Fumes Kill Man, 3 Others Overcome

A Hollywood man apparently was asphyxiated early Friday, the victim of poisonous carbon monoxide fumes that seeped into his first-floor apartment from a malfunctioning water heater in the basement directly below him, firefighters said.

Three women living in an apartment above the dead man’s were hospitalized for nausea and dizziness after breathing the noxious fumes. Forty other residents were forced out of the four-story brick building at 1525 N. Van Ness Ave. for several hours.

The dead man, identified by neighbors as Ronald Williams, was discovered lying near the doorway of his apartment after paramedics were summoned to the 70-unit building by other residents who complained of feeling sick.

Felt ‘Really Strange’

One resident, Georgette Meadows, said she sought medical treatment Thursday night because she felt “really strange” after visiting Williams’ apartment. Williams, 35, lived alone.

Meadows said she returned home around 2 a.m. Friday after health care workers at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center “couldn’t find anything.” The 30-year-old woman said she banged on Williams’ door but then returned to her own apartment when he did not answer.

When paramedics and firefighters arrived at the building at about 10:30 a.m., Meadows said she returned to Williams’ apartment and again he failed to answer. “I put my nose up to the door and I could still smell that funny smell,” she said.

Meadows said she summoned the apartment manager, who opened Williams’ door.

“He was lying by the door, dead,” Meadows said. “Now I feel like I was almost dead, too.”

Fire Department spokesman Ed Reed said firefighters quickly zeroed in on the building’s central water heater as the source of the deadly fumes. Reed said a “heavy amount of soot was found in a ventilation pipe” leading from the heater, which indicates that natural gases used to fire the heater were not being properly burned.

“Natural gas being odorless and colorless, it can float through the building and you wouldn’t know it,” Reed said. “Because of the malfunction, (the gas) seeped through cracks in the walls, the floors.”

Devices used to measure carbon monoxide showed levels that were “very, very high” in Williams’ apartment, Reed said.

Apartment manager Bill Lee and building owner John Lesser said they had received no complaints about possible problems with the water heater before Friday’s tragedy.

“No complaints,” Lesser said. “We’re in perfect shape.”

Officials in the city’s Building and Safety Department do not routinely inspect such things as water heaters unless a complaint is lodged and, in the case of the North Van Ness building, none were filed, principal inspector Jim Carney said.

Some residents said Friday, however, that the building has not been problem-free.

“Most people own two and three cats, just for pest control,” said Carole Boccia, 22, who has lived in her third-floor apartment since December. “There’s roaches, mice, everything.

“But this is not something you think about happening.”