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Move to heat Nuwara Eliya hotel room with barbecue grill ends in death
The victim: Nalinda Priyadarshna. Pic by Watupitiwala Jayawardene
An attempt to keep warm by lighting a barbecue grill inside a Nuwara Eliya Hotel room proved fatal to a 40-year-old father of two last week.
The victim, identified as W.R. Nalinda Priyadarshana, a resident of Bogamua, Yakkala, had succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning from the release of toxic fumes from the grill, an inquiry into his death was told. The victim, along with two others, had brought the barbecue grill inside the room to ward off the biting cold in the night.
According to the post-mortem examination conducted by Nuwara Eliya’s Judicial Medical Officer (JMO) Gayan Bandara Kumarasinha, the cause of death was due to inhaling carbon monoxide.
Mr. Priyadarshana was the owner and driver of a bus that had brought a group of people from Grandpass to Nuwara Eliya for a three-day trip. The group had included 16 adults and 17 children. He had been staying in a room along with his assistant and the hotel’s chef on the night of January 15 when the chef had brought the barbecue grill into the room and lighted the coal in the grill to keep warm. The three men were found unconscious inside the room by the hotel’s owner the next day. Though all three were rushed to Nuwara Eliya Hospital, Mr. Priyadarshana was pronounced dead on admission.
A similar incident had happened at a hotel in Nuwara Eliya in 2011, when a young couple died after they were poisoned during the night from a barbecue grill they had brought into the room to keep warm.
Commenting on the tragedy, Dr. Ravindra Samaranayaka, Senior Lecturer in Forensic Medicine and Toxicology at the Faculty of Medicine University of Colombo said, “Barbecue grills are not meant to be used indoors. Tourists must be informed about this by the hotels like other countries do.” He added that using barbecue grills indoors anywhere was extremely dangerous.
“When barbecue grills are used in closed environments due to the lack of Oxygen an incomplete combustion occurs forming highly toxic Carbon monoxide, an ordourless and colourless gas, instead of Carbon dioxide,” he said.
Dr. Samaranayaka stated that when Carbon monoxide gas is inhaled a strong bond is formed with Haemoglobin-the protein carrying oxygen to the body cells, and blocks the transportation of oxygen all over the body causing fatalities.
“Haemoglobin prefers having bonds with Carbonmonoxide rather than Oxygen and once CO makes a bond with haemoglobin it can’t transport oxygen further,” Dr. Samaranayake said.
The situation gets worse if people are under the influence of alcohol as they are not in a state to recognize the symptoms related to CO inhalation.
