An elderly couple in Kyongwon County, North Hamgyong Province, was brought to consciousness with the help of narcotics after collapsing from carbon monoxide poisoning, Daily NK has learned.
Speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons, a Daily NK source in North Hamgyong Province said that the elderly couple was found unconscious in their home one morning in mid-February after falling asleep with a coal briquette burning the night before. They were rushed to hospital.
North Koreans generally burn firewood or briquettes made of coal or, especially, coal dust to heat their homes in winter. As a result, accidents in which people lose consciousness while burning coal are common in the winter season.
By the time the elderly couple arrived at the hospital, several people had already been admitted for carbon monoxide poisoning.
Although there were several patients waiting to be treated for carbon monoxide poisoning, the hospital gave the elderly couple priority treatment and placed them in an oxygen chamber as soon as they arrived.
They received this privilege because the couple’s children and relatives were officials in the Workers’ Party and other powerful agencies. They earned the resentment of the other patients waiting in line before them.
“The relatives of the other patients who were waiting complained that the hospital treated the relatives of officials because only they were real people, while ordinary people like them without money or power could just wait because they weren’t real people,” the source said.
However, the couple never regained consciousness as the oxygen chamber kept shutting down due to an unstable power supply.