Carbon monoxide, a colorless, odorless gas, may threaten the safety of students who live in places without detectors.In preparing for the cooler months when furnaces are turned on, students should make sure their living quarters are equipped with carbon monoxide detectors.According to the Journal of American Medical Association, carbon monoxide is the leading cause of accidental poisoning death in America. At least 1,500 people die, and 10,000 become ill from it each year.Carbon monoxide is colorless, odorless, tasteless and non-irritating, said Kelly McGuire, public information assistant for the Columbus Division of Fire. It weighs about the same amount as air. Once it combines with hemoglobin in the body, it prevents oxygen from reaching the brain and heart, which can cause brain damage or death. McGuire said when appliances and vents work properly, and enough fresh air is in the home to allow complete combustion, the trace amounts of carbon monoxide produced are typically not dangerous. However, problems occur when appliances malfunction, such as the furnace heat exchanger is cracked, the vent is clogged, or debris is blocking the chimney or flue.For this reason, “a carbon monoxide detector is essential in everyone’s home,” said Dr. Sorabh Khandelwal, an emergency medicine physician at the Ohio State University Medical Center. “The detector should not be placed near a heater or a gas-burning kitchen appliance. It should be placed on each floor of the house near the bedrooms, when possible.””if you only have one detector, it should be placed in the hallway near the bedrooms so everyone is awakened when the alarm sounds. The alarm is designed to go off before a healthy person begins to have symptoms,” McGuire said. Symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning may easily be confused with the flu because of symptomatic similarities.Khandelwal said, “The early signs of toxicity are a headache, nausea, and fatigue. A lay person may mistake signs of carbon monoxide poisoning for a cold.”The more serious symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning are characterized by confusion, focal neurologic changes, low blood pressure and loss of consciousness, according to a press release.Students “need to be smart about this,” Khandelwal said. “If they live in a room with other people, they should find out if others are having the same symptoms. If they get better when they go out into the fresh air and worse when they return to the house, this should be a sign that something is wrong inside the house.”When this occurs, students should leave the premises and call the fire department immediately.Timothy Pitts, a junior in African American and African studies, remarked that he just moved into his new apartment in August and has not noticed a detector, but now that he knows about carbon monoxide poisoning he will make sure one is installed.The Consumer Product Safety Commission and the International Fire Chiefs recommend every home have at least one carbon monoxide alarm with an audible warning.In severe cases of poisoning, treatment in the hyperbaric chamber is used if attending physicians say it is necessary, Khandelwal said. The chamber is used to super-saturate the body with oxygen, rapidly reducing the level of lethal gas in the body, he said.Low level cases of the poisoning are treated with super oxygen or 100 percent oxygen.Last year an unusually high number of carbon monoxide victims were treated at the OSU Medical Center, Khandelwal said.He also said that students do not need to come into the emergency department because they have a normal headache or nausea. He said students should be more aware of the symptoms of poisoning caused by carbon monoxide.