Hello StemSocial Community! Welcome to my blog. In our Atmosphere, air is the mixture of different gases. Some of these gases are essential to sustain the possibility of life while some gases are injurious to health. We should have information about some gases that are persistent threat to our life if necessary care is not taken. Today, I want to share one of the incident happened recently in Pakistan due to harmful gases in our environment.
Heartbreaking News
I was watching the News headlines on a Pakistani Channel. Suddenly, I heard the sad news about the four deaths from a single family who were traveling in a car. Actually, they were moving towards hilly areas to see Snowfall but they stuck on their route due to heavy storm. Outside was very cold, hence they stayed themselves into the car by switching heater on. When the storm stopped, local public found that all of them were dead.
From Gencraft
Scientific Reason behind this Tragedy
I was sad and was thinking how this family died inside the car. After thinking a lot and making research for this accident, my brain centralized my thinking that the main thing behind these deaths was carbon monoxide that is produced due to incomplete combustion and heater was it's big source.
What is Carbon Monoxide?
Carbon Monoxide is colorless, odorless and poisonous gas. It's carbon has triple bond with oxygen. Moreover, it also form Coordinate Covalent Bond due to loan pair on oxygen. It is most polar covalent bond that provides it more affinity with Hemoglobin as compared to oxygen gas. Due to its silent killing activity, it is also named as Silent Killer Substance.
CO Exact Mechanism
When the fuel is burned in the free supply of oxygen, then process of combustion completed and we get Carbon Dioxide as well as water as a final product during this process. While when supply of oxygen is limited then incomplete combustion started whose final product is CO. CO has no color and no smell. It silently affects our Cardiovascular System that damages a lot and death occured.
In above case when the family has closed the doors of the car due to fear of heavy storm, there happened scarcity of oxygen. Due to limited oxygen, incomplete combustion started and CO was coming from the heater. All family members were inhaling CO instead of Free oxygen, it mixed into the blood through lungs. As this polar gas has no color and smell hence it silently started making its binding with polar part of haemoglobin (Blood Protein that transports Oxygen) instead of free oxygen. When oxygen supply stopped, the soft internal organs including lungs, heart etc damaged. Due to this irreversible damage, all four casualties happened.
Sign & Symptoms
When CO affects our body then following common sign and symptoms may appeared like in Flu.
- Headache
- Nausea
- Weakness
- Temperature
- Vomiting
- Convulsions
- Confusions
- Sleepiness
- Chest Pain
From Gencraft
Warning & Precaution
- Don't burn anything in the limited supply of Oxygen otherwise, the resultant silent killer can affect your life.
- At home and in our vehicles, we should use Carbon Monoxide Detector. As this gas silently affects our organs, we should consult with doctor if anything wrong happened with our health after exposure to this gas.
Conclusion
In the morning, it was heartbreaking news about the 4 casualties from same family. We should know and learn about all the harmful gases and thier sources to save ourselves from their lethal effects. Although I 'm not good in Science but I have learned all of the above knowledge by asking different questions from doctors as well as reading different articles on the websites, I have shared below. I hope, you have enjoyed my today post. Thanks!
Sources
The Post Thumbnail Image is from Gencraft and designed by Adobe Express.