Every year in the winter season, we hear the news that someone died due to suffocation or gas heater. Deaths due to cold in Chitral yesterday and today in Murree are in the headlines. Let’s explain how a person can die from cold and how death occurs from gas heater or coal in winter. The human body has a comprehensive system for controlling the temperature that keeps the human body temperature at 37 degrees Celsius. In the case of heat the body keeps its temperature down by sweating, dilation of blood vessels and slowing down the internal metabolism. The temperature at which tourists died in Murree was not due to cold but to carbon monoxide.
Blood is the means of transportation in the body. The blood dissolves the food inside it and carries it to all the cells from head to toe. The food needs oxygen to break down and convert it into heat and energy, which we take in from the atmosphere by breathing. Blood is responsible for carrying this oxygen from the lungs to every cell. There is a special protein in the blood called hemoglobin. It is the hemoglobin in the blood that carries oxygen from the lungs. A certain amount of hemoglobin is necessary to stay healthy. Most doctors check the amount of hemoglobin in the blood and if the amount is low then most people call it anemia. In fact it is not blood but hemoglobin in it.
Under normal circumstances, everything that burns emits carbon dioxide. But in such an environment where there is a lack of oxygen, everything that burns out will emit carbon monoxide instead of carbon dioxide. The hemoglobin in the blood that adds oxygen to the blood adds carbon monoxide to the blood 300 times faster than oxygen. If you have closed the room and the gas heater is also burning, very little oxygen is entering the room from outside and the oxygen in the room is being used by the people there and burning fire in such a situation. The amount of oxygen would be reduced. A fire in a room caused by a lack of oxygen releases carbon monoxide instead of carbon dioxide. The hemoglobin in the blood absorbs carbon monoxide 300 times faster than the oxygen, which causes all the hemoglobin molecules in the blood to be absorbed by the carbon monoxide, leaving no room for oxygen to bind. When this toxic gas enters our bloodstream, you get a good night’s sleep, which is followed by death. Surprisingly, if you are in such a room and you are sitting next to the door, even if the room is not closed, then you will not be able to open the door even though you know it. You will be conscious, but the eyelids will not be able to blink.
If the tourists in Murree had opened the car windows, it was possible that they would have escaped death because human beings can tolerate cold enough but not carbon monoxide.
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