Babies did not die from carbon monoxide at McDougald Terrace, NC medical examiner says
Initial testing indicates that three babies who died in or near the McDougald Terrace public housing complex in recent months did not die from carbon monoxide poisoning.
“Preliminary and confirmatory testing were negative for carbon monoxide in all three cases,” according to a press release from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. “OCME pathologists have shared these results with the family or next of kin for each of the infants.”
From Nov. 20 to Jan. 1, three infants died in the McDougald Terrace area before they turned 5 months old.
▪ On Nov. 20 and Dec. 8, two infants, ages 4 months and just over 1 month, who lived in the complex died.
▪ On Jan. 1 EMS officials responded to a 3-month-old infant who was in pediatric arrest and died, according to an email to city and county officials from from EMS Asst. Chief Lee Van Vleet. The infant lived in a boarding house above a store next to McDougald Terrace.
The state’s Division of Public Health will continue to provide technical assistance to Durham County and others as local officials investigate, the release states.
In general, the state medical examiner investigates deaths due to injury or violence, as well as other deaths that are suspicious, unusual, or unattended by a medical professional.
Brittany Brown, the mother of Britain Brown who died Dec. 8, said she still believes her son died from carbon monoxide poisoning.
“I am not believing it,” Brown said about the preliminary report. “I still think that is the case. I don’t care what they say.”
Brown said she has concerns about when and how her newborn was tested, just as she has concerns about officials coming to test her apartment for carbon monoxide hours after the family returned from the hospital the day Britain died.
The News & Observer reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services to request information about the medical examiner’s report and what other actions were being taken to investigate the infants‘ deaths.
A spokesperson said the local health department would investigate for potential environmental health hazards. The Division of Public Health, which falls under the Department of Health and Human Services, is providing technical assistance to the Durham County Health Department, wrote spokesperson Kelly Haight Connor in an email.
Interim Health Department Director Joanne Pierce said the Durham County agency would reach out to the state to seek guidance on next steps.
In 2018, 23 infant died in Durham County and 21 died in 2017. Birth defects was the leading cause of infant deaths (17.4 percent) in the 806 infant deaths across the state in 2018, followed by defined and known causes by death (14.4).
In a Jan. 3 email to city and county officials, Van Vleet wrote that five pediatric patients and three adults appeared to have elevated levels of carbon monoxide.
The levels ranged from 9% to 21%, including a 16-day-old infant with a level of 16%.
Emergency workers use a finger monitor to estimate carboxyhemoglobin level in the blood, Durham County fire marshal and emergency management director Jim Groves has said.
The monitors can sometimes result in erroneous readings, said Dr. Richard Moon, a professor and medical director for the Center for the Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology at Duke University Medical Center.
A blood measurement of 16% “is very abnormal” and would indicate a significant level of carbon monoxide, he said in an interview Friday.
Levels above 15% would be treated with oxygen. Levels above 25% would raise concerns about long-term health effects and likely would be treated with hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
“If you have children with (actual blood) levels of 16 and 21 percent, they were exposed to toxic levels of carbon monoxide,” Moon said.
This story was originally published January 9, 2020 at 3:24 PM.
