Hotel Must Close 34 Rooms After Gas Heater Death : Inspection: City discovers more faulty furnaces at the Mission Valley Inn. Survivor of noxious fumes remains in coma.

The city has ordered a hotel where carbon monoxide poisoning from a dirty wall furnace killed one man and critically injured another to close 34 of its rooms because they contain faulty heaters, a city official said Thursday.

“Of the 190 rooms inspected, 34 have not been approved for occupancy,” said Jack Brandais, a spokesman for the city Building Inspection Department. The 20 remaining rooms at the 210-room Mission Valley Inn, at 875 Hotel Circle South, were being remodeled and will be inspected later, he said.

Cory Louis Korosi, 21, and Henry Kim Wong, 20, two members of the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology’s men’s volleyball team, based in Calgary, Canada, were overcome by fumes from a malfunctioning natural gas heater in their room in the hotel on New Year’s Day.

Wong was unconscious and Korosi had died by the time they were discovered in their second-floor room about 2:30 p.m. Tuesday. Wong remains in a coma and in critical condition at UC San Diego Medical Center.

City inspectors, helped by others from San Diego Gas & Electric, began checking the wall furnaces Wednesday. By Wednesday night, they had inspected 60 of the inn’s rooms, closed nine and ordered management to move guests out of any rooms that had yet to be inspected, Brandais said.

On Thursday, the city and SDG&E; inspected an additional 130 rooms and closed 25.

The results of the inspection seem to run contrary to statements made by the owner of the hotel, Atlas Hotels Inc.

Officials for the company did not return a reporter’s phone calls Thursday. But, on Wednesday, company Vice President Hank Hoxie released a statement that said the company had checked the remaining heaters in the hotel and found them to be working properly.

“Our technical staff immediately conducted an inspection of the heating units at the Mission Valley Inn and they have determined that these units are working properly and safely,” Hoxie said in his statement, released the same day the city closed nine of the hotel’s rooms.

The remaining members of the volleyball team and their coaches were moved to another hotel. Brandais said he did not know whether any additional occupants were moved from the inn.

The wall heater in the room in which Korosi and Wong were staying had become clogged by lint and soot, causing odorless carbon monoxide gas to spew into the room, authorities said.

“Every year, people get sick and there are fatalities because people don’t check the gas heaters in their homes and apartments,” Brandais said.

He said the city will give the hotel a list of violations in heating and other equipment uncovered during the inspections by noon today. Since the department is only able to issue civil penalties, the hotel can be fined only if repairs are not made within a given time, he said.

There is no mandatory testing of hotel room heaters in San Diego, Brandais said. Inspections are made after complaints.

“Henry Kim Wong is still in critical condition,” said Nancy Stringer, a spokeswoman for the UC San Diego Medical Center, where Wong remains in the intensive care unit. “He is in a coma,” she said, and his breathing is being assisted by a ventilator. His father came from Calgary to be with him, she added.

“Nine members of the (college’s) volleyball team will be returning to Calgary” today, said Guy McLaughlin, a spokesman for the school. Their four exhibition games in Southern California were canceled.

A funeral service for Korosi will be held Saturday in Canada, and a memorial service will be held at the school next Thursday, McLaughlin said.

The dead student’s mother, Nancy Korosi, said Thursday she has not thought about whether the family, including her husband and 19-year-old daughter, will pursue a lawsuit against the hotel.

“What we want to do is get through this funeral,” she said from her home in Calgary. “Right now, I’m coping very well, but I don’t know how I’ll feel next week.”

She remembered her son as being a gifted athlete, one who was initially labeled by teachers as being mentally retarded, but who was later diagnosed as being dyslexic.

He overcame much of his disability after a basketball coach told him he could succeed in anything by applying the same discipline he applied in sports to other fields.

“He was so funny, he had such a sense of humor,” she said of her only son. “He was a white Eddie Murphy, he was always making people laugh. It was impossible to stay mad at Cory.”

She asked that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Cory Korosi memorial endowment fund at the college. She said a scholarship will be offered to “any athlete in the school who displays the most heart and leadership qualities on any given team. . . .

“I would like the money to go into a scholarship,” she said. “Somewhere there’s a kid out there that thinks he’s dumb but has a lot of potential. If you could succeed in a sport, any sport or anything, maybe music or art, you can succeed in anything.”