Dude, you were F'ed up!

I kinda got lost in your excellent portayal of impairment...what was the final assessment? Were you getting carbon monoxide from the heater? Did you get sick at all?

Glad you're okay.

Z

Jr,I don't know when your annual is, but if it was me, I wouldn't wait. Besides the safety-of-flight issue, I don't like to go into an annual with a squawk list-- the down-time & cost of an annual seems to multiply in relation to a square of the number of squawks. I like to fix these little problems as they occur, that way my annuals tend to be a one day low cost deal.
It's not hard to deal with- see which side exhaust supplies your cabin heat, & pull the heat muff on that side. Do a visual inspection for cracks on the muffler. Pull the exhaust & have the crack(s) welded up. Be sure & leak-test it, you can do this with a vacuum cleaner set on "blow" (or maybe even an air mattress inflator) and some soapy water-plug all holes except the one the hose goes in, douche the suspect area(s) and watch for bubbles. You probably oughta douche the non-suspect area's too.
It's a pain in the butt, I know. But get on it. We lost a local 170er a couple years ago from CO poisoning- he (evidently) passed out & augered into Puget Sound. Tragic.
Jr, if you have the later Hanlon Wilson (round) mufflers, quite a few exhaust outfits will repair and/or "overhaul" (remanufacture) them for you- check Trade a Plane. If you have the flat "pancake" mufflers, you're pretty much on your own. WagAero advertises repair of these for about $400 a side, however, all they do is weld on them just like your local A&P or welder can do. For probably a lot less money.

Eric

Hey Jr, are you sure you weren't just suffering from a delayed hangover like I did on Saturday? I felt fine until I jumped in the plane and climbed to 9,500'.

Fumes from leaking AvGas can make a CO detector turn charcoal gray and stay that way. Leaking sender gaskets caused this to happen to our detector (you mentioned your tanks were full). CO should turn it brown and turn back to the normal color when the gas dissipates.

You might want to fly around the Idaho moutains with less fuel in the tanks next time around. The lighter load really helps in the mountains.

Cool photos, man.

Never hurts to carry a small bottle of O2 on board for situations like this. Could have cleared the cobs a little sooner.

http://www.aviationoxygen.com/compared.html

http://www.skyox.com

Aerox also has a EMT-3 system that would be good for just about any situation needing a quick O2 fix. Runs around $200.00 new.
http://www.aerox.com/ Click on portables on their home page.

I'd expect a little leakage where the tail pipe attaches to the muffler, shouldn't be a big deal like a heat muff leak would be.

I still think you were suffering from 'Hangover Idaho Canyonitus'. It can overwhelm you when you least expect it.

Hmmm, you might want to check your firewall for leaks where cables and such are going through. If it looks like there are any openings fill them with RTV. Usually (but not always) CO poisoning is accompanied with a rather vicious headache, did that happen to you?

Supercubber wrote:Never hurts to carry a small bottle of O2 on board for situations like this. Could have cleared the cobs a little sooner.

Red blood cells have a stronger affinity for carbon monoxide than they do for Oxygen. As I understand it, the red blood cells will attach the carbon monoxide molecules to themselves before they'll accept oxygen ones, essentially suffocating all of the body's cells. Additional oxygen, in this instance doesn't seem like it'd be a cure. Any doc's out there? Whatdyathink? Berk

Berk wrote:Additional oxygen, in this instance doesn't seem like it'd be a cure. Any doc's out there? Whatdyathink? Berk

Whatever the case, I think your far better off inhaling the oxygen than a steady dose of CO

Berk wrote:Red blood cells have a stronger affinity for carbon monoxide than they do for Oxygen. As I understand it, the red blood cells will attach the carbon monoxide molecules to themselves before they'll accept oxygen ones, essentially suffocating all of the body's cells. Additional oxygen, in this instance doesn't seem like it'd be a cure. Any doc's out there? Whatdyathink? Berk

Not a cure, per-se, (it won't displace CO from affected RBC's- I believe their affinity for CO over O2 is about 4x greater), but the higher concentration from breathing bottled O2 will do a better job of oxygenating your unaffected RBC's than the 20% concentration present in the atmosphere.

One reliable indicator of hypoperfusion (too little oxygen reaching the tissues of the body) is cyanosis (blue coloration), which usually presents first in mucous membranes such as inside the lips, and inside the eyelids. (Peel back the lower eyelid to assess for this.) Also in the fingernail beds. Even in darker-pigmented skin this condition will appear as an ashen, intuitively unhealthy palor.

As a side note- those small bottles don't last very long at a meaningful liter-per-minute flow rate. And the effects of serious CO poisoning will not wear off before your airplane runs out of fuel. So in all cases I think a prudent course of action would be to land at the first available opportunity- preferably a long, wide, strip with a minimum of rising terrain and other traffic.

Not a Doc, but a long-time Wilderness EMT and former high-altitude climber. FWIW.

-Excellent write up, Jr.CubBuilder

Well that I should find time to read through THIS forum topic for some stories and insights re mind/experiences/accomplishments of "fearless" backcountry flyers ...

denalipilot wrote:I believe their affinity for CO over O2 is about 4x greater).
One reliable indicator of hypoperfusion (too little oxygen reaching the tissues of the body) is cyanosis (blue coloration),

The actual number is about 200 times.

Cyanosis, the blue color, comes from lack of oxygen attached to the red cells, where in carbon monoxide poisoning, there's too much of the wrong kind, and it turns the cells bright red, and the skin turns pink.

Gump

The best remedy is to get into fresh air and away from the CO. As stated the red blood cells will take on the CO and leave the
Oxygen behind. The Hemoglobin, Or red blood cells are like a freight train carrying the oxygen to the bodies cells. They can only carry so much so you die from lack of Oxygen, like a plastic bag over your head.

No I am not a doctor, but I was an EMT II for a number of years, and Yes I did stay at a Holliday Inn last night. Bob