Hotel owners sued after guest poisoned: DA’s office files complaint against Embassy Suites in Burlingame

The guest, airline pilot Robert McNamara, was discovered Nov. 7, 2012, in his room at the Embassy Suites in Burlingame with blood and vomit coming from his nose and mouth.

He was staying in a room directly above where the boiler was installed in a pool equipment room.

After determining McNamara suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning, emergency responders returned to the hotel and obtained elevated carbon monoxide readings on all nine hotel floors. Inside McNamara’s room, the level of carbon monoxide was 990 parts per million, nearly 20 times more than what the Occupational Safety and Health Administration considers safe.

McNamara is also suing Embassy Suites Management, LLC, Felcor Lodging Limited Partnership and other owners of the Burlingame hotel located at 150 Anza Blvd.

Request for comments from the hotel’s owners by the Daily Journal were not returned.

The civil complaint filed by the county alleges that the owners operated and failed to adequately maintain the boiler in violation of numerous state laws.

It also alleges that the owners maintained a substandard hotel, where improper operation of necessary ventilating equipment endangered the lives of the hotel’s occupants.

After McNamara was found in the room, the hotel was evacuated hours later with some guests complaining they were dizzy, and had headaches and upset stomachs.

Carbon monoxide is odorless, colorless and toxic.

The boiler in the pool equipment room was installed in 1998 without the required permits, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

It lacked fresh air to operate and its pipes were corroded from chlorine exposure, according to the complaint.

Visible soot was indicative that the boiler was burning an incorrect air and fuel mixture and was doing so for at least a year before McNamara was poisoned, according to the complaint.

McNamara spent three months in the hospital with severe brain damage requiring speech and physical therapy. He then spent three more months in an assisted living facility in Bakersfield relearning basic life skills, and continues struggling with irreversible brain damage to this day, according to the complaint.

In McNamara’s complaint against the owners, he and his wife Diane contend the former pilot suffered severe brain injuries, cognitive dysfunction, emotional distress, mood alterations and loss of consortium.

The couple is seeking unspecified damages.

bill@smdailyjournal.com

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