Starts with K
“We report the news, we don’t want to be the news.”
That was one of many things our longtime editor, the late Deb Fleming, taught me when I started my career in journalism about 35 years ago – but I have a feeling she’d be OK with this breach.
About three weeks ago, Blooming Prairie office manager and coworker Sherrie Pechan asked if I smelled anything.
I didn’t – until I made my way down a short hall to the bathroom, passing a utility closet on the way.
“It smells weird,” I told Sherrie. “Like, exhaust or something.”
She agreed, and we went on about our business, with the faint odor in the background.
The Monday after Thanksgiving, the smell was … strong.
It was an oddly busy day, with a pretty steady flow of customers coming in and out of the office; everyone immediately commented on the smell.
Sherrie and I casually acknowledged it – even hypothesized with everyone about what it might be – and talked about letting owner and publisher Rick Bussler know about it.
About 1 p.m., as Sherrie was dealing with a customer, she got very quiet, swayed a bit, and sat down hard on a nearby chair.
If you know Sherrie, you know she is tough. Tiny, but tough. It scared me and our new employee Kelsey.
We grilled her about her food and water intake, asked if she had a headache or wanted to go home.
“Just a little lightheaded,” Sherrie repeated, but without her usual spark.
It was enough to make me walk back to that utility closet and open the door.
The blast of air that hit me actually felt like it was burning my face; it immediately caused my eyes to water.
Something was really, really wrong.
I tried calling Rick; Mondays are the days we go to press, so he and news editor Joni Hubred are very busy. He didn’t answer.
So I did what people in small towns do: I called the police.
BP Police Chief Greg Skillestad answered his cell phone, and got this from me:
“Hi Greg. It’s Kay. Can you please come smell our office? There’s something wrong.”
Woof. Don’t put me in charge of contacting authorities. I am an abysmal reporter … of emergencies.
Greg arrived quickly – and stopped at the front counter, declining my invitation to go smell the utility closet. (Again, don’t count on me to do – or say – logical things.)
“Nope. I smell it from here,” he said. “You all need to leave.”
He was already on the radio, contacting the BP Fire Department and ambulance service.
There was a lot of activity on Main Street that day, including a carbon monoxide meter that “maxed out” at 3,000 parts per million (ppm).
It was at 800 ppm at the front door, which Google tells me is “a highly dangerous concentration that causes severe symptoms like dizziness, nausea and convulsions within 45 minutes, leading to unconsciousness within two hours and potentially death within 2-3 hours, requiring immediate evacuation and emergency services.”
The firefighters suited up for the trip inside, where they found a pipe leading from our furnace to the chimney had broken – and was emptying instead into that closet, then out into the office.
They shut off the furnace, opened our back doors and ventilated our office. They also took their meter to every other building on the block to check CO levels.
Our neighbors at Main Street Dental Clinic also evacuated their office.
We were lucky. Sherrie and Kelsey got about an hour of oxygen from the good folks with the BP Ambulance; there have been no lasting effects. The unusually busy day – the door opening multiple times, allowing fresh air in – likely prevented things from being even worse.
But here’s the thing: Small towns, man.
We had a whole cadre of responders there to help us within just a few minutes; they were professional and concerned and kind.
They cared – about us and about each other – and we are incredibly grateful they didn’t listen to an illogical reporter tell them she was too busy to leave the office.
We couldn’t stay out of the news, but it brings to mind another saying:
“If you can’t be a good example, at least be a terrible warning.”
So, mission accomplished: Check your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.