My partner was killed by a barbecue

This hits home.

When I was about 15, over the course of a year or so, my mother gradually descended into a lethargic, apathetic mess that I vaguely ascribed to depression. Then one day my three year old sister stopped breathing while watching TV. She turned purple, collapsed, and if not for her amazing childminder calling an ambulance and giving her CPR until it arrived would have died.

Turned out, the bricks on our gas fire had been arranged incorrectly and CO (carbon monoxide) leaking into the house for over a year. My mum's bizarre mental decline was chronic CO poisoning, while my sister's episode was acute CO poisoning. My sister recovered and was fine. I'm not sure my mum ever fully recovered. Both could very easily have died.

If you have gas appliances, for the sake of your family, please get a CO detector.

I'm generally pretty astounded by how many people end up killing themselves or others this way every year. It's a fire, don't stick it inside your highly flammable tent. Fires and things in which you've had a fire should always be left outside as they'll still be chucking out gases, and with charcoal fires they can still be burning somewhere without much noticeable heat. I spend a lot of time camping with all manner of fires, stoves etc (historical re-enactor) and I've never once thought "I should bring the fire box inside the tent so it doesn't get wet". Keep your burning materials in the dry, and the box/BBQ/whatever outside.

This made me wonder about the concept of integrating detection for things like carbon monoxide into cellphones. Of course there's a patent on the concept: http://www.google.com/patents/US20080303678

But I don't know if this has ever actually been attempted.

I did not know cold barbecue coals could still emit carbon monoxide.

I guess the outer shells must have been cooled but left a burning nugget in the center.

I feel real bad for both of them and their families. Another place this happens is during power outages with generators. People put their generators in their garages (to keep them from being stolen) while they run all night. Every time there is a hurricane, people new to Florida die from carbon monoxide poisoning.

We were living in a really crusty apartment back during college. The cooking range was super old, and over time we started smelling something which smelt like a gas leak. We called someone to take a look, and apparently the pilot light was burning off some of the grease accumulated under the cover. He immediately turned off the gas and locked it until we fixed the range. I feel very lucky that the windows were busted too, thus keeping the airflow going in the house.

This is terrible, but I thought that everyone knew that you must not burn charcoal within a confined space. The British killed a bunch of their soldiers in Crimea that way, how many years ago?

You see similar things happening in the poor parts of town in the winter -- they'll bring a kerosene heater indoors (cheaper to run than electricity), and end up suffocating from the CO.