Sudbury mother reflects on deadly danger of carbon monoxide poisoning

A Sudbury mother is grieving the loss of her daughter and another person to carbon monoxide poisoning.

Kim Penton's daughter, 22-year-old Chryse Nadeau, and her boyfriend, 23-year-old Markus Kehoe, died in an incident on New Year's day. Penton says the couple was staying at a cabin in the woods near South River.

The cabin was powered by a generator in a shed. She says they went to check on the generator, which had stopped. Once in the small shed, she says they began inhaling toxic amounts of carbon monoxide, an odourless gas.

"And the smaller the space and the more carbon monoxide in there, the quicker it takes for it to be fatal," Penton said. "It's so hard because you don't smell it."

Penton says there needs to be greater awareness of the dangers of carbon monoxide, given how many cottages and camps are run by generators in confined spaces in the north. 

"How many people have cottages and camps that are ran by generators that are in a confined, little, closed-in space?"

She said the speed with which they perished in the confined space was startling.

"It's not like they were in there for a long period of time. There's no way of knowing. And the smaller the space and the more carbon monoxide in there, the quicker it takes for it to be fatal."

Penton says Chryse and Markus were "educated" around the threat of carbon monoxide.

"They were adventurers. They toured. She bought an old beaten up a 1986 Ford 150 Echo van and she drove to B.C. with my dog. We did a ... complete course on this, pretty much, with her and Markus. So it just was just a fluke accident."