Range report: I guess I'd better fix the car
This story has a punchline that might be good to keep in mind. So if you don't feel like reading the whole darned thing, skip to the punch. And it's a long one, but at least it's my own and not a C&P--oh, and there is a range report buried in it somewhere.
A week ago today I headed out to pick up the FN 5.7 I ordered. I foolishly used a FFL who works an hour and half from me so....into the car and off I went. I picked up the gun and started driving home. About 45 minutes later I start to feel a little dizzy. And then more dizzy. My fingers--particularly in my left hand--were beginning to feel a bit numb. I opened the driver's side window a couple inches. The cold air helped, for a while. But by the time I was about 15 miles from home I was starting to feel like I wasn't safe to drive. I was taking deep breaths and it wasn't helping, either.
I pulled off the highway at the next safe spot and sat in my car for about ten minutes. I started to feel better and pulled back onto the highway. Within seconds I could tell that had been a mistake, but this was a small, winding 2-lane highway, it was by then dark, the weather wasn't great (blowing snow) and the shoulder was full of snow from a recent storm so I kind of had to keep going. My entire left hand was starting to go into spasm so that my thumb was pressed against my fingers unless I actively kept it otherwise. And I was REALLY dizzy. Cars were stacking up behind me because I was doing about 35 on a 55 MPH road, but I figured it would be better if we all arrived alive than if I wrecked out, taking who knows who else with me. I pulled out at the next opportunity where, fortunately, there were a few houses with a common parking area. I parked, killed my engine and sat for a few minutes, thinking.
Should I call 911? Dizzy.....numb left arm, but no pain in the chest, still that left arm thing.....it would be stupid to die of a heart attack in my car because I didn't want to call 911. I did the wrong thing. This is where, if it had been my heart, people would talk about how dumb it was of me not to call 911 right away. Anyway, I called my sister, who happens to be a physician. I told her my problem. She asked me a series of questions (no, no tightness in the chest, no pain, maybe a little bit short of breath but not very, yes I was feeling a bit panicky because this was damned weird and I've been driving with it, no, I haven't been feeling particularly stressed or panicky in the past few days, yes, I had eaten that day but no, it wasn't a particularly healthy meal, yes, I was a little hung over...there were a few other questions I can't remember).
My sister happened to have a friend over who also is a physician so they conferred about it and came back to me with this: it most likely was hypoglycemia, and she didn't think I was in jeopardy in terms of life or limb, BUT if I felt like I needed to make another call, that next call should be to 911. She said to call a friend to pick me up and tell them to bring some juice and a candy bar.
Well, all of my good friends have graduated and left town, and I'm planning to do the same too, so I haven't been especially sociable lately. I know a few people who would have come if I'd called but I opted instead to go bang on the door of the complete strangers outside of whose house I was parked. They let me in and looked up the number of a cab company for me (I was just about 2 miles out of the next town to mine). They offered me a seat and some water. I took the seat and asked if they'd put a couple spoons of sugar in the water--they did (I hadn't drunk sugar-water in many years.....it was NASTY). I sat in their living room for a few minutes. It was pretty awkward. I was a perfect stranger in their home. I didn't feel like I was about to fall over so I said I'd go wait in my car for the cab.
The cab showed up, picked me up, and by the time I was home I felt fine. I figured my sister had been right and that the sugar water had taken care of the hypoglycemia. In all, it was a pretty scary experience. It was scary to think that I could be doing something that required motor function (bad weather driving) and suddenly find myself impaired. More than that, it was scary to find my body doing this new and not welcome thing that it had never done before.
Nothing of interest here happened in the next week so fast-forward to today.
Today I finally had a chance to take my new FN to the range. The nearest indoor range is in Lewiston, 30 miles from me, and I'd reserved a lane for an hour starting at 1 today. So I headed out with plenty of time to spare. I'd eaten breakfast, I'd had a reasonably good night's sleep, so I figured it would be a good shooting day for me. Well, about half-way to Lewiston I started to feel dizzy. The tingly fingers came on shortly thereafter. And it wasn't improving. I was starting to slow down (again, on a small, 2-lane highway). A truck blew past me because I was traveling slowly and suddenly I smelled exhaust fumes. That's when it clicked: the problem was not my body. The problem was my car! I switched the climate control to AC and turned the blower to the off position (in my car this shuts down circulation through the vents entirely). I opened both my window and the passenger window all the way. Twenty minutes later I was in Lewiston in a gun shop buying ammunition and feeling only just the slightest bit dizzy. By the time I made it to the range I didn't feel dizzy at all.
But I didn't shoot well. I had a pretty bad tremor going on for the first half of my hour-long session at the range: I missed the paper entirely at 9 yards....several times. Actually it was so bad that I never moved the target out past 9 yards. But the FN was super-fun to shoot, especially when you empty the entire 20-round magazine in a little over a minute (that gets folks asking you what the heck you're shooting). My groups were huge and I'm sure it was my fault--scratch that, I'm blaming carbon monoxide poisoning[;)]. Anyway, I'll have to get back to you on the pistol's accuracy at a later date. My best group of the day was the last I shot: a 10-shot group through my Ruger Mark III Hunter came in at 5 inches. Nope, nothing to brag about there.
On the way home I kept the windows wide open the whole way and stopped for 15 minutes about half-way home. Even so, I didn't feel quite right when I got home.
I've had CO poisoning one other time in my life. I was living in a house with a furnace on which was stamped: 1883. I think it was probably newer than that, but still older than 1920. Anyway I awoke one morning feeling dizzy and out of sorts, assumed I was getting sick, and decided to stay home in bed. That was (and still is) very unusual for me. For some very weird reason, my then-wife decided it would be a good idea to open the windows in the bedroom a little bit before she left me in my sick-bed. After all, it was mid-February in MN and I was getting sick. Who opens the windows under those circumstances? That was at 8AM. By 11 I felt fine. Within a couple more days my then-wife was feeling ill and went to her physician who somehow guessed that the problem was CO. We called in the utility company, who tested the air in the house an immediately shut off the natural gas supply to the house until all gas-using appliances were tested. The culprit turned out to be the furnace.
Bottom line: carbon monoxide poisoning just feels like you're dizzy and a little bit sick. For those of you who don't know, the action of CO is to bind to the hemoglobin in your blood. That makes the CO-bound hemoglobin unavailable to bind to oxygen, so you basically suffocate. CO also binds more strongly with hemoglobin than does oxygen, meaning that the CO effects are felt for some time after you're removed from the CO-rich environment--if you're lucky enough to get removed from that environment in time. Although CO poisoning is suffocation, you don't feel the panicky desperation that you feel when you hold your breath for too long, or when you're drowning. This is because your body does not detect the level of oxygen in your blood, but rather the level of carbon dioxide in your blood. In a CO poisoning event, your body can still dump carbon dioxide, but it's not taking in oxygen. So you don't have the sense that you're suffocating even though you are. (The same thing would happen to you if you were placed in an atmosphere of pure nitrogen gas, which is biologically inert).
So if you have sudden and otherwise inexplicable onset of dizziness, consider carbon monoxide poisoning as a potential cause--and consider it soon, because you just get dumber as your oxygen saturation gets lower. If it is CO poisoning then removal of your person to fresh air should cause you to start feeling ok in under 30 minutes, provided you get to fresh air before you're totally passed out. (You might still not shoot very well at the range after those 30 minutes, but at least you'll live to try another day [:D]).
PSA over.
A week ago today I headed out to pick up the FN 5.7 I ordered. I foolishly used a FFL who works an hour and half from me so....into the car and off I went. I picked up the gun and started driving home. About 45 minutes later I start to feel a little dizzy. And then more dizzy. My fingers--particularly in my left hand--were beginning to feel a bit numb. I opened the driver's side window a couple inches. The cold air helped, for a while. But by the time I was about 15 miles from home I was starting to feel like I wasn't safe to drive. I was taking deep breaths and it wasn't helping, either.
I pulled off the highway at the next safe spot and sat in my car for about ten minutes. I started to feel better and pulled back onto the highway. Within seconds I could tell that had been a mistake, but this was a small, winding 2-lane highway, it was by then dark, the weather wasn't great (blowing snow) and the shoulder was full of snow from a recent storm so I kind of had to keep going. My entire left hand was starting to go into spasm so that my thumb was pressed against my fingers unless I actively kept it otherwise. And I was REALLY dizzy. Cars were stacking up behind me because I was doing about 35 on a 55 MPH road, but I figured it would be better if we all arrived alive than if I wrecked out, taking who knows who else with me. I pulled out at the next opportunity where, fortunately, there were a few houses with a common parking area. I parked, killed my engine and sat for a few minutes, thinking.
Should I call 911? Dizzy.....numb left arm, but no pain in the chest, still that left arm thing.....it would be stupid to die of a heart attack in my car because I didn't want to call 911. I did the wrong thing. This is where, if it had been my heart, people would talk about how dumb it was of me not to call 911 right away. Anyway, I called my sister, who happens to be a physician. I told her my problem. She asked me a series of questions (no, no tightness in the chest, no pain, maybe a little bit short of breath but not very, yes I was feeling a bit panicky because this was damned weird and I've been driving with it, no, I haven't been feeling particularly stressed or panicky in the past few days, yes, I had eaten that day but no, it wasn't a particularly healthy meal, yes, I was a little hung over...there were a few other questions I can't remember).
My sister happened to have a friend over who also is a physician so they conferred about it and came back to me with this: it most likely was hypoglycemia, and she didn't think I was in jeopardy in terms of life or limb, BUT if I felt like I needed to make another call, that next call should be to 911. She said to call a friend to pick me up and tell them to bring some juice and a candy bar.
Well, all of my good friends have graduated and left town, and I'm planning to do the same too, so I haven't been especially sociable lately. I know a few people who would have come if I'd called but I opted instead to go bang on the door of the complete strangers outside of whose house I was parked. They let me in and looked up the number of a cab company for me (I was just about 2 miles out of the next town to mine). They offered me a seat and some water. I took the seat and asked if they'd put a couple spoons of sugar in the water--they did (I hadn't drunk sugar-water in many years.....it was NASTY). I sat in their living room for a few minutes. It was pretty awkward. I was a perfect stranger in their home. I didn't feel like I was about to fall over so I said I'd go wait in my car for the cab.
The cab showed up, picked me up, and by the time I was home I felt fine. I figured my sister had been right and that the sugar water had taken care of the hypoglycemia. In all, it was a pretty scary experience. It was scary to think that I could be doing something that required motor function (bad weather driving) and suddenly find myself impaired. More than that, it was scary to find my body doing this new and not welcome thing that it had never done before.
Nothing of interest here happened in the next week so fast-forward to today.
Today I finally had a chance to take my new FN to the range. The nearest indoor range is in Lewiston, 30 miles from me, and I'd reserved a lane for an hour starting at 1 today. So I headed out with plenty of time to spare. I'd eaten breakfast, I'd had a reasonably good night's sleep, so I figured it would be a good shooting day for me. Well, about half-way to Lewiston I started to feel dizzy. The tingly fingers came on shortly thereafter. And it wasn't improving. I was starting to slow down (again, on a small, 2-lane highway). A truck blew past me because I was traveling slowly and suddenly I smelled exhaust fumes. That's when it clicked: the problem was not my body. The problem was my car! I switched the climate control to AC and turned the blower to the off position (in my car this shuts down circulation through the vents entirely). I opened both my window and the passenger window all the way. Twenty minutes later I was in Lewiston in a gun shop buying ammunition and feeling only just the slightest bit dizzy. By the time I made it to the range I didn't feel dizzy at all.
But I didn't shoot well. I had a pretty bad tremor going on for the first half of my hour-long session at the range: I missed the paper entirely at 9 yards....several times. Actually it was so bad that I never moved the target out past 9 yards. But the FN was super-fun to shoot, especially when you empty the entire 20-round magazine in a little over a minute (that gets folks asking you what the heck you're shooting). My groups were huge and I'm sure it was my fault--scratch that, I'm blaming carbon monoxide poisoning[;)]. Anyway, I'll have to get back to you on the pistol's accuracy at a later date. My best group of the day was the last I shot: a 10-shot group through my Ruger Mark III Hunter came in at 5 inches. Nope, nothing to brag about there.
On the way home I kept the windows wide open the whole way and stopped for 15 minutes about half-way home. Even so, I didn't feel quite right when I got home.
I've had CO poisoning one other time in my life. I was living in a house with a furnace on which was stamped: 1883. I think it was probably newer than that, but still older than 1920. Anyway I awoke one morning feeling dizzy and out of sorts, assumed I was getting sick, and decided to stay home in bed. That was (and still is) very unusual for me. For some very weird reason, my then-wife decided it would be a good idea to open the windows in the bedroom a little bit before she left me in my sick-bed. After all, it was mid-February in MN and I was getting sick. Who opens the windows under those circumstances? That was at 8AM. By 11 I felt fine. Within a couple more days my then-wife was feeling ill and went to her physician who somehow guessed that the problem was CO. We called in the utility company, who tested the air in the house an immediately shut off the natural gas supply to the house until all gas-using appliances were tested. The culprit turned out to be the furnace.
Bottom line: carbon monoxide poisoning just feels like you're dizzy and a little bit sick. For those of you who don't know, the action of CO is to bind to the hemoglobin in your blood. That makes the CO-bound hemoglobin unavailable to bind to oxygen, so you basically suffocate. CO also binds more strongly with hemoglobin than does oxygen, meaning that the CO effects are felt for some time after you're removed from the CO-rich environment--if you're lucky enough to get removed from that environment in time. Although CO poisoning is suffocation, you don't feel the panicky desperation that you feel when you hold your breath for too long, or when you're drowning. This is because your body does not detect the level of oxygen in your blood, but rather the level of carbon dioxide in your blood. In a CO poisoning event, your body can still dump carbon dioxide, but it's not taking in oxygen. So you don't have the sense that you're suffocating even though you are. (The same thing would happen to you if you were placed in an atmosphere of pure nitrogen gas, which is biologically inert).
So if you have sudden and otherwise inexplicable onset of dizziness, consider carbon monoxide poisoning as a potential cause--and consider it soon, because you just get dumber as your oxygen saturation gets lower. If it is CO poisoning then removal of your person to fresh air should cause you to start feeling ok in under 30 minutes, provided you get to fresh air before you're totally passed out. (You might still not shoot very well at the range after those 30 minutes, but at least you'll live to try another day [:D]).
PSA over.
0
-
Sooooooo... your car is also emmiting CO fumes? thank you for the PSA but stop fix your damn car a stop causing global warming, i knew it wasnt Bush its all you[:D] 0 -
Well, I'm glad to hear that you are OK! 0 -
quote:Originally posted by ECC
Well, I'm glad to hear that you are OK!
I am ok and I feel like I've been lucky twice with respect to CO poisoning. Ok, so when driving it DOES become apparent that you're no longer competent to drive. But when sleeping, maybe you just wake with a sense of not-quite-right. In my case, my wx-wife took care of that for me by opening the windows in the middle of winter. A friend of my mother's awoke one night with a sense of not-quite-right and dialed 911. By the time the paramedics showed up, she and her husband were unconscious (but survived with no permanent damage).
CO poisoning is just so easy to do, and yet so easy to prevent.0 -
quote:Originally posted by spurgemastur
quote:Originally posted by ECC
Well, I'm glad to hear that you are OK!
I am ok and I feel like I've been lucky twice with respect to CO poisoning. Ok, so when driving it DOES become apparent that you're no longer competent to drive. But when sleeping, maybe you just wake with a sense of not-quite-right. In my case, my wx-wife took care of that for me by opening the windows in the middle of winter. A friend of my mother's awoke one night with a sense of not-quite-right and dialed 911. By the time the paramedics showed up, she and her husband were unconscious (but survived with no permanent damage).
CO poisoning is just so easy to do, and yet so easy to prevent.
your lucky if you wake at all. CO puts you to sleep then you suffacate0 -
It took you and your sister too long to suspect CO poisoning. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by v35
It took you and your sister too long to suspect CO poisoning.
You know, in hindsight it's hard to disagree with you.
On the other hand here's how I experienced it: I was driving along, and suddenly I got dizzy (mind you, I'd been driving for over 2 hours with no problem until that point). My sister was 1800 miles away and got a call from her brother who was feeling dizzy and clearly worried. She took 90 seconds to ask the questions that might rule out (or not) heart malfunction. And after 90 seconds at a distance of 1800 miles she made a mis-diagnosis. I followed her advice, put some sugar into my body and took a cab home. Thirty minutes later I felt fine. It did not occur to me or my sister that I felt fine because I'd left my vehicle. Rather, the sugar thing seemed plausible. You would have read this differently?
You sound pretty certain in your statement. What exactly do you think was the killer clue that we missed?0 -
quote:Originally posted by spurgemastur
quote:Originally posted by v35
It took you and your sister too long to suspect CO poisoning.
You sound pretty certain in your statement. What exactly do you think was the killer clue that we missed?
I read it the same way. From the very onset of you first post I suspected CO poisoning. Heart problems were definitely to be suspected, but driving in winter translates to an enclosed automobile and thus CO poisoning should at least be suspected what with dizziness and numb extremities.0 -
Damn, man. You better take better care of yourself. I have no idea how old you are, but ain't none of us getting any younger. That's scary. 0 -
Side note- Blood hemoglobin has a MUCH higher "liking" for CO than for O2. Once CO locks onto a blood cell, it is hard to get it to turn loose- which is why CO suffocates you- all of your red blood cells are hooked up with CO, and will not release it. It will take a while for you to get all the CO out of your system. For bad cases of CO poisoning, usually pt gets popped into a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. For those of you that have fuel-burning heating equipment, especially gas or oil, a CO alarm may be the best money you ever spend. Glad you are recovering- NOW GET THE CAR FIXED- or at least leave me the 5.7 in yer will![:p] 0 -
quote:Originally posted by 11b6r
Side note- Blood hemoglobin has a MUCH higher "liking" for CO than for O2. Once CO locks onto a blood cell, it is hard to get it to turn loose- which is why CO suffocates you- all of your red blood cells are hooked up with CO, and will not release it. It will take a while for you to get all the CO out of your system.
Yep.
quote:
For bad cases of CO poisoning, usually pt gets popped into a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.
I didn't know that.
quote:
For those of you that have fuel-burning heating equipment, especially gas or oil, a CO alarm may be the best money you ever spend.
+1000. CO alarms are cheap. Get one even if you can't figure out why you might need it.
quote:
Glad you are recovering- NOW GET THE CAR FIXED- or at least leave me the 5.7 in yer will![:p]
I think I'll just fix the car, but thanks for your thoughts[:D][:D]0 -
NightHawk CO alarm saved me and my family once - we woke to the alarm screaming, and got out, feeling pretty bad...turned out the exhaust vent pipe in the basement garage house heater was ULTRAVENT (basically Formica material) and had split open for a distance of about four feet. It was open only about 1/8 inch, and there was only a little smell to the air.
Airplane accessory catalogues have a cheap, visual alarm card you can buy for vehicles - it is only about Six Bucks, and you hang it anywhere you can see it - a spot on the card turns Black if there is CO present. I make sure every vehicle I own has one.
Most Station Wagons/hatchbacks, and some trucks with rear opening windows will suck in exhaust if the rear window is open.0 -
Thanks to you and handload for some good advice and a warning that might save someone's life. Glad you survived OK. 0 -
I thought CO poisoning after the first 2 paragraphs...
glad to hear you made in back alive buddy, its serious business0
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
13 comments