Suspected carbon monoxide poisoning sends Mendocino Coast couple to hospital

A Mendocino Coast couple narrowly escaped Monday from what fire officials said appeared to be carbon monoxide poisoning in their Albion home.

Both were unconscious when Albion Fire Chief Ted Williams went to their Highway 1 house about 4 p.m. Monday in response to a request to check on them, said firefighter Scott Roat, a board member with the Albion-Little River Fire Protection District.

When he saw their condition, Williams pulled the woman out of the house, while two more firefighters arrived and got the second patient outdoors, Roat said.

The man was taken by ambulance to the Mendocino Coast District Hospital in Fort Bragg, while the woman went by private car, Roat said. Both were well enough to go home Monday night, he said.

In the meantime, two additional firefighter teams donned masks and oxygen tanks and went inside the house to look for the cause of the problem, which has yet to be determined but is believed to be carbon monoxide, Roat and Cal Fire personnel said.

The firefighters disabled any possible sources of carbon monoxide poisoning and ventilated the house, Roat said.

Williams, he said, "was very heroic by entering" the house.

"The whole thing was very close, and I think his prompt action turned it," he said.