NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Carbon monoxide detectors sound the alarm when the odorless, colorless gas is in the air. Surprisingly, they are not required in every daycare in Tennessee.
As unlikely as it may seem, only new daycares with fuel-fired equipment are required to have carbon monoxide detectors. Even some of those are exempt.
"It's a huge blind spot for Tennessee," said Haley Montgomery.
Over the weekend, Haley Montgomery spent hours in the hospital with her 8-month-old. On Friday, her daughter's daycare discovered a carbon monoxide leak. Her daughter goes to Elm Hill Academy.
"We took her to St. Thomas ER and she tested for over double what they recommend in the body... even for an adult," Montgomery said.
Montgomery believes her daughter's exposure to the carbon monoxide may have started months ago. She says there's been a strange smell and heating issues in the building since November.
"Although it's the odorless killer that unit was having issues and been complained about. In addition, it wasn't working properly and some of the classrooms were very cold. Teachers were constantly in blankets and sweatpants, and depending on what classroom your kid was in you had to dress like they were outside everyday," Montgomery said.
Montgomery is concerned without carbon monoxide detectors in every daycare, this could easily happen again.
According to the Tennessee Fire Marshal's Office, new daycares are required to have the life-saving devices if there is fuel-fired equipment. But daycares that provide care for 6 to 100 children that are 2.5 years of age or less, and that have rooms located on a ground level with an exit door directly outside, are not required to have them.
"We have to take better care of our kids. It's a $20 machine and it will save your kid from possibly having permanent brain damage and lung damage," Montgomery said.
In an email, the daycare confirmed to NewsChannel 5 that an HVAC unit was leaking carbon monoxide, and they were making fixes. This is part of the statement.
In our ongoing efforts to prevent a recurrence of such an incident, we have taken the following measures:Throughout this process, we have been and will continue to rely on the expertise of Tennessee Poison Control and our HVAC/air purification partners for their support and guidance to both address the current situation and prevent any such incidents in the future.
- As of Friday, the HVAC company has sealed and decommissioned the specific faulty unit, which serviced two classrooms and the back hallway of the building.
- Our team, vendors and partners sourced a brand-new HVAC unit Friday and over the weekend to replace the faulty unit.
- A commercial crane alongside a dedicated expert HVAC installation team has been on site all day today (1/8/2024) and targeting finishing tomorrow subject to weather.
- All other functioning HVAC units have been thoroughly inspected to ensure nothing like this could happen again.
- We are adding new hardwired carbon monoxide monitors and automatic shutoffs on each of the three HVAC units (All of our HVAC units)
- We are adding new halo air scrubbers on each of the three HVAC units (All of our HVAC units).
- Acquired two different types of additional carbon monoxide alarms / monitors as backup redundancies to the HVAC system automatic shutoffs.
We are committed to keeping all families at the school informed as we receive more information, while also respecting the privacy of those impacted. At this time, we are cautiously optimistic that, despite the medical attention provided to students and employees, there are no indications of long-term impacts.
We also want to express our heartfelt gratitude to the first responders and our incredible team of educators the leveraged their training and instincts to protect the children and others in the building.
After our reporting on this issue, Councilman Russ Bradford drafted a resolution to the issue asking the General Assembly to pass legislation requiring gas detectors in all child. are facilities without exceptions. We confirmed with Darren Hernigan, State Representative for district 60 where the issue arose, that he is on board with the legislation.
This should never have been an issue. I saw this story reached out to @dsjernigan & @Campbell4TN requesting the state take action to fix this. Rep Jernigan has informed me that he is going to draft legislation to address this. https://t.co/wiKka4blje
— Councilman Russ Bradford (@Bradford4D13) January 9, 2024
Carbon monoxide detectors are covered under all Child Care Tennessee grants, according to DHS, including the Safety Supplement Grant.
Choose Safe Places has carbon monoxide resources available at https://www.tn.gov/health/cedep/environmental/safe-places/safe-operation/carbon-monoxide.html
Fostering Hope provides Christmas for kids in foster care. I'm delighted to see Fostering Hope expand this year to expand their reach to now include kids in Foster care in metro AND foster kids in East TN hard hit by Helene.
-Bree Smith
