14 Workers, Including Some Renovating a Yale Building, Hospitalized for Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

Ambulance and New Haven CT Fire Department personnel respond to a Yale University-owned building where nine construction workers and five Yale employees who were renovating it were hospitalized for carbon monoxide poisoning, in New Haven, Conn., on Jan. 17, 2024. Rick Fontana/New Haven Emergency Management via AP

NEW HAVEN, Conn.—Blood tests of a construction worker who collapsed Wednesday outside a building owned by Yale University led emergency crews to uncover potentially lethal levels of carbon monoxide inside. Another 13 people were hospitalized, but the discovery may have prevented a much larger catastrophe, officials said.

“There was a disaster averted here,” said Rick Fontana, New Haven’s emergency operations director. “You could have had a lot more sick or a lot more death had this gone on for a longer period of time.”