Why not? Displaces air and is heavier than air. Doesn't support life.

Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com

What's odd is that it should take a lot of refrigerant to do this and that this was reported to be in separate bungalows. It would have to be a large leak to fill a room so fast and strange to have the same problem in separate buildings. I would also have expected most would rush out when the door of the bungalow was opened - both cold and dense.

Such a muddle of information.

Other than that - yup. Dense oxygen free gas won't keep a person going. I recall stories of workers sent to clean rail tank cars - the first guy goes in and the other guy is washing the outside or whatever and eventually someone wonders where the first guy is. They look in, see he's collapsed, and jump in to help. I think I've heard of three dying one after the other before it's figured out.

The more usual hotel related gas deaths are from chlorine gas leaks from pool houses.

every hotel I've been in recently has had separate units for each room. Much more info is needed here...

It could have been a leak in the cooling coils and only those rooms cranking hard on the AC might have gotten affected.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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Very possible that counterfeit refrigerant was used

They can contain all sorts of corrosive and toxic chemicals.

The injuries described are classic asphyxiation types.

The air has 20.9% oxygen content. You need at least 19.5% to stay conscious and to not be in the process of dying.

That means you only need to shave off 1.4% thru whatever means to wind up losing your more poorly oxygenated limbs followed quickly by your organs.

Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com

I love the reporting here.... no actual details, but talk about "toxic" refrigerant. Unless they used Ammonia, the word toxic should not be used. Pure Nitrogen can suffocate people... everyone now has to panic after learning there is nitrogen in the air!

how can the leak be in multiple units? Sounds like some sort of VRF system and I see one unit being affected since the entire system can discharge in one unit. But multiple? After the first significant leak, there isn't enough refrigerant left and they would have noticed lack of cooling performance.

Agreed. You can only dumb down a news piece so much before it becomes worse than useless...