General Management on Scene

If on scene, personal safety is paramount and should include:

• Shutting down all potential sources of CO poisoning and ventilating the area, if it is possible to do so safely
• Removing the person (and all others) from the suspected source of poisoning
• Liaising with other emergency and environmental health responders to assess risk of CO exposure including faulty gas appliances or ventilation, and any confirmatory recording of high CO levels. However, a negative CO reading after ventilation does not exclude CO as a cause

Clinical management

• Assessing and managing the airway, breathing and circulation
• Administration of oxygen in the highest available concentration, preferably via a tightfitting face mask with a reservoir
• Arranging an ambulance for immediate transport to hospital, consider triaging to a hospital that may have a hyperbaric unit (if locally available)
• Arranging follow up and investigation of the potential sources of CO poisoning. The local Health Protection Unit will coordinate Environmental Health and Local Authority services to protect all vulnerable persons. View website for local contact details
• Where a death may have occurred, the scene is likely to be treated as a scene of crime

Learning Bite

Decontamination is not required for CO poisoning in isolation.