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Two weeks ago, 15-year-old Scotty Lowry awoke dazed and with a splitting headache on a hillside in northern Sanpete Valley.
It was nighttime, and he had no recollection of how he'd gotten there. The last thing the Cedar Hills teen remembered was hanging out with his dad and three friends -- teammates on the Lone Peak High football team -- who had gone to a cabin in Fairview for the weekend. It was Scotty's birthday, and the group had celebrated with a day of four-wheeling and paintball. At about 8 p.m., they had returned to the cabin for a hamburger dinner, then chased a bat around the building and eventually caught it with a fishing net. They released it -- and in the few minutes of relative calm that followed, he had passed out.
Unbeknownst to Scotty, his dad returned to the room a few minutes later and found his son almost totally blue.
"My son had sat in one of the chairs and when I came back in, there was no expression at all, said Bob Lowry. "He was just blank."
Bob had an inkling that he should get Scotty outside. He tried lifting the boy from the chair, but Scotty simply collapsed on the floor. So Bob grabbed him in a bear hug and dragged him out of the cabin. He called to the other boys to evacuate as well.
Two of them -- Tyson Wendell and Bennett Lloyd, both 14 -- had sought a place to sleep on the top floor, feeling strangely drowsy; they stumbled down the stairs to find their final compatriot, Seth Stahura, 15, passed out on the floor. So they grabbed him, one by the hands and one by the feet, and hoisted him through the front door and onto the lawn outside.
That was about this time that Scotty was coming to.
"I was kind of in and out through the whole thing," he said. "I just remember Tyson and Bennett were there."
The teens and Bob were rushed by ambulance to a Mt. Pleasant hospital, where they spent the rest of the night under close watch. Later, doctors would say the amount of carbon monoxide they inhaled would have killed them in another 15 minutes.
Silent but deadly
It was the cabin's generator that nearly made Scotty's 15th birthday his last. High winds that night had prevented its ventilation from properly working, slowly filling the house with the scentless, tasteless, invisible gas. In retrospect, Scotty views the bat as a divine protector: Had the group not expended so much energy chasing it around the house, pumping their lungs full of extra-high doses of the poison, they might have all gone to sleep before its effects began to set in.
"Because of that we were screaming and running and yelling around, we were actually inhaling more carbon monoxide that we normally would have," he said. "The doctor said it probably would've killed us during the night."
Detecting the signs of carbon monoxide exposure is tricky business, said Dr. Marc Robins, a hyperbaric medicine specialist at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo. Because many of the symptoms are generic -- headache, dizziness, fatigue, nausea -- it's often mistaken for the flu, he said.
"Even low-exposure situations may need to be treated," said Robins, who treated the group in the days following the ordeal.
Starved for oxygen
Carbon monoxide poisons the body by binding with the body's hemoglobin, a protein that usually holds to oxygen, Robins said. Experts are still hazy on the exact mechanics of it, but tissues needing oxygen then don't get it from the hemoglobin, he said.
"The problem with carbon monoxide is, it damages nerve tissues, especially within the brain," he said. "The minimum consequence is, we're seeing people have short-term memory loss, difficulty with calculations -- there are some real vague things. Depending on the level of poisoning, it can have long-term effects."
Those can include headaches, weariness and even seizures depending on the severity, Robins said. The best response to suspected exposure is exactly the one the campers chose, he said: "Get outside; get into clear, fresh air; take some deep breaths."
Robins operates a hyperbaric chamber at UVRMC, a high-tech device designed to provide a rich flow of oxygen to patients with a variety of afflictions, among them carbon monoxide poisoning. The chamber simulates a submarine, subjecting its occupant to a pressurized environment roughly equivalent to 66 feet underwater, then injects 100-percent oxygen into the room. Scotty and crew each underwent a session in it -- purging the body of as much carbon monoxide in 20 minutes as would take a day to work itself out naturally, Robins said.
Back to life
Scotty said he and his friends still suffer from some aftereffects of the weekend, but they seem to be getting better as time goes on.
"We all played last night and did fine, I guess -- just didn't play as much as we used to," he said. "I get tired a lot easier and headaches a lot more."
Bob said he's still bothered by headaches about once a day, but they seem to be diminishing, too. He rushed out shortly after arriving home and bought carbon monoxide detectors to place all over the house.
One thing is indisputable: It was a birthday to remember, Scotty said.
"Probably one of the more expensive ones," he said, "but it was OK up to that point."
• Ace Stryker can be reached at 344-2556 or
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