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13 diners poisoned by carbon monoxide
Diners at a Victoria restaurant were taken to hospital suffering carbon monoxide poisoning on Friday.
Brazilian restaurant Preto, in Wilton Road, was closed as ambulances took to hospital those affected by a leak, believed to have come from faulty kitchen equipment.
Six people registered high levels of carbon monoxide in their blood, but were released later that evening. One was kept in overnight for observation following the incident.
Westminster Council is now urging all restaurants to ensure all gas equipment is installed and regularly checked and serviced only by an engineer registered by CORGI to work on commercial equipment and install carbon monoxide detectors for additional security.
Richard Block, Westminster Council's operations manager for food, health and safety, said: "Carbon monoxide is referred to as the silent killer because you cannot see or smell it, so it is essential that if you use any gas equipment you ensure it is regularly serviced.
"The managers at Preto acted swiftly to ensure their staff and customers were safe.
"They called in engineers to rectify the problem and the restuarant has now been declared safe. We have also requested they install carbon monoxide detectors.
"It does show how careful restaurateurs, and any businesses which use gas, need to be.
"This is National Carbon Monoxide Awareness Week so it seems timely for us to urge all restaurants to double check their gas equipment and ventilation systems to make sure they are working properly and prevent something like this happening again.
"I would also advise all businesses that use gas to install carbon monoxide detectors as an extra safeguard. They're not expensive, but in any event are a small price to pay to potentially save lives."
National Carbon Monoxide Awareness Week is run by an organisations called CO - Awareness and is supported by the Health and Safety Executive. It runs from November 17 - 21.
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This article is factually incorrect.
I was one of the six people which were hosptalised at Whipps Cross Hospital. We were all kept on full oxygen overnight as such was he severity of the poisoning. My partner also required further treatement in a hyperbaric oxygen tank and was kept in hospital until the evening of the next day as his poisoning was so severe.
When we collapsed so did one of the waitresses, though she was taken away by other staff before the ambulances arrived.
The emergency services were called and it was a customer, who was also subsequently hospitalised overnight, who spoke to them and gave the details which raised the alarm.
Many thanks for drawing our attention to the errors in the original story.
We have alerted the source of the information, Westminster Council, to these errors. Please see the full story at
http://westminster.londoninformer.co.uk/2008/11/carbon-monoxide-poisons-diners.html