title: Carbon monoxide in school buses.
abstract: Following an incident in which eight children became ill from carbon monoxide in a school bus, an investigation was made of CO levels in school buses in the Seattle area. The procedure selected for the evaluation was to test a large number of buses at a nearby ski resort. On the day selected for the sampling, over 200 buses arrived, bringing school children from a number of school districts in the Seattle are for skiing lessons. As they arrived, 33 buses were checked immediately to determine in-transit levels of CO. Four of the 33 buses had CO levels in excess of Environmental Protection Agency maximum allowable concentrations for an 8-hr exposure. As the buses sat idling in the parking lot, 65 of them were tested--during the lunch hour when the students returned to the buses to have their lunch and to rest. Two buses had nearly 3 times the concentration of CO permitted by the EPA for a 1-hr exposure. A total of seven buses (10 per cent) had concentrations of CO not permitted by the EPA for more than a 1-hr period. Altogether there were 24 buses (36 per cent) that had levels of CO in excess of EPA standards for an 8-hr exposure. As a result of these determinations and other observations a number of recommendations were made to reduce the hazard of exposure to carbon monoxide in school buses.
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D001336:Automobiles; D002248:Carbon Monoxide / Q000032:analysis*; D002249:Carbon Monoxide Poisoning / Q000209:etiology; D002648:Child; D004781:Environmental Exposure; D006801:Humans; D008452:Maximum Allowable Concentration; D012572:School Health Services
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D002248:Carbon Monoxide