Dozens of guests have been evacuated from a Newark hotel when they were overcome by fumes.
It was a frightening wakeup call for the people staying at the Best Western Hotel on International Way in Newark. Carbon monoxide fumes overcame 15 people and those people had to be rushed to a local hospital.
At noon, the rescue operation were just wrapping up and the HAZMAT trucks were just pulling out after a morning fire led to sheer panic at this airport hotel.
It happened around 10:30 a.m. this morning. That is when 50 people were evacuated from the Best Western Hotel. Some were rushed out on stretchers. They were unconscious or too weak to walk out on their own. Many suffered from the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning including headache, nausea and vomiting.
Newark fire officials say an early morning fire in the laundry room sent deadly carbon monoxide fumes flying out of the Best Western Hotel's ventilation system. The carbon monoxide detector sounded in the hotel room and people started passing out but healthy guests pitched in to help.
Jeffery French, Hotel Guest: "I carried a boy from the fourth floor down. He was passed out in the hallway. His sister and his father were passed out in the room as well. There were a couple other rooms at the south end of the building were people were getting sick. Apparently, some of them were trying to get out."
None of those injuries are very serious, but 15 people were still rushed to the hospital. Newark enacted a huge HAZMAT and decontamination response because they did not know initially what the substance was.
