WESTFIELD – A city woman is dead and her husband was hospitalized after they were found in their Elizabeth Avenue home yesterday afternoon, apparently the victims of carbon monoxide poisoning.
City police report that the couple’s housekeeper called the station at 2:58 p.m. Thursday and reported that she found her employers, Adam and Crete Kochanek, of 118 Elizabeth Ave., unresponsive when she arrived at their home.
Both police and firefighters responded.
Sgt. Edward Murphy and Officers Charles Kielbasa and Nathan Osowski arrived within minutes of the call and an ambulance arrived moments later.
The responding firefighters report that Crete M. Kochanek, 69, was found sitting on a couch in the living room. They report that she was not breathing, had no pulse and rigor mortis was setting in.
Her husband, Adam S. Kochanek, 68, was found upstairs in a bedroom, sitting on the floor against a bed. The firefighters report that, although he was breathing, he was unconscious and unresponsive. He was transported to Baystate Medical Center where no information is available.
After the victims had been attended to, firefighters tested the atmosphere inside the single family house for carbon monoxide.
The firefighters report that a level of 198 parts per million of carbon monoxide was detected inside the house and a level of 240 ppm was recorded in the boiler room.
Malfunctioning furnaces are frequently a source of carbon monoxide.
Fire Capt. Rebecca Boutin explained that a carbon monoxide level of 30 ppm is cause for alarm and ambient levels of carbon monoxide usually approach zero ppm.
State troopers from the State Police Detective unit assigned to the Hampden County District Attorney’s office and Trooper Michael Mazza of the Massachusetts Fire Marshal’s office also responded to assist Westfield detectives John Barnachez and Anthony Tsatsos with their investigation.
