Carbon Monoxide Killed Worker at Covina Demolition Site

The gas that killed one worker and injured nearly two dozen other employees at a Covina demolition site Wednesday was carbon monoxide, apparently produced by a smoldering fire.

Investigators have not arrived at an official conclusion, but Covina Police Lt. Dave Miles said Thursday that the information gathered so far points to a hidden pit fire as the source of the carbon monoxide that poisoned Jesus Garcia Alvarez, 39, of Long Beach.

Los Angeles County coroner’s spokesman Scott Carrier said blood samples showed that Alvarez suffered “acute carbon monoxide intoxication.”

Alvarez was one of three workers felled by the gas. The other two men, Manuel Gonzalo Ibarra, 30, of El Monte, and Gerardo Galaviz, 38, of South El Monte, were listed in critical condition Wednesday but improved dramatically with treatment in a hyperbaric chamber.

Galaviz was released from Northridge Hospital Medical Center on Thursday and Ibarra was listed in stable and satisfactory condition at San Antonio Community Hospital in Upland.

The 20 other workers who inhaled the fumes were treated and sent home, although hospital representatives said some firefighters were showing up in emergency rooms Thursday complaining of dizziness.

Miles said the fire apparently started Tuesday in a pit in the floor of an enclosed room in the basement of the former Sears store in the Covina Town Square Mall. Workers were using a torch to remove a hydraulic system from a trash compactor built into the floor and a spark ignited some petroleum products.

The workmen tried to smother the fire with dirt and when they returned Wednesday morning unknowingly entered a room full of carbon monoxide, an odorless, colorless gas produced by incomplete combustion.