JUNE 18, 2015
HIGHLAND PARK, ILL.
A married couple found dead in their home apparently died of
carbon monoxide poisoning after a car with keyless ignition was mistakenly left
running in the garage, authorities said. (Source: Chicago Tribune)
Cesare Fontanini, a Highland Park Fire Department
lieutenant, found his parents dead when he stopped by their home Monday
morning.
Pasquale Fontanini, 79, was found unresponsive on the first
floor; he had apparently heard an alarm and tried to turn off the car and open
the garage but was overcome, authorities said. Rina Fontanini, 76, was
discovered unconscious upstairs.
Authorities believe the couple’s Lincoln Continental may
have been left running for hours, based on the levels of carbon monoxide in the
home when first responders arrived.
This is not the first time keyless ignitions have been
blamed for carbon monoxide poisoning.
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Poisoning death of Highland Park couple points to alarming
trend
With more keyless ignitions, some express concerns over
poisoning risks
For decades, American drivers generally had to do two things
to get their car keys out of the ignition when they left a vehicle: Put it in
park and turn off the engine.
But new keyless ignitions have disrupted that habit. Now,
drivers can walk away with their key fobs and leave their motors running.
Today's quieter engines also enhance the risk of motorists leaving their cars
running without realizing it — a scenario that can be deadly if a car is inside
a garage or other enclosed space.
That appeared to be what happened to Pasquale and Rina
Fontanini, who were found dead in their Highland Park residence Monday.
Authorities and the couple's son, a lieutenant in the local fire department,
said lethal levels of carbon monoxide accumulated in the home after the
couple's keyless 2013 Lincoln MKS was left running in the garage, possibly overnight.
The deaths are part of a small but alarming, and seemingly
growing, phenomenon of people being killed or sickened by carbon monoxide from
a keyless car accidentally left running. Safety advocates say the problem
requires an immediate solution, but, facing opposition from the auto industry,
federal regulators have been taking years to act.
Different safety groups have counted a half-dozen to a dozen
deaths nationwide from carbon monoxide poisoning involving vehicles with
keyless ignitions, not including the two in Highland Park this month.
In New York, a man died and a college professor suffered
permanent brain damage in 2009 after their keyless car was left running,
according to published reports. A young couple was reportedly killed the
following year after a keyless auto poisoned them in a Florida town house.
Those are a small fraction of about 430 accidental carbon
monoxide poisoning deaths nationwide in a typical year, according to federal
statistics. But Sean Kane, founder of Safety Research & Strategies, a
Massachusetts-based company that conducts research for public and private
clients, said deaths involving keyless cars are likely undercounted, because no
reporting is required specifically on such incidents. His firm, whose clients
include lawyers who are suing automakers, has tallied 12 deaths related to
poisoning from keyless cars.
"Keyless ignition has upended the relationship between
the driver and the car," Kane said. "It's created a scenario where
you can easily leave a vehicle running and not know it."
In the Fontaninis' case, their son, Cesare, said he
discovered his parents unconscious when he arrived at their home early that
morning, as he often did when he completed his overnight shifts at the fire
station.
Typically, he would chat with his parents about family news
over an espresso before his mother left for work at The Lake Forest Shop, a
women's clothing store, and his dad went to his part-time landscaping job.
But Monday morning, Fontanini said he found the garage door
open and his 79-year-old father unresponsive on the floor. Fontanini began CPR
and called for an ambulance, then discovered his 75-year-old mother, also
unconscious, upstairs.
Fontanini said that he believes his father was awoken by a
carbon monoxide detector, which he took downstairs with him as he went to check
the house. It appears that he discovered the car running in the garage and
opened the garage door to air out the space but was overcome by the toxic
fumes.
"My dad made a valiant attempt … but it was too
late," Fontanini said.
Safety advocates say that while drivers must be responsible
for turning off their vehicles, the penalty for forgetting should not be death.
Kane's group wants keyless vehicles to be required to have automatic shut-offs
after a period of time if their engines are left running.
I have dropped or even picked up my keys and accidentally
started the car. This needs to be fixed on all cars. This can't be hard or expensive.
But will the car makers do it?
Instead, the auto industry and federal regulators have
proposed that vehicles have alarms that sound when drivers leave them running
or in gear, as some keyless cars already have in place. The National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration proposed such changes in 2011, but more than
three years later has yet to take final action.
Safety is the top priority for the auto industry, said Wade
Newton, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which
represents 12 top automakers.
Keyless ignitions generally follow recommendations from SAE
International (formerly the Society of Automotive Engineers), which include
standardized indicators that the vehicle is running or in gear, Newton said.
Public safety officials said they are increasingly finding
cars left running unattended in public settings and attribute the phenomenon to
keyless ignitions and to remote starters that can sometimes be triggered
accidentally.
Highland Park police officials said the department has
frequently discovered empty cars with keyless ignitions running in Ravinia
Festival parking lots during concerts, for example.
Keyless starters were initially the domain of luxury cars in
the 1990s, but are now offered by most automakers, said Michelle Krebs, senior
analyst for AutoTrader. Such "smart keys" come with fobs that drivers
can keep in their pockets or purses, allowing them to unlock their car doors
with a touch of the handle and then start their cars with a dashboard button.
She believes traditional keys will become obsolete.
"This is definitely the wave of the future," she
said. "Everything is going electronic."
Krebs has first-hand experience with leaving a keyless car
running accidentally. She said that she once left a test car outside a
restaurant, only to discover after her meal that she'd left the vehicle
running.
AAA has also predicted that traditional car keys will be
replaced by smart keys and eventually smartphones, noting that some makers
already offer mobile apps to monitor and control car functions.
Drivers may take awhile to get used to a smart key, but once
they try it, they like it, said Mark Scarpelli, owner of Raymond Chevrolet and
Raymond Kia in Antioch.
He said that sales members try to educate owners on the new
features, which have redundancies like a three-button process to start a
vehicle remotely.
Vehicles also typically sound alarms if a driver unbuckles
the seat belt or opens the door with the car running, or if they leave the key
fob in the car.
"It's like a new phone. There's always a learning
curve," he said.
The systems are touted as convenient, because drivers don't
need to fish out a key or remote to open the door, and a theft deterrent,
because such cars are harder to hot-wire. Keyless ignitions can also be made
with alarms to audibly alert drivers when they've left their engines running,
and can benefit people with disabilities or arthritis.
As the Fontaninis' children cope with their loss, Cesare
Fontanini said he was comforted in his belief that "they are in heaven
together."
He called his parents "beautiful people" who had
emigrated from Italy and lived the American Dream. They had planned to take a
monthlong trip to Europe in July, including visits to relatives in Italy. Their
son said he found on his parents' dining room table gifts that they had purchased
for his twins' upcoming birthday.
Ellen Stirling, owner of The Lake Forest Shop, called Rina
Fontanini "a role model and inspiration. She never stopped working and
always had a smile on her face."
Cesare Fontanini said he was still shaken by the
circumstances of his parents' deaths.
"The car killed my parents," he said. "To end
up the way they did is shocking."