Car left running poisoned family
Coroner tells how attempt to charge battery led to deaths of mother and three children from toxic fumes
Amother died with her three children after exhaust fumes from a car she left running to charge its battery seeped through their home. Cindy George and her children Pio Raukete, 5, Teuruaa George, 3, and Telyzshaun George, 2, were found dead in a house in Thomson St, Ashburton, on July 2, 2015.
Coroner Marcus Elliott said in his report issued yesterday: “At some point on June 27, 2015, Ms George turned on the engine of the Holden Commodore in the garage to prevent the battery going flat. She did not open the exterior garage door. She left the internal access door slightly ajar. Ms George subsequently forgot that she had left the engine running.
“As a result, carbon monoxide, which is odourless, dispersed into the house through the internal access door, eventually overwhelming Ms George and the children.”
Elliott said George might have recognised her fatal mistake, but too late.
“The location of Ms George’s body is consistent with a last-minute realisation that the car was still running and an attempt to reach the garage to turn it off.”
She was found in the hallway, near the internal garage door.
Elliott said: “Their deaths illustrate the importance of ensuring adequate ventilation and closing internal access doors when a car engine is turned on in a garage which is con- nected house.”
The coroner also noted: “There have been least three other deaths due to carbon monoxide poisoning resulting from the inhalation of exhaust fumes in a dwelling, although the circumstances were somewhat different in those cases.”
Family and friends travelled from the Pacific Islands and Australia to attend a farewell service for George and her children, which followed a private family funeral.
Poko Ngaro, a cousin of George’s, described her at the service as a devoted and loving mother. He said at to a George had made Ashburton her home since leaving the Cook Islands in 2010.
The coroner said George was 32 and had lived in New Zealand since 2008, at first in Ashburton with her partner John Raukete, whom she married in 2011.
They separated in 2012, after which George went to Australia with her children before returning to Ashburton in 2013. Apart from a short period in Invercargill, she lived in Ashburton from 2013.
George and her children sometimes stayed at the house in Thomson St where they were found dead. The three usual occupants asked her to check the mail while they were away in the Cook Islands, and to run the car so its battery wouldn’t go flat.
“I told her to open the garage and start the car,” one of the occupants said in evidence. “I told her to run the car for a couple of minutes and then turn it off and then leave. I didn’t mention to her anything about ventilation as she had seen that I opened the garage door when I turned the car on to run it.”
The coroner said that, on their return, the three occupants found George’s van in the driveway and she and the three children dead in the house.
The children were in the lounge wrapped in fleece blankets as thought ready for bed. George was on the floor in the hall.
A neighbour told of hearing a car being revved at the house but said the noise lasted less than a minute.