Ed Note: I had a similar tragic case where a car was inadvertently left running in a garage as a young mother had to rush into the house with a crying baby. Unfortunately the furnace was in the garage and the “fresh air” intake was located there. A furnace intake should never be from garage air. I wonder if that was the situation in the case below.
By David Jeans in the NYT
For Sherry H. Penney, a former university chancellor, and her husband, James D. Livingston, a retired physicist, the 2017 Toyota Avalon was a sensible purchase. It was a model she and her husband had owned before, but the new version had electronic sensors and other advanced features.
“The Avalon is very safe,” Mr. Livingston’s daughter Susan recalled hearing Ms. Penney say.
Last month, one of those features proved fatal.
Ms. Penney, 81, and Mr. Livingston, 88, were found dead at their home in Sarasota, Fla., poisoned by carbon monoxide, according to preliminary tests by the local medical examiner. Susan Livingston said that after the car — which had a keyless ignition — pulled into the garage attached to their house, the engine had continued to run.
The deaths highlight a hazard that regulatory and legislative efforts have yet to remedy: Without the motion of turning a physical key, some car owners, especially older ones, forget to turn off a vehicle.
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