Carbon monoxide leaked at an apartment complex Saturday in Gaithersburg, Maryland, with 51 people from three buildings needing evaluation and at least 11 requiring hospitalization, according to Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service.
The leak happened at around 8:44 a.m. in the 400 block of North Summit Avenue, with high carbon monoxide readings also hitting the adjacent building in the same block, Fire and Rescue Assistant Chief David Pazos said on X.
The fire department evacuated both buildings as well as a third in the same block to be safe.
Of the people who were hospitalized, four were adults and seven were children, Assistant Chief Pazos said. Most of the people transported were in non-life-threatening condition, with one child taken in stable condition to the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore for possible treatment in the facility’s hyperbaric chamber.
Utility company Washington Gas responded to the scene and is “confident” the source of the carbon monoxide leak was an oven in one of the buildings, Assistant Chief Pazos said.
The oven was removed, and residents were ultimately allowed back into the buildings around three hours later.
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