According to the Charleston Daily Mail, and other sources, a personal injury lawsuit has been filed on behalf of a man that suffered carbon monoxide poisoning, on the heels of another lawsuit for
wrongful death following the same incident in the same hotel.
The poisoning occurred on January 31 at a Holiday Inn Express and Suites in South Charleston. It was later discovered that a pool heater located on the first floor of the hotel had leaked the carbon monoxide into a fifth-floor room.
Carbon monoxide is both odorless and colorless.
B.E. and D.E. filed the personal injury lawsuit in Kanawha County Circuit Court.
B.E. claims to suffer with neuronal cell death, severe mental distress, emotional distress, cognitive impairment as well as pulmonary and cardiac damage. He was discovered unresponsive in his fifth-floor hotel room following the leak.
The widow of W.M. filed the earlier suit, for wrongful death, this past March.
Both W.M. and B.E. had been employed by the same company, the Rosciti Construction Group, and shared a room in the hotel. When the two men didn't show up for work, two others were sent over to their hotel room.
The two other workers also required treatment for carbon monoxide poisoning.
While W.M. was pronounced dead at the scene, B.E. was taken to the St. Francis Hospital. B.E. was first treated for numerous days in a hyperbaric chamber – and listed in critical condition. Once he began to improve, however, he could be released.
The suit, seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, names the hotel along with the hotel's operator, Pikes Inc.; Holiday Hospitality Franchising Inc., a company that deals with the franchising the hotel; InterContinental Hotels Group Resources Inc., a stock owner of the subsidiary companies; JP Mechanical Inc., a company that worked on the hotel's pool heater; Premier Pools of Huntington and its owners; and the hotel's general manager.
Also included as defendants are InterContinental Hotels Group Resources PLC, InterContinental Hotels Corp. and Six Continents Hotels Inc.
The complaint reads, "Each of defendants' acts and omissions were reckless, willful and wanton and in reckless disregard for the safety and health of the public and in particular the unknowing guests of the Holiday Inn Express at South Charleston."
Sarah-Ann Soffer, the spokeswoman for Holiday Inn Express, referred to an earlier e-mail, one she had written in response to the wrongful death lawsuit, to answer queries on the new suit. Soffer had written, "We will not comment further at this time since there now appears to be ongoing litigation."
Gary Pullin, an attorney for Premier Pools, has already claimed that the company's workers did nothing to make the pool's pipe disconnect.
Neither the wrongful death case nor the personal injury case has had a court date scheduled.
Being injured, at no fault of your own doing, is grounds for a lawsuit. If you contact a personal injury lawyer to file your case you can begin to work at recovering your damages.