LPG geysers can be killers in poorly ventilated rooms

They are used across north India in the winters. But LPG-fuelled gas geysers in poorly ventilated bathrooms can make you sick, doctors have warned.

The sickness associated with gas geysers comes from carbon monoxide poisoning that leads to heart complications and seizures.

The gas may have triggered epilepsy-like symptoms in at least two patients, they suspect.

Between 2008 and 2011, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital here received 26 cases which can be linked to carbon monoxide poisoning due to the LPG-fulled geysers installed in bathrooms with poor or no ventilation.

While seizure-like episodes were seen in 11 patients, carbon monoxide poisoning was seen in 13 others and near cardiac arrest in four. In two patients, poisoning became a precipitating factor for epilepsy, doctors reported in the May 24 issue of the “Annals of Indian Academy of Neurology.”

“LPG geysers are used because of erratic electric supply. But they must not be used in a closed space. The manufacturers always warn on the use of these geysers in a closed space because of the accumulation of by-product gases. Otherwise, this is completely preventable,” Chandrasekhar Agarwal, head of neurology at Gangaram hospital and one of the co-authors of the paper, told Deccan Herald.

Because of incomplete LPG combustion, the geysers emit two byproducts, carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide, which accumulate in the bathroom.