathal Hughes, speaking yesterday from his home at Rosbeg, Westport, said he did not want the death of his son, Padraig, a Trinity law student, to be in vain and wanted to alert all families.
He also stated that laws were necessary to make CO2 alarms compulsory in homes and he would be asking Minister for the Environment John Gormley to look into this.
Mr Hughes, a member of a prominent business family in the west, found his eldest son dead in bed at about 9.30am on Christmas Day. Padraig’s twin sister, Emma, was unconscious in bed in an adjacent room. It appears toxic emissions had seeped into both rooms from a boiler under Padraig’s bedroom.
Emma recovered after being rushed to Mayo General Hospital in Castlebar, but Padraig died despite attempts by his father to revive him and also having been rushed to hospital.
In an interview two days after his son had been laid to rest beside his mother, Kim, who died from cancer in 2004, Mr Hughes described his son’s death as “senseless and meaningless”. “We lost a son but could have lost a daughter as well. There are boilers such as ours in practically every house but nobody understands the dangers. When the occupants of a house are asleep, CO2 can be a silent killer. There should be legislation to make alarms compulsory.
“These alarms are available for about €150 – a small price to pay for saving something so precious as a life,” he noted.
Mr Hughes said he was always a stickler for health and safety but never knew the heaters merited a public health warning.
Throughout the last six days, the community has been rallying in support of the family: father Cathal, Emma, Cathal jnr (18) and Conor (14). Padraig and Emma planned to celebrate their 21st birthdays together in February.