Among the nine deaths blamed on the gusting winter storm that buried parts of the Northeast under 3 feet of snow was an 11-year-old boy in Boston who was overcome by carbon monoxide while keeping warm in the car.
The boy had been helping his father shovel out the car and got cold, NBC affiliate WHDH of Boston reported. The father started the engine, and the boy got inside, a Boston fire official told the station. But the car’s exhaust pipe was covered by a nearly 4-foot tall snowbank.
“The car filled up with the carbon monoxide gases that weren’t escaping through the exhaust system, and the boy was overcome,” a fire official told WHDH.
The boy's father went into respiratory arrest.
“The father started screaming, ‘He’s not breathing, he’s not breathing,’” a neighbor told WHDH. “So the father brings the little boy into my hallway and lays him on the ground and then he comes back out and collapses.”
Fire officials arrived on the scene to find neighbors performing CPR on the boy. Father and son were transported to the Boston Medical Center, where the boy died. His father was undergoing treatment, WHDH reported.
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