One dead from Carbon monoxide

NORRISTOWN, Pa. - June 11, 2008 When police arrived at the home on Saratoga Road in King of Prussia, the couple that lives here was unresponsive.

Maria and Peter Maneos had been overcome by carbon monoxide from a generator they were using in the house after last night's storm knocked out power to their home.

Maria Maneos was rushed by chopper to the University of Pennsylvania medical center. Her 61-year-old husband did not survive. The generator was on the first floor in the kitchen. They were in a second floor bedroom when disabled by the colorless odorless lethal gas that chokes the oxygen in red blood cells.

"Carbon monoxide is lethal. You can't smell it you can't taste it. You can't feel it and it lulls you into sleep and you don't wake up," the Montgomery County coroner, Walter Hofman, M.D., said.

Maria Maneos teaches 4th grade at Candlebrook Elementary School. When she didn't show up for her students' graduation the worried staff alerted police who found the couple. Devastated neighbors say they lived here for more than 30 years.

Initially authorities had trouble locating their only child, an adult son who lives in Florida.

The hospital has not released any updates on Maria Maneos' condition.