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Jan 10, 2007 6:53 pm US/Eastern
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GM Put On Leave Following Carbon Monoxide Death
by Joy Purdy
KEY WEST (CBS4) ―
The general manager of a Key West resort where a 26 year old Michigan tourist died of carbon monoxide poisoning has been put on paid leave.
Steve Robbins was the general manager on call at the Doubletree resort where Thomas Lueders was found dead in his room on December 21, 2006.
The resort remains closed as officials center their investigation on a fourth floor boiler room and whether work on that room may have allowed carbon monoxide to leak into other hotel rooms.
The resort will remain closed for 30 days as officials continue investigating the scene, amid reports that other guests who stayed in the room last week were also made ill. Hundreds of guests who had been staying at the resort on South Roosevelt Blvd. have been placed in other hotels as far away as Miami, after the 212 room hotel was evacuated as a precaution Wednesday following the discovery of the death.
Those guests who did not choose to check out were placed in other Key West area hotels, but since the Keys were virtually sold-out because of the holiday weekend, the hotel was forced to place guests as far away as the Miami Airport, almost 150 miles distant.
Thomas Lueders, 26, and his father, 53-year-old Richard Lueders, of Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan, were found unresponsive in their fourth floor room around noon Wednesday. Thomas died, while his father was treated at the Lower Keys Medical Center and then flown to a Ft. Myers hospital where he was treated and released.
The newspaper quoted a hospital official as saying the three suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning. Carbon monoxide is an odorless, colorless gas which can be created by combustion, including by devices such as engines or boilers.
((© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
CBS4 news partner The Miami Herald contributed material for this repo)