Clogged Heating Vent Found in Dead Teen's Home
Carbon monoxide blamed in death of Berkeley girl
Debra Levi Holtz, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 30, 1999
©2000 San Francisco Chronicle

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/11/30/MN16479.DTL


A blocked heating vent probably caused extremely high levels of carbon monoxide in a Berkeley apartment that killed a teenage girl last week, city officials said yesterday.

City inspectors yesterday found insulation and metal flashing in a wall vent behind the gas heater in the apartment where 17-year-old Seetha Vemireddy died last Wednesday apparently from poisoning by the deadly gas, according to acting Berkeley building official Hilary Herman.

Meanwhile, tenants of 26 other apartments at 2020 Bancroft Way were allowed to return home late yesterday. They had been forced to leave when utility crews found hazardous levels of carbon monoxide in their units after the girl's death.

Inspectors with Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which turned off the gas to those apartments last week, detected only trace amounts of carbon monoxide in the units yesterday. Heaters in the building's 79 other apartments continued to operate pending further investigation.

Last week, PG&E spokesman Tom Collins said crews measured a level of more than 2,000 parts per million of the gas in the teenager's apartment and hazardous levels in the 26 other dwellings. A measurement of 35 parts per million or less is considered safe.

Heaters in those units were disconnected yesterday, and the landlord will provide electric space heaters in their place. Meanwhile, city building inspectors continue to investigate what caused them to leak gas.

A roommate found the teenager and her sister, 15-year-old Lalitha Vemireddy, passed out in their second-floor apartment last Wednesday. Lalitha was treated for carbon monoxide poisoning at Alta Bates Hospital and released the next day.

The sisters moved to Berkeley two months ago from southeast India and were doing cleaning work for Reddy Realty, which owns the apartment building and is Berkeley's largest rental property owner. Their parents were living in a building a few blocks away.

Berkeley police and building inspectors will continue to investigate what caused the blockage in the vent in the Vemireddys' apartment. Investigators are looking into the building's history, including roofing work done there last year. City officials also have asked the building's owners to hire a mechanical contractor to look into the heating problems at the 105-unit complex.

``We are fully cooperating with the city and we are on friendly terms with the tenants,'' said Prasad Lakireddy, one of the building's owners. ``We're not pinching pennies. We want to have a safe premises.''

Some of the displaced tenants said yesterday that they have not been feeling well lately.

William White, a Berkeley police review commissioner and 17-year resident of the building, said he was sick the week before last and is now ``almost certain'' it was related to carbon monoxide levels measured in his apartment at more than 10 times the acceptable amount.

White said he will encourage the City Council to pass a law that requires carbon monoxide detectors in apartments like his that have wall- mounted gas heaters. Mayor Shirley Dean said yesterday that she will propose such a law at the December 7 council meeting.

A neighbor of White's, Phyllis Tenney, said she was told that carbon monoxide levels in her apartment were measured at 2,000 parts per million, even though she has not used her heater this season. Tenney, who was forced to stay in a nearby motel over the long holiday weekend, said she has been feeling unusually drowsy when she wakes up.

Lawrence Bustamante watched the inspectors scour the building yesterday with particular interest. He said he found his 65-year-old brother dead in his first-floor apartment there last December with the heat on full blast. Although the official cause of his brother's death was a heart attack from obesity, said Bustamante, an autopsy was never done.

``I won't feel like I have any closure until I find out if his death had anything to do with carbon monoxide,'' said Bustamante. ``It was so damn suspicious how he passed away.''

Carbon monoxide can be a silent killer because it is an odorless, colorless gas that often causes people to lose consciousness before they are aware anything is wrong. Other symptoms can include nausea, headaches and disorientation.


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