Gas leak at Amsterdam hotel sickens at least 12

By Steven Cook
Gazette Reporter

October 12, 2000
AMSTERDAM - Firefighters frantically rousted Best Western Hotel guests from their beds early Wednesday, evacuating those sickened by a potentially deadly carbon monoxide leak.

In all the commotion, newlyweds Ursula and Richard Vasieck, of Vienna, Austria -- she unconscious and he nearly so -- became separated on the first night of their honeymoon.

The Vasiecks were among approximately a dozen guests, employees and rescue personnel to require at least some medical attention as a result of the leak caused by a malfunctioning pool heater.

The hotel's approximately 80 guests were evacuated shortly after a Kingston family staying at the hotel during a fishing trip tested positive for carbon monoxide poisoning. None of the illnesses treated was considered life-threatening, and all were expected to be discharged from hospitals by today.

"I was worried very much," said Richard Vasieck, who in a groggy state had tried to drag his unconscious wife from their room after he was roused. "I knew it would work out fine, but still, I wanted to convince myself by actually talking to her."

Two hours after first being taken to hospitals -- Richard to St. Mary's and Ursula to Amsterdam Memorial -- the two were linked up by phone. They were reunited when a St. Mary's emergency room physician drove the husband to Amsterdam Memorial in time for both to be airlifted 150 miles south to a hospital in Westchester County where Ursula Vasieck was receiving further treatment. The Vasiecks were the only victims to be hospitalized overnight. They were expected to undergo one more treatment this morning and be released.

The Kingston family, Calvin and Marietta Pentz and their two children, Calvin Jr., 6, and Kristina, 10, were taken by ambulance two hours west to a medical center in Syracuse. The family was released Wednesday afternoon after treatment.

As rescue personnel evacuated the building, others searched for the carbon monoxide source. Their search led them to the malfunctioning pool heater on the building's west end.

Once the heater was turned off, firefighters aired out the building, and the hotel was reopened by 10 a.m.

"If this had gone undetected much longer," Amsterdam Fire Chief Richard Liberti said, "my guess is there would have been multiple fatalities."

Carbon monoxide is a colorless and odorless gas that robs the body of oxygen, hospital officials said.

The longer someone is exposed to it, the greater the severity of symptoms, Amsterdam Memorial nurse Pat Holt said. Symptoms include weakness, nausea, headaches or chest pain. If the exposure is long enough, death results.

Low-level exposure can be treated by simply getting into fresh air, Holt said. Lengthy exposure, like that the Pentz and Vasieck families suffered, requires oxygen to be forced back into their blood using a hyperbaric chamber that increases air pressure around the patient.

A passing train rumbling through Amsterdam early Wednesday provided the first indication of the deadly gas seeping its way through the Best Western.

Marietta Pentz, 34, said she awoke to the sound of the train shortly before 3 a.m. Realizing she was violently sick, Pentz woke her husband and children and found all three suffering from the same symptoms.

Soon after, Calvin Pentz, Calvin Jr. and Kristina passed out and Marietta was barely conscious but able to scream and phone the hotel's front desk staff which alerted emergency personnel.

Blood tests on the family determined the presence of carbon monoxide, and firefighters began evacuating the hotel.

"If my wife didn't get up," Calvin Pentz said while packing up his car outside the Best Western after returning from Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, "we'd all be dead now and probably a few more people."

Calvin Pentz was wearing an embroidered Upstate Medical Center shirt. The shirt he had worn that morning was soiled with vomit, he said.

Best Western manager Susan Maye said the hotel's pool will remain closed until the heater is repaired and then it won't be reopened until fire officials have inspected it thoroughly.

Hotel patrons not admitted to hospitals waited outside the building and then inside the lobby as firefighters methodically aired out the structure. After reopening, guests retrieved their belongings.

None of the hotel patrons were charged for the night. The hotel paid a cab to drive the Pentz family the two hours back to Amsterdam.

This morning, a limousine paid for by the hotel will pick up the Vasiecks to retrieve their belongings. Then, they will continue on their long-awaited honeymoon.

"We had so many new experiences -- some I wish we hadn't [had] and some I wish we had in other circumstances," Richard Vasieck said. He and his wife married July 15.

"This experience has brought us close together. . . . It's shocking. We came quite close to not existing anymore."

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