DENVER—Investigators say a faulty boiler vent that was damaged during a windstorm last week may have led to the high levels of carbon monoxide that left one college student dead.
Denver’s chief deputy coroner Michelle Weiss-Samaras says 23-year-old Lauren Johnson died Monday after being taken from a third-floor unit at Josephine Place Apartments. Johnson and another woman were hospitalized.
Authorities say a woman had called 911 shortly before 5 p.m. Monday saying she felt woozy.
Denver fire spokesman Lt. Phil Champagne says investigators found that carbon monoxide had leaked from a flue from the boiler that had been repaired Monday. Champagne says whoever fixed the old flue vent cap did not attach it properly.
Champagne says concentrations of carbon monoxide were as high as 1,500 parts per million, and that 1,200 parts per million can be fatal.
University of Denver spokesman Jim Berscheidt said Johnson was a first-year graduate student at the school’s international-studies program. He says she was from Vancouver, Wash.
